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Jason Jackson, CHRO, State of Nebraska

On this episode of The 3rd Question we talk with Jason Jackson, CHRO, State of Nebraska, as he discusses running government like a business by focusing on their customers, being empathetic to their needs and bringing techniques into state government that led to $80 million in taxpayer savings.

 

Video Transcript

 

Ryan James

Hello and welcome to The 3rd Question, Season Two. We had a great first season for our interview series. Just to remind our audiences, this is a video interview series with public sector thought leaders from around the country. And I'm really excited to be joined today by Jason Jackson. Jason is the CHRO for the State of Nebraska. Jason, thank you so much for joining me today.

 

Jason Jackson:

My pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

 

Ryan James

We've got three questions for you, thus the name of this interview series, but before we do, why don't you just give the audience a little bit of an introduction of you, your background, and maybe also about the State of Nebraska.

 

Jason Jackson:

Yeah, sure. Happy to. I've been in State Government for about five years now. The duration of that time has been spent with the Governor's office as his HR business partner and Chief HR Officer for the State. And then most recently for the past two years, also in an operational role as the Director of Administrative Services, which is our back office operations of State government. Before coming back into public service, I had spent about 10 years in the tech industry as an HR Practitioner. And prior to that, I began my career as a Naval Officer. So it's been a really fun journey with a lot of very blended experiences, which I think has definitely given me and advantage as I've gone into this role here.

 

Ryan James

Well, I've been reading about what your initiatives are and you do have a unique background. I've had a chance to talk to a lot of people that have both the private and public sector background, but you have the Silicon Valley technology background as part of your resume. And I guess my first question is as someone who's really focusing on running government in a more businesslike way, which is unique and a little bit challenging sometimes, but also focused on things like the Lean Six Sigma strategy that you guys have at the state and passing savings and efficiencies that you're finding back to your taxpayers whenever possible. Talk to me about how you've focused on that? What are some of the priorities that you've brought to the state and some of the biggest impacts you've seen for Nebraska?

 

Jason Jackson:

My pleasure. I really tried to think about some of the things that make some of our most innovative companies in the country successful. And it is that spirit of innovation and the innovation that they bring to solving people's real problems that makes a difference. So I think one of the foundational perspectives that I tried to bring to my work and I think inform our work and the Ricketts administration in terms of trying to run government more like a business, is to be really laser focused on who our customer is and ask, what problems are we trying to solve for our customer? One of the burdens I think of working in the public sector, that our colleagues in the private sector may not realize is, the private sector has the advantage of being able to respond to customers real time purchasing decisions all the time.

 

Jason Jackson:

And that's an invaluable data source in terms of driving innovation and continuous improvement that oftentimes the public sector just doesn't have the advantage of leveraging because our customers are captive and often don't have an alternative in terms of where to go for their business. One of the things that we've tried to bring into the role is just, "Hey, let's get practiced at defining who our customer is? What benefit are they trying to seek from their service? How do we measure our success in terms of being able to deliver that benefit and then applying continuous improvement principles against a goal that we've set for that particular area of service delivery." And so when we talk about running government like a business, that's the very basic tackling of service. And until the Ricketts administration entered office here in Nebraska, it was a very unpracticed skill.

 

Jason Jackson:

And so just being empathetic for the customer, understanding what their needs are. And then that's where the Lean Six Sigma comes in. Once you've set your baseline and established your goal and understand what your customer's expectations are, now we want to imbue the organization with the skills and the techniques that they'll need to be able to drive innovation year over year. And so really when I think about how my past private sector experience has benefited me, it's been having an understanding of how leading innovators and really successful companies think about their customers. And then also being able to bring some techniques and tools and practices into state government to empower our teammates across the enterprise. And we've had a lot of successes to date, about $80 million in taxpayer savings from continuous improvement initiatives over the past six years that our Center of Operational Excellence Program has been in flight here.

 

Jason Jackson:

So we're very proud of those results and we have a lot of work in front of us. There's an opportunity of balance, but that's the frame that we approached those questions from.

 

Ryan James

I love it. It's funny, because a lot of times people think public sector and they think they are set in their ways. But what I've seen is that the talent level is there for the innovation, the people and the smarts are there. It's just having the right focus, I guess and driving that focus around innovation. 

 

Jason Jackson:

The good intentions and the motivation are all there. So what we've been focused on is how do we imbue the skillsets and the techniques and come alongside our teammates throughout state government so they're equipped to be able to tackle these problems. Nobody wants to be working in an underperforming team or working for a product that isn't delivering on a customer's expectations. And so generally speaking in state government here in Nebraska, people aren't content with the status quo. The question becomes, "How do we give them the tools that they need to measure where they are today and then equip them with the techniques and the approaches that will enable them to improve it for tomorrow?"

 

Ryan James

Well, I think that's a good segue. So I want to talk a little bit about technology and from an HR perspective, how you use it and look at things from a data perspective as well at the state. I know that we've heard the catchphrase, the silver tsunami, there's a high percentage of public sector employees that are going to be retiring over the next five to seven years. But we also know there's this four or five generations in any given workforce, which sometimes makes adoption, communication, education and change, especially a challenge. So how have you guys taken advantage of technology, especially given some of your background and your focus to empower your state employees of this cross generational group to also gain insight into your workforce around data and driven out costs through that? How do you guys do that?

