State of California

State of California must overcome ingrained organizational culture, IT challenges to successfully navigate transition to virtual work

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Two factors have accelerated the State of California’s more than three decades in the making shift to virtual work:

  • The 2019 installation of a chief executive who unlike his predecessors has lived most of his life during the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution that brought about personal computing devices and Internet-based advanced telecommunications.
  • A global pandemic that made dense occupancy “cube farm” office environments decidedly risky for the spread of a novel communicable disease.

Without these factors, the state would have likely continued uninterrupted with its entrenched organizational culture where putting in hours at the office is regarded as both “work” and earning one’s future dollars in what’s become a rarity for most workers: a defined benefit pension plan with medical benefits. That culture has resisted virtual work for decades notwithstanding policy promulgated dating back to 1988 by both the Governor’s Office and the Legislature.

Management guru Peter Drucker is credited with the organizational behavior maxim that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It similarly makes a meal of public policy since culture is reinforced daily by group expectations and norms whereas policy merely exists in written form that’s meaningless without organizational buy in.

As The Sacramento Bee’s Wes Venteicher reports, Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed the 75 percent of state workers currently working outside of their state offices due to pandemic disease control measures put in place in March to continue to do so on either a full or part time basis as the state begins to reopen.

Going forward, Newsom’s revised budget summary for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2020 notes contagion control measures implemented by his administration “has forced a massive experiment in telework.” It directs state agencies to develop “expanded long-term telework strategies” and to “rethink business processes.”  

A 1990 report on a state telework pilot project begun in 1985 recommended managers and staff be trained to think in terms of work results rather than work processes. That’s a huge challenge for an organization where the key process metric is time spent in the office. Standing present for duty in the office is also a component of the state’s preferred command and control management style. That way managers are prepared with a team standing ready in case someone higher up or very high up in the chain of command wants something pronto.

It’s unlikely more than three decades of fraught history with telework can be changed overnight, even by a global pandemic and the worst budget shortfall in the state’s history. Another challenge for the state is to put in place a robust and secure cloud-based IT infrastructure that can support virtual work on an ongoing basis given IT modernization has not been its historical strong suit.

One of the most favorable factors in this transition is the promotion of millennials into management roles. Unlike generations before them, they grew up with information and communications technologies. They know from experience they enable knowledge work and setting policy – the mainstay of government work – possible outside of the centralized, commute-in offices of their parents’ generation. As well as the traffic congestion and air pollution they generate that kicked off the state’s 1980s telework pilot project to help reduce it.

State of California looks to reduce office space requirements, citing “increased remote workforce.”

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget for FY 2021 is seeking considerable savings over the budget his administration proposed in January prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and sharp economic contraction that’s expected to drastically reduce tax revenues.

A component of the May Revise budget proposal would examine cutting the state’s real estate costs in light of state employees increasingly working outside of centralized commute-in offices as a disease control measure during the pandemic. This signals that the Newsom administration sees the shift as one that can be permanently adopted going forward.

With an increased remote workforce, the Administration, led by the Department of General Services (DGS), will evaluate the state’s real estate portfolio to determine which agencies and departments may be able to reduce lease space. Agencies and departments may be able to reconfigure their workspace to include additional meeting rooms and hoteling space, thereby reducing their lease footprint. Reducing space will decrease not only lease costs, but also energy costs. Additionally, DGS will look for possible restacking opportunities in state-owned buildings.

To reduce commute transportation demand and further its climate goals, California should tap pension funds to support advanced telecommunications infrastructure

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California Governor Gavin Newsom recently issued an executive order directing the state Department of Finance to create a Climate Investment Framework. The order notes that while the state has established an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, emissions from automobiles and other forms of transportation remain a “stubborn driver” of emissions. The order further directs the State Transportation Agency to reduce transportation-based emissions by reducing vehicle miles traveled by bringing jobs and housing in closer proximity and to “encourage people to shift from cars to other modes of transportation.” The order also calls for the state to leverage its $700 billion pension investment portfolio and assets to advance California’s climate leadership.

Placing jobs and housing in closer proximity has historically proven to be difficult to achieve in California given local governments have much more direct jurisdiction over land use planning than the state. A better approach would be to leverage pension funds to support regional projects by local governments to build much needed modern fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure. Pension funds the patient capital needed for long term investments such as infrastructure. This strategy would reduce commute transportation demand by better connecting California communities and allowing office workers to more easily work from their homes and co-working centers instead of piling onto freeways daily and spewing vehicular emissions. It’s particularly timely as the state’s high housing prices in metro areas drive lengthening commutes as people seek affordable homes often located at the edges of metro areas and beyond. This is where advanced telecommunications infrastructure tends to be the weakest but provides the greatest benefit.

CalEPA growing, must cut cubicles for regulators | The Sacramento Bee

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California can’t fit all of its environmental regulators in its 25-story Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, and it doesn’t want to shell out tens of millions of dollars to find them new digs, either.Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration found a solution that will sound familiar to any longtime traveler squeezing his knees into tight airplane seats: His agency wants to slash the size of standard cubicles in the EPA headquarters.The administration is asking lawmakers to set aside $23 million in next year’s budget to gradually reconfigure the headquarters so it can fit another 1,100 workers in downtown Sacramento. The headquarters today has 2,800 cubicles.


Source: CalEPA growing, must cut cubicles for regulators | The Sacramento Bee

There’s another way of dealing with this problem: Having staff work outside of the centralized, commute-in office in home offices and neighborhood co-working spaces. Despite state policy dating back to the late 1980s, the state continues to operate as if it were 1975 and there was no Internet or today’s advanced information and communications technologies, requiring staff to report daily to cubicle farms.

One might think the frugal Brown administration would be eager to avoid the cost of “officing” all those state workers. Not to mention the transportation demand they create and associated carbon emissions the Brown administration wants to reduce.

Conversation with former California state government telework leader Geoff McLennan

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In this podcast, Last Rush Hour author Fred Pilot talks with Geoff McLennan, who before his retirement from public service led the State of California’s efforts to implement virtual work among state agencies and departments. Geoff describes his work and explains the need for trust, leadership and a collaborative culture in order to support virtual work in the public sector. Geoff also discusses “underground” virtual work among certain categories of state employees and how changing expectations and values particularly among Millennials moving into public service and leadership roles will support the wider adoption of virtual knowledge work in government.

BOE headquarters: Falling plaster, shattered glass, even bats Capitol Weekly | Capitol Weekly | Capitol Weekly: The Newspaper of California State Government and Politics.

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To the passer-by, the tower at 450 N Street is a downtown landmark, soaring assertively 24 stories into the Sacramento sky.

But for more than a decade, the Board of Equalization’s (BOE) headquarters building has been a nightmare to an assortment of state bureaucrats.  Glass panels fall out; water leaks; elevators stop between floors; there are potentially dangerous contaminants; plaster falls off walls; there are lawsuits.

Source: BOE headquarters: Falling plaster, shattered glass, even bats Capitol Weekly | Capitol Weekly | Capitol Weekly: The Newspaper of California State Government and Politics.

Telework and community-based shared co-working spaces would provide a solution to the ongoing and needless exposure of state civil servants to the deficiencies of this troubled building.