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MALAYSIA
FOCUS
| December 2014
9
CAPAM 2014
for excellence in the public service. The conference
agenda was designed to offer insightful dialogue,
theoretical and practical knowledge exchange and
networking to an international audience that was
building the public service for the future across the
Commonwealth countries.
The central conference theme for CAPAM 2014 was
Public Service Transformation: A new conversation
and there were three sub-themes that have been
explored during the event:
1. Shaping the Future Together – focused on the
people aspect of transformation, highlighting
the critical importance of active engagement
with both citizens and the public service itself.
In every corner of the Commonwealth, public
service leaders understand that prevailing public
service models needed to change in order to
deliver savings and citizen-centred services. In
many cases, this evolution was well underway.
Trends were emerging in the ways employers
were articulating their strategies in order to obtain
employee cooperation and commitment. Public
service organizations must often work with long-
standing principles, practices and attitudes to
manage and support the people who delivered
services to the public. One thing that clear was
employee involvement underpins buy-in, and what
will ultimately define success was the willingness
of the public service to engage their workforce
throughout the transformation. At the same time,
the public service has been challenged to bridge the
gap between the complexity of government and
the need for more accessible services to citizens.
Increasingly, governments were reaching out and
responding to citizen expectations of accessing
services when and how they chose.
2. Towards a Better Future – emphasized the
mechanisms employedduring transformation
and details what processes, technologies,
policies and/or other devices have been
utilized.
As the need for change in the public service
intensifies, it was clear that governments must not
only alter what they already do but also look for
options to cope with issues and opportunities as
they arose. The change process was a journey. It
startedwith creating a vision for the future and it cut
across needs evaluation, the work culture, design
issues, fiscal barriers and people management to
name just a few challenges. The public service must
take advantage of new technologies, stay abreast
of the latest best practices, and integrate a culture
of continuous change in the work environment.
As for examples, practical change management
approaches and successful transformation projects
at all levels of government inspired public servants
to think about innovative ways to broach their
issues, replicate what works and avoid pitfalls.
3. Building Global Resilience – provided
insightful
lessons
and
country-specific
context that governments have experienced
when building a public service that can
nimbly react to shifting trends in the future.
The issues that countries faced as they engaged
in public service transformation pose major
challenges to their ability to meet economic
pressures and citizen expectations. The public
service must plan and implement transformative
activities, but it must also develop capabilities
to respond to ongoing demands and challenges
once change was achieved. In this day and age,
it is expected that a culture of change will be the
new norm. Governments are being challenged to
resolve the problems of today with an eye on how
to build reliable systems to cope with decision-
making, competing demands and very different
priorities tomorrow. Resilience became central to
good performance and leadership.