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Public Sector Renews Focus on Employee and Citizen Digital Experiences

Government agencies are transforming to improve the digital experience for employees and citizens, allowing them to achieve key goals, including unleashing staff productivity, recruiting and retaining talent in the public sector, and delivering on the mission, according to the Global Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Survey from Riverbed.

This transformation is also proving critical in overcoming the sector's many challenges, including the acceleration of hybrid work and a skills shortage as the workplace and workforce shift at an unprecedented pace.

Evolution at the Speed of Today's Employees

Every industry is facing a talent shortage, and the public sector is no exception. As longer-standing staff members retire, a new generation of digitally native Millennial and Gen Z workers enter with high expectations of their technology and digital experience. In fact, 86% of the public sector leaders surveyed believe they'll need to provide more advanced digital experiences as a fresh generation of employees enter the workforce.

New investment areas include unified observability platforms, which can deliver exceptional DEX by providing visibility, AI and actionable insight into entire infrastructures; 74% of IT respondents in government believe unified observability with greater automation can help close the skills gap.

Additionally, new investments are expected to support the hybrid workforce, as 49% of public sector employees operate in a hybrid model, and 92% of public sector leaders surveyed say hybrid working enhances their ability to recruit talent and remain competitive in the future. As a result, 83% of public sector leaders who responded to the survey plan to invest in technology over the next 12-18 months to support this hybrid workforce.

Enhanced digital experiences aren't simply considered a nice-to-have either. The survey showed that 58% of leaders in the public sector believe there would be a disruptive or reputational impact on their organization if the DEX needs of younger generations aren't met, while 63% agree that these employees would consider leaving the government organization if they didn't enjoy seamless digital experiences.

The Role of the Public Sector CIO is Shifting

As CIOs are consulted on significant strategic decisions that affect recruitment and productivity, they're expected to adopt a more prominent role within the leadership team.

81% of public sector decision-makers surveyed acknowledge the increasing relevance of IT within their organization's leadership team. In addition, 89% of the respondents agree that IT is more responsible for driving innovation now than it was three years ago. In effect, the pressure is on IT and its leaders to make smart investments and implement technologies that will support the cause and mission rather than adding extra complexity.

Decision-Makers Express a Heightened Interest in AI and Cloud

Separate research on government digitization from Deloitte says that the ultimate aim of governments must be from "doing" digital to "being" digital, which means "the human experience is elevated. Human-centered design and advanced technologies like AI, cyber, and cloud are used to radically improve service delivery by transforming government operating models."

McKinsey agrees, stating that "by digitizing processes and making organizational changes, governments can enhance services, save money, and improve citizens quality of life", and the Global Government Forum names digital transformation as one of the top four priorities for 2024.

This aligns with Riverbed's findings, as 80% of public sector leaders surveyed are planning to accelerate digital experience adoption and implementation.

Additionally, the survey found that the cloud (44%), AI (38%), and automation (33%) will become mission-critical priorities over the next 18 months. Unified observability uniquely fuses all these technologies while providing holistic visibility across physical and virtual environments, plus additional productivity-boosting functionality through AI and automation.

88% of the leaders surveyed agree that unified observability is important (45% critically important) to deliver DEX, and 87% say there must be greater investment in unified observability solutions that provide actionable insights for better employee and customer digital experience.

Methodology: The Riverbed Global Digital Employee Experience Survey 2023 polled 1,800 global IT decision makers (ITDMs) and business decision makers (BDMs) across 10 countries and seven industries, including 320 public sector leaders. The survey was conducted by Sapio Research in May 2023 to explore generational expectations, hybrid work, the evolving role of IT, and challenges and strategies to delivering an exceptional DEX.

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Public Sector Renews Focus on Employee and Citizen Digital Experiences

Government agencies are transforming to improve the digital experience for employees and citizens, allowing them to achieve key goals, including unleashing staff productivity, recruiting and retaining talent in the public sector, and delivering on the mission, according to the Global Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Survey from Riverbed.

This transformation is also proving critical in overcoming the sector's many challenges, including the acceleration of hybrid work and a skills shortage as the workplace and workforce shift at an unprecedented pace.

Evolution at the Speed of Today's Employees

Every industry is facing a talent shortage, and the public sector is no exception. As longer-standing staff members retire, a new generation of digitally native Millennial and Gen Z workers enter with high expectations of their technology and digital experience. In fact, 86% of the public sector leaders surveyed believe they'll need to provide more advanced digital experiences as a fresh generation of employees enter the workforce.

New investment areas include unified observability platforms, which can deliver exceptional DEX by providing visibility, AI and actionable insight into entire infrastructures; 74% of IT respondents in government believe unified observability with greater automation can help close the skills gap.

Additionally, new investments are expected to support the hybrid workforce, as 49% of public sector employees operate in a hybrid model, and 92% of public sector leaders surveyed say hybrid working enhances their ability to recruit talent and remain competitive in the future. As a result, 83% of public sector leaders who responded to the survey plan to invest in technology over the next 12-18 months to support this hybrid workforce.

Enhanced digital experiences aren't simply considered a nice-to-have either. The survey showed that 58% of leaders in the public sector believe there would be a disruptive or reputational impact on their organization if the DEX needs of younger generations aren't met, while 63% agree that these employees would consider leaving the government organization if they didn't enjoy seamless digital experiences.

The Role of the Public Sector CIO is Shifting

As CIOs are consulted on significant strategic decisions that affect recruitment and productivity, they're expected to adopt a more prominent role within the leadership team.

81% of public sector decision-makers surveyed acknowledge the increasing relevance of IT within their organization's leadership team. In addition, 89% of the respondents agree that IT is more responsible for driving innovation now than it was three years ago. In effect, the pressure is on IT and its leaders to make smart investments and implement technologies that will support the cause and mission rather than adding extra complexity.

Decision-Makers Express a Heightened Interest in AI and Cloud

Separate research on government digitization from Deloitte says that the ultimate aim of governments must be from "doing" digital to "being" digital, which means "the human experience is elevated. Human-centered design and advanced technologies like AI, cyber, and cloud are used to radically improve service delivery by transforming government operating models."

McKinsey agrees, stating that "by digitizing processes and making organizational changes, governments can enhance services, save money, and improve citizens quality of life", and the Global Government Forum names digital transformation as one of the top four priorities for 2024.

This aligns with Riverbed's findings, as 80% of public sector leaders surveyed are planning to accelerate digital experience adoption and implementation.

Additionally, the survey found that the cloud (44%), AI (38%), and automation (33%) will become mission-critical priorities over the next 18 months. Unified observability uniquely fuses all these technologies while providing holistic visibility across physical and virtual environments, plus additional productivity-boosting functionality through AI and automation.

88% of the leaders surveyed agree that unified observability is important (45% critically important) to deliver DEX, and 87% say there must be greater investment in unified observability solutions that provide actionable insights for better employee and customer digital experience.

Methodology: The Riverbed Global Digital Employee Experience Survey 2023 polled 1,800 global IT decision makers (ITDMs) and business decision makers (BDMs) across 10 countries and seven industries, including 320 public sector leaders. The survey was conducted by Sapio Research in May 2023 to explore generational expectations, hybrid work, the evolving role of IT, and challenges and strategies to delivering an exceptional DEX.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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