 

Jason Jackson:

Yeah. Well, again, we approached technology questions from the same set of principles that I articulated in that first answer was just, how does this make us more efficient, effective, and customer focused and particularly, what's the customer experience benefit, right? And so I think any change journey around technology starts with how are you making the business case for that change?

 

Ryan James

Right.

 

Jason Jackson:

And despite what stereotypes may exist about the multi-generational workforce in Nebraska, that hasn't been our experience. So the age cohorts that make up Nebraska state government are equally representative of our population as a whole. So it's a very diverse workforce, but it doesn't hue towards any particular cohort. What's more is, the technology is a key enabler because in as much as we do hope to have a lighter footprint and be able to allow people to retire or move on to the next season in their lives, by applying technology, we can create capacity in the system so that we can think about the workforce of the future and begin thinking about not just replacing, like for like every time we have somebody transition from state service, but be thinking about, "Hey, what do we want our team to look like in 2025? What do we want our team to look like in 2030?" And let's start making hiring decisions now that reflect those future workforce needs.

 

Jason Jackson:

So that's the efficiency component and the workforce strategy component. But the other thing I think we'd be remiss if we didn't focus on is how technology enables and improve customer experience. When we're talking about an HR context, right, our customers are predominantly our internal teammates and our employees, but people bring into the workplace the same consumer expectations that they have when they're in their kitchen, making purchases on Amazon, on their laptop. And it's a real source of disengagement when I go into my workplace and my technology is clunky and I had to get something done, it has to be manual and I have to go to a person and they may or may not be available. You know?

 

Jason Jackson:

So again, it comes back to what are we solving for, for customers and how are we driving into our systems and our processes? Because our teammates don't want clunky manual processes in the workplace any more than they do in their consumer experiences when they're at home. And so that's the frame that we take when we look at applying a technological solution to a problem.

 

Ryan James

And have you been able to, as you've done that systematically, have you been able to show those cost savings? I mean, you have to have a business case to make the change, but then have you been able to validate that through the timeframe?

 

Jason Jackson:

Yeah, well, I mean, so let me use an example that's real for us right now. And I'm a little disappointed it's taken us this long to get to this point. And it's a little bit outside of HR. It's in our facility management line of business. But to this point in state government, if you needed assistance from a workplace professional, a facility maintenance professional, you had to know who the right person in your office was to go ask for support. And then they would call the maintenance technician who may or may not answer and then respond. And it would be a complete black hole as to when you would actually get service and what the nature of that experience was. So what we did was we've made that experience digital. We created a front end on our internal web page opportunity for people to put in tickets.

 

Jason Jackson:

We have queue management. Now we have metrics, all those types of things, and now you don't need the resource allocation to managing the manual workflow and what's more is the customer has an easier input to get service and can actually track where their request is in terms of its best path to resolution, and then give customer feedback as well. So now we have a customer feedback point. So that's just one example of how I think technology can take something out of manual, create a benefit for the customer, but also a benefit for the taxpayer in terms of reducing costs. And if you can solve for all those objectives, you've got a real win-win solution.

 

Ryan James

That's awesome. Well, listen, we're already at the third question. I told you this would be quick. In season one, we had props. We had the time machine and asked people if they'd go back in time, what would they do. For season two, it's a little bit of a change. And I'm a props guy so I got you a blank check.

 

Jason Jackson:

Oh my.

 

Ryan James

State of Nebraska, you have infinity dollars. So here's the question, Jason, if I was to hand you a blank check that you could use to really change maybe how your organization administers various tasks or communicates, or even innovates around technology, what would you use it for and why?

 

Jason Jackson:

Wow. A blank check.

 

Ryan James

Yeah. When do you ever get those in government? Or ever.

 

Jason Jackson:

I think if I could wave a magic wand at state government, it would accelerate the progress that we've already made and that we're showing results around understanding customer pain, being able to measure our customer benefits and then applying continuous improvement, methodologies against that and imbuing everybody in the organization with ownership and empowerment to be able to do that. The analogy I use is, again, we have a lot of very well-intentioned people when it comes to those approaches, but we're just not very practiced at it. The metaphor I use is, it's like we're a freshmen going into the weight room for the first time. And we're lifting very lightweights, right? It's all the right stuff. It's super exciting to see people grow in their personal development as they apply some of these techniques.

 

Jason Jackson:

It's very exciting to see the energy that comes from people delivering wins for their customers and for taxpayers. And if I could wave a magic wand, it would be that we just continue down that journey and really imbue that as an enduring characteristic of state government so that it persists long after my tenure and the governor's tenure here in Nebraska is at its end. These new practices will be just part of our enduring culture.

 

Ryan James

Great. Well, I really appreciate getting a little bit of time with you today and asking you the three questions. It's an exciting time I think in the public sector is changing with innovative changes continuing to be adopted at a much faster pace than I think ever before. So I really thank you, Jason, for taking some time with me and I look forward to stay in touch.

 

Jason Jackson:

The public sector work has never been more important. We know we're making a difference for our communities and our neighbors. And so thank you for having me and giving me an opportunity to talk. I look forward to following the show going forward.

 

Ryan James

Awesome. Thank you so much.

 

Jason Jackson:

My pleasure.