Meet the team re-imagining learning in a digital age
Editor’s Note: Catherine Clasadonte is currently a Masters student at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto. This summer she worked as a policy co-op student and contributed to the Ontario Digital Service’s training team.
Do you find yourself wondering about your own professional learning and skill development?
This summer, this question was top of mind for me at the Ontario Digital Service (ODS). I had the opportunity to think critically about professional development within the context of the public service as I worked with the Digital training team to develop new learning resources.
Key experience takeaways
During my time at the ODS, I learned that transforming the public service to be a digital-first organization is a vision that will take a collective effort, and a lot of support. The training team’s role in this transformation is largely to help public servants adopt the skills, behaviours and mindset of the internet era (for example, open collaboration and agility) that align with the Digital Service Standard. An equally important goal is building confidence in new ways of working.
As the training team continues their efforts of building public servants’ digital confidence, I look forward to seeing how the government’s learning economy evolves to continue enabling, encouraging, and empowering public servants across the province.
Training across the Ontario Public Service
Ontario has been working hard to adopt new internet-era practices and technologies to improve how government works.
- We outlined what modern government services look like in the Digital Service Standard.
- We created a digital first assessment process to review government digital projects against the Digital Service Standard to support public servants with the right tools and advice every step of the way.
- With the introduction of the Simpler, Faster, Better Services Act, Ontario took one step closer to delivering more value to the people and businesses of this province.
All of this also means that public servants need the right skills and support systems in place to deliver on government priorities.
While we know that government has to adapt to meet the needs of a digital society, figuring out exactly what to do can be challenging.
Upskilling for digital transformation
Digital is a catch-all word that includes the skills, values, processes, technology and behaviours associated with the Internet era, to paraphrase Tom Loosemore.
Digital transformation means changing:
- how we approach problems — researching with users, testing our hypotheses, improving services based on what we learn
- what we value — outcomes, building with — not for — people
- how we work — agile, empowered multidisciplinary teams
- what drives our decisions — data, not untested assumptions
That’s a lot to learn about.
To help public servants unpack what digital means in a government context, the training team introduces learners to key concepts associated with, and the work needed to meet the Digital Service Standard.
The goal of the training team is to encourage learners to change how they work and think so they can build better services.
The Digital Training team helps:
- leaders adopt digital-era values and work practices, and build the critical analysis skills required to lead digital projects and drive transformation
- project teams work in multidisciplinary teams and build skills in accessibility and inclusion, content design, data management, product management, user research, service design and more
- assessors build skills to evaluate digital services against the standard
Learning resources cater to a range of learning styles, including:
- case studies
- guides, templates and toolkits
- service design meetups
- hands-on workshops or bootcamps
- drop-in coaching
- e-learning resources
- panels and guest speaker series
To help public servants identify skills gaps, the team is also developing a list of skills, mindsets and behaviours of a digital workforce.
They’re also looking at ways to measure the effectiveness of training, so that they can improve learning products.
Partnering design and deliver training
We can’t do all of this work alone.
Thankfully, we have partners within the public service and beyond. We work with ministry partners, civic tech, federal and other provincial governments, as well as universities to offer the best learning opportunities for public servants.
Thank you to all of the training team’s partners for contributing to our work!
Meet the Digital Training Team
The digital services training team is made up of senior practitioners with a range of expertise. I’m talking everything from arts, education, web and content design, service design and policy development. This team is whip-smart and passionate about developing learning opportunities for public servants.
