This article is written by Virginia Hamilton, Public Sector Innovation Catalyst and former public servant.
- The problem: Many government agencies exhibit an institutional body language that lacks empathy and respect in their interactions with people seeking services, creating an unwelcoming and frustrating experience.
- Why it matters: The institutional body language of government agencies significantly affects public perception, trust and the overall experience of citizens, potentially perpetuating negative biases and hindering effective service delivery.
- The solution: Government agencies can adopt several strategies (explored in this article) to improve their institutional body language and create a more respectful and empathetic environment for citizens.
Imagine you’re on your way to a museum in a beautiful area of town. You notice as you walk along a street that there are giant oak trees providing dappled shade and a lovely light breeze. As you approach the museum, you climb a set of marble steps and walk into a large, attractive lobby. You buy tickets from cheerful, knowledgeable staff who offer to help you navigate the museum map and share what’s on exhibit that day.
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Now, imagine a government office that provides services for job seekers who have been failed by multiple systems. If you need to access these services, you might have to spend a long time on public transit or get lost once or twice trying to find the right building. You likely have to wait in a long line, sit in a row of uncomfortable chairs, read signs on the wall with rules (and maybe a notice you are being videoed), and receive a mystifying parcel of paperwork you have to fill out. Perhaps you get a chance to talk to someone at that time, or are told you need to come back for an appointment another day. Sometimes, the interaction you have with a staff member is perfunctory, leaving you feeling frustrated and defeated.
What’s the culture in your government office?
Having worked for state, local and federal agencies over my career, I have seen all types of government offices. My work has ranged from helping people find jobs on the “front line”, to being the Regional Administrator of the US Department of Labour in the Obama Administration. And I now teach government agencies how to become more customer-centric and equitable. The ways in which government offices are designed, and how customers are treated, immediately signal the attitudes and culture of those government agencies.
So what is this signalling? ‘Institutional body language’, that is, the non-verbal cues, behaviours and attitudes exhibited by an organisation as a collective entity. It encompasses the overall culture, values and norms that shape the organisation's interactions with individuals and the broader society. Of course, in these examples, the institutional body language varies greatly. This concept was coined by a group of museum professionals who are committed to changing museum culture from predominantly white and patriarchal to community-focused, proactive and socially just. I believe we can use this concept to radically improve the environment of the public workforce system.
My suggestion to you: review this list and take an inventory of your own agency. What messages are you sending to your customers?
We know that people send messages to others through their body language — a smile and a nod, crossed arms and sitting back in a chair, strong posture and an easy stride — all of these stances communicate people’s attitudes, moods and beliefs. And in many instances, our public workforce system lacks the institutional empathy that is required to authentically provide services and programmes that focus first on our customers.
(By the way, although I am using the museum experience as contrast, it must be stated that museums usually have white people visiting, people of colour working as guards, and often art curated by a white, European-centric culture. So, it’s not an ideal example but one that gets the general point across.)
8 ways to make change
So, how do we change this culture and help the workforce system become more empathetic, engaging and treating people with respect? Using the concept of institutional body language provides some ways to start.
- Physical space: The design of a career centre sends a certain message to people who walk through the door. Are they greeted with signs such as “Absolutely no food or drink allowed” and a long line of customers waiting to speak with the one person behind the counter? Or, is the space light, open and welcoming? Is there a space for children to play while their parents wait in line? Paint colour, clean floors and comfortable, good-looking furniture matter. Staff at one empathetic career centre have changed their signs in the parking lot from “Career centre this way” to “Good jobs and helpful people this way”. This is a small change, but think about how it makes people who are already in crisis feel more comfortable about going into a government office.
Leadership: Leadership plays a vital role in shaping an organisation's behaviour. Leaders who prioritise respectful and ethical conduct set the tone for the entire institution. Their actions and communication style influence the institutional body language. When they model empathetic behaviour, it encourages others to follow suit. I know a career centre manager who asks staff to send him any “difficult customer”. He sits with them to hear their story, and most of the time, uncovers a mistake his own agency has made that frustrated the customer to the point of being “difficult”. Not only does that give the customer the experience of being heard, it also often reveals a system change that needs to happen.
Training and policies: The training programmes and policies within a government organisation can impact its institutional body language. Organisations that invest in diversity training, conflict resolution and customer service skills equip their employees with the tools to engage respectfully with people. Teaching staff Human-Centred Design (HCD) and other ways to build empathy helps staff to connect with participants, not treat them like a number. Virtually every time I teach HCD to career centre staff, they tell me that it helped them reconnect to their mission as a public servant, often lost through years of paperwork and bureaucracy. They become more empathetic and start to build a new way of approaching their jobs.
Organisational culture: An organisation's culture significantly influences its behaviour towards individuals. A government organisation that values inclusivity, transparency and respect is more likely to have positive institutional body language. Such a culture encourages open communication, empathy and fair treatment, fostering respectful interactions with people. One workforce agency in California has trained all their staff in how to design and facilitate participatory meetings, which has allowed more ideas to come to light and people to feel heard.
Public perception: The reputation and public perception of a government organisation can influence its institutional body language. If an organisation is widely known for lacking respect in its interactions, it can have long-lasting negative effects. Many people have had bad experiences with government, and it’s important to over-design for empathy in order to combat biases against government in general. This requires a review of every product, service, document and web page to seek out paternalistic and government-focused language and change it to be customer-focused. A workforce agency operator in Chicago redesigned their orientation video to use the customers’ perspective, rather than provide pages and pages that listed random services.
Customer feedback loops: Organisations that actively seek feedback, listen to concerns and take steps to improve their conduct can foster a more positive institutional body language. Hearing customer feedback — good and bad — is critical. Developing a feedback loop so that the organisation actually hears the feedback and acts on it is equally important. The most effective way of listening to customers and understanding their perspectives is to include them in the co-design of programmes and services. A project I worked on recently included many “lived experts” in the design of a new pilot programme, rather than second-guessing what customers needed.
Effective communication: The government should communicate effectively with citizens, ensuring that they are aware of its policies, programmes and initiatives. Clear and concise communication can help bridge the gap between citizens and government, fostering understanding and trust. I recently worked with Irrational Labs, a behavioural science firm, to create a behavioural map of a programme, and redesign a state-issued letter for Unemployment Insurance recipients to make it easy to understand.
Building partnerships: Agencies should actively collaborate with NGOs, community groups and other stakeholders. Creating an empathetic and equitable organisation can’t be done in a vacuum. Building trust with other organisations in the local ecosystem can help by learning from those deeply rooted in communities about the needs and motivations of shared customers. It’s always better to work with people who really know their customers, rather than trying to find a “representative” customer to extract information from.
Most people think of empathy as a personal trait, and often will describe empathy as “standing in our customers’ shoes”. My obsession is to broaden the concept of empathy from a personal trait to thinking about how it can be used to describe a government agency, in the same way that museum professionals are doing with museums. The empathetic career centre has institutional body language that sends messages to customers that they are respected and that they belong.
My suggestion to you: review this list and take an inventory of your own agency. What messages are you sending to your customers? Are they walking into what feels like a prison, or are they walking into a community centre where they feel welcomed? What steps can you take to create a new institutional body language of respect and belonging? And what are some of the ways you have already started on this work? We’d love to hear your reactions to this concept, and how you are improving your customer experience.
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(Image credit: Pexels)
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