Introduction
The Department of Technology (DT) is the centralized technology provider for the City and County of San Francisco, serving 50+ departments and 30,000+ staff and contractors. We are committed to providing cost-effective, resilient technology and prompt, friendly IT support to our internal customers.
History
Since 2019, all San Francisco departments and agencies have been required to create and implement a racial equity action plan. These plans were submitted to the Office of Racial Equity in December 2020, and all departments have since been required to provide yearly progress reports starting with 2021.
The Office of Racial Equity has coordinated collaboration between departments and led efforts to establish uniform reporting standards, compile best practices, and cultivate expertise among volunteer racial equity leaders and experienced diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) professionals.
Progress
Since 2020, the Department of Technology has implemented multiple key changes to improve equity within its department and continued work that helps close the digital divide.
At a high level, DT has:
- connected thousands of units of SRO housing and affordable housing to free, high speed internet
- provided 80+ internships to college students in the past several years
- expanded internal professional development opportunities for a team of 200+ technology and construction professionals
The Fiber to Housing Project
The Fiber to Housing (FTH) Project, operating for almost a decade, has connected over 15,000 units of affordable housing and SROs to free, high speed internet. Since the supply chain challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, DT has ramped up work so that almost another 10,000 units are projected to be connected in 2024. During the pandemic, the FTH team brought community hubs and navigation centers online to keep San Francisco connected in challenging times.
Internships
Since 2017, DT has partnered with departments like the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and Department of Public Works to provide internships to current or incoming college students. DT has provided 80+ internships and hired 10% of its interns as full time employees or provided other opportunities to qualified interns.
In 2023, DT began more targeted and thoughtful outreach to engage San Francisco Bay Area residents and groups that have been historically underrepresented in the technology sector and STEM fields. In 2024, DT plans to provide expanded internships and professional development to its participants.
Notably, DT helped create the 1090 IT Operations Apprenticeship and began participating in the Department of Public Health 1010 Tech Trainee program, opening low barrier to entry career paths into technology.
Professional Development
The City and County of San Francisco and the various unions that represent government staff provide a number of professional development opportunities including tuition and expense reimbursement. DT has carefully engaged staff to raise awareness about available benefits and push managers to build personalized development and learning plans for their teams.
Throughout San Francisco, departments collaborate to provide professional development through employee resource groups and staff-led training courses on data analysis, survey design, programming, and more.
In 2023, DT hired two analysts to take charge of its racial equity action plan and internal organizational development efforts.
Challenges
Implementing the racial equity action plan has not been without challenges. DT initiated changes to continue speeding the implementation of its plan.
Some challenges included:
- Who should do the work? Many departments, including DT, relied on the time and commitment of volunteer racial equity leaders to implement and drive changes. Other work responsibilities made it challenging for staff to maintain their time commitments and contributed to volunteer turnover.
- What should be done? It was often unclear what needed to be done, especially for an internal-facing department, to promote racial equity and inclusion.
- How much is enough? Addressing racial inequity related to technology and engineering, in many ways, forced staff to exit their comfort zone and push DT to expand its mission statement.
As such, our plans for the next five years focuses on addressing these gaps to ensure DT can effectively implement its racial equity action plan, demonstrate progress, and partner with other departments as a civic educator and technology provider.
Plans
For the next five years, DT is committed to:
- bringing more people historically underrepresented in technology into the field
- collaborating with other departments to perform outreach, educate the public, and support internal staff
- piloting internal engagement work to ensure everyone at DT feels welcome and enabled to grow
Expanded Outreach
DT plans to continue its new engagement and outreach efforts to educate the public about its work and opportunities in technology. This work has started at career fairs and as mentors to current interns, but DT wishes to partner with local high schools, colleges, and community benefit organizations.
Wherever possible, DT wishes to partner with departments like the Office of Economic and Workforce Development or the San Francisco Public Library to provide technology expertise and insight into government tech careers.
DT wants to do this to explicitly address gaps in representation in the technology sector, which has historically been seen large numbers of White and Asian identifying males but fewer women and people from Black, Latinx, or Indigenous communities.
Goals:
- Increase the number of female applicants to technology roles by 100% over the next 5 years
- Increase the number of non-White and non-Asian applicants to technology roles by 200% over the next 5 years
- Mentor 10 interns from Opportunities for All / Mayor's YouthWorks in 2024
- Expand to 30 interns per year by 2029
- Host or participate in 6 outreach events in 2024
- Expand to monthly events by 2025
- Expand to twice a month events by 2027
- Participate in San Francisco Unified School District's Career Technical Education program starting in 2024
- Launch an external-facing mentorship program for people interested in civic technology careers by 2025
- Serve at least 20 students a month by 2026
More Collaboration
DT currently partners with other departments through the Office of Racial Equity to tackle shared challenges like internship program development. DT plans to work with these departments to make it easier for interested students, residents, or jobseekers to find employment paths into San Francisco government.
DT wants to do this to make employment with San Francisco more streamlined and easier to understand for anyone that is interested in public service.
- Launch a centralized internship page on SF.gov in partnership with other departments by March 2024
- Launch a centralized employment pathways page by March 2024
- Continue participating in the 1090 and 1010 programs while expanding the number of apprentices and interns by 2029
- Pursuant to budget constraints, increase 1090 commitments to 6 yearly apprentices by 2029
- Pursuant to budget constraints, increase 1010 commitments to 10 trainees per cohort by 2029
Retaining Staff
DT plans to partner with other departments to develop employee resource groups that help staff network and build professional skills.
DT also plans to establish rolling office hours to engage staff, answer questions, and generate new leads for internal services and professional development.
DT wants to do this because the current staff are what makes the department excel and succeed in its partnerships and technology solutions. In addition to soliciting new, diverse, and talented staff, DT wants to ensure that any and all employees feel welcome and wanted within the department.
Goals
- Establish internal engagement activities, e.g. resource groups, office hours, with participation from at least 30% of staff by 2025
- Expand internal engagement with new activities to 50% of all staff by 2026
- Expand internal engagement with new activities to 75% of all staff by 2029
- Launch an internal mentorship program in 2024
Conclusion
The Department of Technology is committed to fulfilling its racial equity action plan goals and being a citywide partner to the Office of Racial Equity and fellow departments in San Francisco's work to become more equitable and inclusive.