Department sets budget of £500k to create platform through which employees can provide feedback on technology

Credit: Mohamed Hassan/Pxhere

HM Revenue and Customs aims to develop a platform through which senior leaders can measure and monitor employees’ experiences with the department’s IT systems.

The tax agency intends to put in place a dashboard that can “use existing and/or new tooling to monitor, measure and improve employee experience of IT”.

“Utilising internal IT surveys and existing IT performance solutions, the dashboard will present HMRC leadership with a consolidated view of colleagues’ sentiment against established/agreed IT performance metrics,” the department said in a recently published contract notice.

The procurement outline said that HMRC does not “currently have a coordinated measure” that allows senior managers to better understand the performance of technology and engage with staff feedback on their experiences with IT platforms. 

The operation of the new dashboard will be managed by HMRC’s Enterprise Platform Services (EPS). This team will represent the primary users of the service, but the platform will be available to any staff across the department that wish to access its data.

Related content

• HMRC achieves ‘significant improvement’ in IT uptime in FY21
• Q&A: HMRC tech chief on how the department is ‘leading the way on government cloud adoption’
• Interview: HMRC digital chief Jacky Wright on insourcing, inclusivity, and the ‘teething pains’ of transformation

“[The] EPS performance team identify, define and embed ambitious performance standards,” the contract notice said. “We will tell a meaningful IT experience story to BAU (business as usual), we will identify efficiencies and measure benefits and we will leverage more from existing and new tooling. [Our] aims are to measure employee experience of IT, engage with and listen to our employees, and support and continuously improve our IT services in making HMRC a great place to work.”

A budget of up to £500,000 has been set aside to engage a supplier in the creation of the dashboard. Bids are open until midnight on 8 December and the chosen provider will start work early next year. The project is scheduled to conclude by 31 March.

The feedback and performance-monitoring platform is ultimately intended to support the wider transformation of the tax agency’s estate, as well as and the five-year business strategy of the office of the chief digital and information officer.

“Part of that strategy is to improve our customer service and delivery capability, further reduce costs and increase flexibility,” the contract notice said. “This will be achieved by transforming HMRC’s IT – including improving the user experience of IT – so [that] it’s faster, larger and more advanced than many other government departments. This will be integral to the transformation of the wider HMRC estate.”

The employee experience dashboard project is currently in alpha stage. Discovery research has been completed, and the chosen supplier will join a team comprised of employees of both HMRC and RCDTS – the department’s government-owned in-house IT provider – as well as other external contractors. 

Work will take place primarily remotely, but staff from the winning bidder will be expected to attend HMRC offices in Telford at least one day a week.