Human perspective in public services

Henry Ford once said, “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” He expected his managers to understand customers not through reports alone but through genuine perspective taking. For him, understanding the person at the other end was not a soft value; it was a commercial necessity.

Public services today face a similar reality.

Over the past couple of decades, government and public bodies have invested heavily in digital systems, automation, inclusive design and data infrastructure. Those investments have delivered measurable improvements. Processing is faster, errors are reduced and access has widened. Digital inclusion and improved user experience design have made services more navigable for many people. Administrative burdens have reduced in some areas, creating space for professionals to focus on more complex work.

At the same time, the systems that increase efficiency also introduce distance. Interactions that were once conversations increasingly become submissions through portals, structured forms or templated exchanges. Caseworkers experience residents, patients or claimants primarily through screens. As AI tools begin to draft responses, summarise cases and support communication, and as service users begin to rely on AI tools to compose correspondence on their behalf, an additional layer sits between the two sides.

That layer is often justified and often beneficial. The risk emerges when it becomes the dominant experience of the relationship. When professionals rarely speak directly to the people they serve, their understanding becomes shaped mainly by what the system captures. Complex lived experiences are translated into categories, frustrations appear as alerts and vulnerability becomes a data field. Organisations can become highly efficient at processing inputs while gradually losing touch with the texture of what those inputs represent.

When that happens, service design begins to drift. Decisions are made on the basis of patterns in the data rather than patterns in lived experience. Complaint handling can be procedurally correct yet emotionally tone-deaf, and casework can be technically compliant yet misaligned with what would genuinely resolve an issue. Over time, as professionals become further removed from direct contact with the people they serve, their understanding is shaped more by systems than by perspective. In that environment, the apparent efficiency gains begin to erode, because services designed by teams who are increasingly out of touch generate repeat contact, escalation and redesign that absorb the very capacity technology was meant to create.

Digital systems are now woven into the fabric of public service delivery, and their contribution is significant and lasting. The more important question is how the capacity they create is used. When automation reduces repetitive administrative work, the time and headroom that follow should be deliberately reinvested into human interaction and direct engagement, rather than gradually filled with additional layers of process.

The same principle applies in learning and development. E-learning and self-paced digital modules are effective for building common standards and scalable knowledge. They allow individuals to learn flexibly and economically. Yet when the aim is to change behaviour, embed judgement or align a team around shared ways of working, knowledge alone rarely translates into practice. Application requires conversation, interpretation and challenge in context. It requires professionals to work through real examples together and test how principles land in their own environment.

Training people as people means deliberately preserving spaces where that understanding can develop. It means ensuring that professionals continue to encounter the human reality behind the data. Without that, even the most advanced systems operate on an increasingly abstract picture of the people they are meant to serve.

Ford’s point was operational. The ability to see things from the other person’s angle remains a requirement for effective service. Technology can strengthen that ability when it creates space for better judgement and better conversations. It cannot replace it.