The compassionate civil servant
The role of empathy within digital government
“Empathy is something very unstable for a civil servant”, says Jean, business analyst at the Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs (or Education Executive Agency in English), better known as DUO. Jean and I are sitting behind my laptop in my photo studio. We are looking at a picture of him where he holds his breath and has a look in his eyes that says ‘I don’t know either’. I just made a series of photos of Jean as a compassionate civil servant. He is participating in my design research project about the role of empathy in digital government.
I am working as a design researcher at DUO. Students apply for student finance at DUO. We also manage all kinds of educational data. Almost all services for students are fully automated, and students can arrange everything themselves via our digital services. In theory, no official needs to be involved. Except for the fact that we, as civil servants, make those digital services. If both parties no longer talk to each other except via a computer, how can there be a genuine connection? In my work as a researcher, I often notice that we lose the connection and that citizens do not feel understood by us. If we ignore this, we build up debt in our services. Not a technical debt, but an empathy debt.
Technical debt is a well-known phrase in it. Choosing a quick fix instead of a more durable solution which needs more time, gives you technical debt. If not repaid, it can accumulate ‘interest’, making it harder to change things later on. The same goes for empathy debt. If we do not understand our users, how can we build a system that will ensure a genuine connection between citizens and the government?
The government increasingly consists of computers that decide. Computers that we programme. We are the translators from empathy to code. Marlies van Eck, Professor of E-law at Leiden University, conducted research1 into automated chain decisions and legal protection. One of her conclusions is that when decisions are made by a computer, it is not clear how the government has interpreted the law. She could not investigate whether this went well and what choices were made. This has reduced citizens’ legal protection, she states.
This led me to my design research project ‘the compassionate civil servant’. How do we, as we design digital services, make our decisions? What are our values? How can we make sure the digital government repays its empathy debt? I made an overview of every role that plays a part in making a digital connection with citizens. I used my own organization as a case study and began to ask colleagues if I could photograph them as a compassionate civil servant.
Besides my work at DUO, I have always been a photographer. As I learned more about empathy, I noticed that a lot of ways to describe empathy are the same phrases to describe photography. Both work with scale, for example distance — how close are you to the other person? How close-up may you photograph them? Or focus, what do you allow the other person to see of you? How will you show yourself when photographed? Or light, the most obvious scale there is in photography. What does it mean to you to have a lot of light in the picture? Or maybe you can express yourself better by using shadows? What does this stand for in relation to your work at duo?
So I began photo-interviewing my colleagues. They told me their ideas about empathy, about working in digital government and the struggles they had to be a compassionate civil servant. I photographed directly into my laptop so they could see the result of our work immediately. Together we reflected in action. Does this portrait show you as a compassionate civil servant? If not, what can we adjust when making another shot? I am publishing the photos and their stories on my research blog, so others who work in digital government can read and reflect with us.
A lot of insights and ideas for change have emerged within our organization. Insights about the way we work together, about policymaking, agile working and the way our organization is structured. Colleagues talked about why software is politics, about how they did not feel understood themselves and about taking responsibility in making decisions. During my design research project, digital government became a hot topic on the national political agenda. This sparked even more discussion at duo about the ‘human dimension’ of our work. If everyone is a compassionate civil servant, how come our humanity disappears somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle of policy, computer and citizen?
I do not have the answer yet. But what I do have is a way to reflect on this and to start having this meaningful conversation. A lot of my colleagues started to discuss the insights from my research blog among each other. We started practical initiatives to involve citizens more in our work and give empathy a crucial role in our organization. I believe that my design research project is really about vulnerability and openness. As government, we’re not used to reflecting openly on our choices and the way we work. It’s scary because everything you say might end up in the media and become political. But to be open and really show yourself is required to connect with citizens. And that works both ways.
My vision is to reflect as digital government together with citizens. Let’s make a photo, just like I did with Jean. I would like to invite others working in digital government to join me in this public reflection. What does being a compassionate civil servant mean for you?
Photographs are one tool to start reflecting about the role of empathy in digital government. This conversation should be the starting point for finding ways to reduce the empathy debt in digital service projects.
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van Eck, M. (2018). Geautomatiseerde ketenbesluiten & rechtsbescherming: Een onderzoek naar de praktijk van geautomatiseerde ketenbesluiten over een financieel belang in relatie tot rechtsbescherming.
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Maike Klip works as a design researcher at DUO, the Education Executive Agency of the Dutch government. She is also a member of its Gebruiker Centraal community.
