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The Importance of Empathy in Public Sector Design

 

I have had the pleasure of working with various non-profit / public sector organizations across my time throughout my career. I wanted to share some of the common themes and insights that I have gathered when working with social non-profits / public sector organizations on their business model, strategy and aligning their products and services they provide to their customers. Some of the issues and opportunities that I have seen over the past couple of years are:

 

• Often, organizations that provide services to the greater good (specifically in social and government business) approach service design as a supply and demand equation. They have a limited supply of resources and so much demand, that often they get into the mode of “administration for administration’s sake”. Non-profit organizations are struggling to develop a meaningful, positive, long-term relationship with their clients. 

 

• Understanding the client’s journey as seen through the entire lifecycle of their engagement with you helps develop empathy and highlight where the client experience breaks down. Focusing on the client’s job to be done, social and emotional needs will help provide clarity to where improvements can be made to enhance the experience.

 

• Employees work for these organizations because they are passionate, but they are not adequately trained to deal with the pressures of providing services in the social and service-based sectors. Humans are complex beings, and those providing services to vulnerable or disadvantaged clients must carry the burden of the multitude of client interactions throughout the day while having very little time to deal with their emotions.

 

• Skilling up employees with communication training, empathy frameworks and social support will help employees deal with stressors enabling a more consistent customer experience. When employees are supported, empathy with clients will increase, quality will be improved and viable services can be sold to new and existing customers.

 

• The race to become self-sufficient from a funding perspective is altering the strategy of non-profits at a high-level. The desire to cut reliance on government funding is viewed as a way to avoid an uncertain and turbulent economy, while avoiding changes in government policy and the risk of austerity measures.

 

• Aligning executives through a common tool set and terminology helps communicate all of the value propositions the organization provides to its clients. By understanding customers at a deep level, developing communication channels and nurturing the relationship, non-profits can develop new products and services and create new business models that are financially viable. 

 

As discussed, the key to addressing these points are related to empathizing with your client. They are many strategies to developing empathy such as: customer journey mapping to understand the client’s experience across the business, field research to get an “outside-in” view through the customer’s eyes and visual strategy tools to align team members. Developing a culture from the top-down to be client focused is critical to increase impact and enhance operational efficiency of non-profit / public sector organizations.