As it did to so many other local and state government entities, the COVID-19 pandemic left officials at Yolo County, Sacramento County’s western neighbor, in need of ways to connect with and provide services to its more than 216,000 residents. The county was able to accomplish just that by deepening a relationship with an existing technology provider. Among the takeaways:
- Needs were especially apparent at the county’s Health and Human Services Agency, which administers public assistance, employment services and workforce programs to those in need. The pandemic meant the county “didn’t have any resources in place to connect with customers fluidly during this time,” Erica Johnson, HHSA interim manager, told Industry Insider — California. Google, an existing technology partner, supported the county with a Chromebook project through which the county loaned residents the laptops to enable them to access services. “But we knew we wanted to expand our services beyond that, so that’s when we started to enter in the space of ‘What ways can we connect with folks virtually at any time?’” Johnson said. Through Google, the county connected with Los Angeles-based SADA and the company was able to create the tools it needed without a formal procurement being necessary.
- The county was already using Google Workspace, and SADA had completed some work with Arizona that was a similar use case to what the local government needed. SADA built a virtual assistant tool for Yolo on top of Google Workspace; and an application, also atop Google technology, that would enable visitors to book appointments for county services and to provide documentation virtually. The former, a chatbot, went live in November 2021 and enabled residents to be able to “log in at any time and get questions” answered in English, Spanish or Russian, Johnson said. This was deeply significant because key county services were closed to in-person encounters until November. The latter service, a scheduling tool, went live in the summer of 2021. It let residents connect to employment services like resume support and mock interviews; and to the county’s vocational training program for workers looking to upskill or change careers; and it let businesses post open positions, connect to workforce solutions and book one-hour consultations. Public response was robust initially, slowing slightly when in-person services returned — but two key metrics would seem to reveal a strong underlying enthusiasm. Businesses that signed up for appointments and residents who sought vocational training all had a 100 percent turnout rate, with no no-shows or cancellations. While the project is in maintenance, it’s also in a product improvement phase, Heather Sheston, SADA customer success executive, told Industry Insider: “If you’re looking at a situation like we had with COVID where things were changing rapidly and they’re not able to ramp up on staffing and resources were just bogged down with phone calls, they’re able to jump in and change those FAQs as quickly and as immediately as they possibly need to.”
- It’s OK to try something else. The COVID-19 pandemic in many ways provided an impetus for government to take on projects that weren’t always top-of-mind — and a demand for it to complete them. “I think that throughout, we all had to look at a crisis in order to look at solutions,” Johnson said. “And while a lot of growth came from that, I think that it’s a time and an opportunity for agencies to look at ways in which they’re delivering services and look at the different landscape of populations of the folks that they’re serving.”
- Flexibility can span the organization. Solutions like the scheduling tool SADA created let residents access services more easily but can also empower staffers in areas such as remote work — letting their clients know availabilities regardless of location. “We just embarked on it really quickly because we had to, but there’s so many areas of opportunity and growth that leadership and staff and myself are looking at like, ‘Hey, how can we expand this with our other services?’” Johnson said. “Because we have the ability and we can.”
- Consider off-the-shelf solutions. COVID, Sheston said, certainly pushed government entities to standardize aspects of their online presence “much quicker than any of us anticipated.” “Seeing ... the way people engage online regularly in their personal life, I think that exact same expectation is being set for government,” she added. Checking in with existing partners, as Yolo County did with Google, and learning what tools or solutions may be already built or off-the-shelf and adaptable may be a time- or money-saver.
