GovTech’s HR team recognised that to deliver on the organisation’s mission, they would need to build in-depth technical capabilities internally whilst also tapping into the broader technology eco-system in Singapore.

To ensure that GovTech’s rapid growth could continue in a sustainable way, the HR team focused on building a workforce with a strong connection to the organisation’s purpose.

Their multi-faceted approach to developing and maintaining their workforce included:

Evangeline and her team used an employee-centric approach to creating a culture where employees could embrace GovTech’s purpose at every level of the organisation, live the values in their daily work and be proud of being GovTechies.

The Organisational Development team ran co-creation focus groups where employees had the opportunity to define who they wanted to be and how they wanted to align with the broader technology sector. This evolved into the development of the organisation’s ‘ABC’ values of being Agile, Bold and Collaborative.

The team then partnered with employees to establish the behaviours that would help to bring the culture and new values to life, and ensure these could be embedded in everyday practice.

To embed the ‘ABC’ values within the organisation, the HR team mapped the candidate and employee journeys with these values in mind. They also developed personas to illustrate various GovTechie ‘archetypes’ to ensure different perspectives were reflected in every aspect of the candidate and employee experience.

The HR team also created new touchpoints to welcome new joiners to GovTech and to help establish a warm culture from the outset of their employee journey. For example, new joiners participate in an orientation programme that focuses primarily on GovTech culture and values, which includes talks and panel discussions where leaders and existing employees share their perspectives on the organisation’s culture.

Ongoing employee engagement takes place through town halls, leadership exchanges, social channels" to "social media channels and promotion of employee success stories across social channels.

GovTech also created a ‘Village Square’ to provide a physical space where their employees come together to work, play and innovate.

The HR team delivers focus groups and engagement sessions at all levels to ensure all voices and opinions can be heard and inform both HR matters and broader governing policies.

These forums give teams an opportunity to hear from everyone and calibrate feedback, and also demonstrate an open, honest and approachable culture where leaders are ready to listen to both issues and ideas.

Evangeline says that the HR team plays a critical role in driving ethical accountability in business decision-making and day-to-day operations to ensure the organisation is aligned with its mission. This includes proactively raising issues, such as addressing any ‘elephants in the room’, which other employees might feel uncomfortable pointing out.

She also encourages her leadership team to focus on the organisation’s purpose and values in strategy meetings, to help provide clarity when they are faced with ambiguity or diverging opinions.

Providing value to individuals, communities and businesses is at the heart of GovTech’s mission of ‘Engineering Digital Government, Making Lives Better’.

To help employees bring this approach to life, the HR team created a range of learning and development opportunities to enhance their community and stakeholder engagement skills.

Clear operational frameworks were also developed to help guide employees on how to anticipate the needs of citizens and serve them better.

For example, before GovTech rolls out any new products, the Product Marketing team and engineers engage citizens through the Tech Kaki program to test ideas or products to ensure they are customer-centric and address the needs of communities or businesses.

When it comes to measuring success, employees are required to measure the impact and value they create for different stakeholders, ranging from the community to the overall economy. For example, smart monitoring systems can help elderly people lead more independent lives, and smart forms can help small business owners navigate regulatory requirements.

Many of these solutions are initiated from the ground up by GovTech employees. They own the products and are held accountable for delivering the solutions.

The HR team recognised that for employees to be able to adopt the values-based behaviours in a sustainable way, they needed to be embedded into everyday operations and ways of working.

To promote collaboration and reduce the risk of siloed working patterns, the HR team encourages multidisciplinary teams so that employees must lean on others’ strengths to solve problems more effectively.

Adopting agile project teams and agile working approaches also enables GovTechies to continually build on each other’s ideas and work in faster, more adaptive ways that can keep pace with the broader technology sector.

Evangeline emphasises that she constantly reminds her team that GovTech HR policies must reflect the organisation’s values and encourage people to work in a way that is sustainable.

For example, GovTech provides flexible work arrangements and generous leave benefits to enhance productivity and promote work-life balance. This approach reflects their culture of trust.

In order to make the ‘Smart Nation’ approach sustainable for the future, the HR team needed to partner with the broader technology sector.

The HR team created a wide variety of talent, learning and development opportunities for employees to help create a talent pipeline that can keep pace with technology changes.

This includes the Digital Technology Attachment Program, which enables employees to undertake a learning stint of 6-12 months inside a technology company so they can learn from other organisations, such as LinkedIn. There is also a Digital Technical Mentorship Programme that enables GovTechies to be matched with local or overseas technical mentors, including engineers from Silicon Valley.

Given the scarcity of tech talent in the market, the HR team has also embraced a flexible and varied recruitment framework to attract talent to work for, or with, GovTech.

For example, the Smart Nation Fellowship Programme allows engineers from the industry to join GovTech for a defined tenure to lead or be part of key projects, similar to a gig economy. This can include either working on a pre-identified project or proposing a new, innovative one. Current fellows range from a Staff Firmware Engineer from Tesla through to a Product Analyst at YouTube.