Anyone looking for the direction the public administration has taken risks not finding it. Not because it’s missing, but because there isn’t just one: there are many, and they aren’t all moving at the same speed.
The cover of Pink Floyd’s *The Dark Side of the Moon* comes to mind. A ray of light passes through a prism: it enters as a single beam and emerges as a spectrum of colors. For years, we’ve imagined the public administration as that single ray. In reality, it’s not a single administration, but many different ones. Today, that ray has split into a spectrum. The task of those steering this change isn’t to choose a single color. It is to prevent the colors from drifting too far apart. Here, I’ll try to outline six trajectories.
-
The Generational Trajectory
The first line is that of people. After years of hiring freezes, administrations have begun hiring again. Today, offices are home to generations that have never truly crossed paths: those who lived through the era of major reforms and those who entered through a digital recruitment process.
Statistics show a very high average age among public employees, and this poses a twofold risk. In the coming years, a large number of people will retire, and with them, the historical memory that is invaluable to organizations risks being lost. On the other hand, we risk failing to retain new hires. The goal, therefore, is no longer just to hire, but to remain attractive after the first day, the first month, and the first year. For a young person, a permanent position is no longer a sufficient promise: it must become a foundation from which to grow, not a place to settle.
This is why we need a true age management system, which the collective bargaining agreements signed at ARAN with the labor unions already provide for. The historical knowledge of those leaving must be passed on to those joining, and vice versa; the digital skills and fresh perspectives of young people must influence those who have been here for decades.
-
The Technological Trajectory
The second track is the fastest. For twenty years, digitization meant transferring paper to the screen: the same process, with a PDF instead of a printed form.
Artificial intelligence changes the nature of the question. It no longer asks how to digitize a process, but whether that process still makes sense. It acts as an amplifier: it makes a well-functioning organization more efficient and highlights the flaws of one that does not.
This is why technology, on its own, is not enough. Without people capable of managing it—and, above all, without leaders capable of doing so—the algorithm ends up automating bureaucracy instead of overcoming it.
-
The Skills Trajectory
The third track leads from a staff position to professional expertise. For decades, public employees have been defined by a rank, that is, by a step on the career ladder. The new frameworks outlined in collective bargaining agreements seek to define them by what they can do, to reward merit and ensure better services for citizens.
High levels of professional expertise, competency-based career progression, and continuous training all point in this direction. Training is no longer an occasional perk, but a right and, at the same time, a duty of every public employee.
The challenge is cultural rather than regulatory. A competency recognized on paper is of little value if the organization does not know how to use it.
-
The Trajectory of Work
The fourth area concerns time and space. The pandemic has shown that much public sector work can be done outside the office. Remote work, once an exception, has become a standard organizational tool.
But location is only the surface. The real transformation lies in shifting from monitoring presence to accountability for results. Working toward objectives requires trust and competence on the part of the manager, and autonomy on the part of the employee.
Experiments with work schedules and work-life balance reveal a simple truth: organizational well-being is not a cost; it is a prerequisite for productivity.
-
The Path to Results
The fifth line runs from compliance to public value. For a long time, a government agency was considered efficient if it followed procedures. A correct action was valued more than a useful service.
Integrated planning tools have attempted to shift this perspective. What matters isn’t how much is produced within the office, but what reaches the outside world—the citizens and businesses. The risk, however, remains the same: turning even public value into yet another formality. One more document to fill out, rather than a genuine question to ponder every day.
-
The Path to Trust
The sixth line is the slowest—and perhaps the most important. It concerns the reputation of those who work in the public administration. The stereotype of the Zalonian slacker is hard to shake, even when the facts prove it wrong. Yet citizens judge the administration based on concrete experiences: a service counter, a response, a wait time. Trust is built there, one instance at a time.
Then there is trust within the organization itself, which matters just as much. Pride in belonging cannot be decreed; it isn’t something you write in a memo. It arises when a person feels that their work serves someone. And here, the manager plays a fundamental role.
The Crux: Different Speeds
When lined up, these trajectories seem to all be heading in the same direction. It’s not that simple. The problem isn’t where they’re going, but at what speed.
Technology races ahead. Rules move at a snail’s pace. Organizational cultures, at times, stand still. A public administration that adopts artificial intelligence without having changed the way it evaluates people risks having the tools of the future and the logic of the past.
There is, however, one point where all these lines converge: the individual working in the public administration. It is this person who must learn the technology, develop skills, work toward objectives, create value, and earn trust. This is a complex and exciting challenge that requires fresh energy and new visions: to young people, I say, come join the public administration and accept the challenge of changing it from within. This is why collective bargaining and leadership are not separate chapters of the reform. They are the place where these trajectories are held together.
Holding the Bundle Together
I return to the image of the prism. A spectrum of colors is beautiful to behold, but if the lines diverge too far, the light is scattered. No single trajectory, on its own, illuminates anything.
The public administration today does not need a new grand plan imposed from above. The trajectories I have described do not require new laws: they need to be managed within organizations, every day. We need people who know how to coordinate the speeds—slowing down where we’re running aimlessly and accelerating where we’ve come to a standstill out of habit. We need people who know how to keep those beams of light as close together as possible.
On the back cover of *The Dark Side of the Moon* there’s a detail that few remember: the colors enter a second, inverted prism and merge back into a single beam. They’re all still there, but they’re moving together again. Let’s hope the same is true for public administration, and that the result resembles that album: many different sounds, a single work. A fantastic album.