Natasha Côté-Khan, Digital Innovation & Service Excellence Lead - HRB, Public Services and Procurement Canada

1) How do you use your role to ensure that technology and policy are truly inclusive?

I focus on bringing real users into the process early and often. For us, that includes regional employees, compensation advisors, HR assistants, HR business partners, managers, executives, students, and employees who rely on adaptive technology.

These groups live the reality of our systems every day, and they’re often the first to feel the impact of poor design or unclear policy. 
 
I make a point to involve people who are usually missed: employees in smaller regional offices, workers with disabilities who use screen readers or voice input, employees with lower digital confidence, and front-line staff whose feedback rarely reaches senior decision-making tables.

Their insights highlight gaps that polished demos and high-level briefings never reveal. 
 
I rely on structured user research like interviews, usability testing, surveys, and journey mapping to show where policies or systems unintentionally exclude people. When the evidence points to a barrier, we address it directly rather than assuming “most people will figure it out.” 
 
For me, inclusion is built through constant iteration, testing, and listening. When people feel heard and can see their insights reflected in the final product, you build trust and the technology is genuinely better for everyone.    

2) What’s a moment in your career when you saw firsthand how technology or a new policy changed a citizen’s life for the better?

A defining moment for me was the service design work on the Conflict of Interest redesign.

When we started, the process was completely broken. Turnover on the team was high because the work felt impossible. Employees processing COIs were exhausted and frustrated. The system wasn’t designed for the volume or the complexity of what they were asked to do. A single declaration could take over a year to complete.

With tens of thousands of submissions and a small team of fourteen people, the math simply didn’t work. The language was unclear, the steps weren’t logical, and the whole experience felt like a punishment to both the public servants submitting COIs and the employees trying to process them. 
 
When we approached the redesign, we focused on what people were actually experiencing, not what the process should look like on paper. We listened, mapped out the pain points, and built something that removed unnecessary back-and-forth, clarified expectations, and created a pathway that felt achievable.

We modernised the system, digitised what made sense, and designed it so both sides felt supported instead of overwhelmed.

During user testing, I saw the change immediately. People who had been visibly stressed by the old process relaxed. They said things like, “This finally makes sense,” and “I can actually do this.”

Watching that shift from dread and confusion to clarity and confidence felt great because we actually helped that team. 

3) What was the most impactful project you worked on this year, and how did you measure its success in building trust and serving the needs of the public?

The most impactful work this year has been shifting how our branch approaches AI. HR is usually treated as a sensitive environment, so we focused on a human-centred approach with small experiments, low-risk use cases, and designing with people instead of around them.

A good example is the AI-supported job description tool. We used AI to scan and understand job descriptions through three personas: an employee, a manager, and a classification advisor, and the tool adapts based on who’s asking. 

• Employees can get a skills-gap analysis and see what they need for growth or mobility. 

• Managers get guided support to build job descriptions themselves, instead of sending everything to classification. 

• Classification advisors can automate predictable tasks like drafting job descriptions or organising org charts, freeing them up for the complex files that need human expertise. 
 
Job descriptions aren’t secret documents, but the work around them takes real time. This tool removed friction and gave people back capacity. 
 
We measured success in concrete, measurable ways.

• Time savings: Managers and advisors reported faster turnaround because fewer files bounced back for clarification. 

• Reduced workload: Classification teams had more time for high-risk, high-complexity work. 

• Better service levels: Employees reported clearer career pathways and were able to self-serve more effectively. 

• Higher comfort with AI: People became more open to responsible adoption when they saw a practical, low-risk use case. 

• Return on investment: The tool demonstrated that even a focused AI solution can remove enough manual work to pay for itself in efficiency gains. 
 
For me, the real impact was watching trust grow. When people see that AI can actually make their work easier and not replace them, then they become willing to imagine what responsible innovation can look like in HR. 

4) What was one unexpected lesson you learned this year about designing for real people? This can be about a specific project or a broader lesson about your work.

Its a lesson I know but have always been reminded of was that you can’t design anything in isolation.

Real people live inside an ecosystem of business requirements, policies, data, digital tools, supports, constraints, and pressures that we often underestimate.

This year showed me how important it is to understand all of it - the work itself, the systems that shape it, the tools people use, where the information they need is, the policy expectations placed on them, and the realities of accessibility and ethical decision-making. 
 
The biggest lesson was that users don’t just interact with a product or a form; they interact with the entire environment and ecosystem around it.

If one piece is unclear or outdated, the whole experience falls apart. Once I stepped back and looked at the full ecosystem - not just the interface - it changed the way we approached solutions.

It pushed me to design with a deeper sense of inclusion, equity, and practicality, and to build processes that actually support people rather than add to their workload. 

5) We hear a lot about AI. What's a practical example of how AI can be used to make government services more inclusive and trustworthy?

A practical example is using AI to help people understand complex HR processes and plan their way through them. We’re training AI to understand our policies, workflows, and business rules so it can support real decision-making.

Instead of searching through multiple documents or guessing what comes next, employees and managers can ask the system to explain the process, identify what they need, and lay out the steps in plain language. 
 
Beyond that, AI can help us do predictive analysis - spotting patterns in our data so we can see what’s coming, understand what skills we’re going to need, and build a roadmap that supports our workforce. It gives us evidence to make fairer, more consistent decisions and to design supports before problems show up. 
 
For me, that’s where AI becomes inclusive and trustworthy: when it helps people be better at their work, gives them clarity instead of confusion, and guides them with information they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

It’s not about replacing people. It’s about giving them the tools they need to feel confident in a system that’s often overwhelming. 

To subscribe to the GovInsider bulletin, click here.

6) How are you preparing for the next wave of change in the public sector? What new skill, approach, or technology are you most excited to explore in the coming year?

I’m preparing for the next wave of change by investing in AI literacy, data governance, and foresight. The pace of transformation in the public sector is accelerating, and our systems, services, and workforce are going to feel that shift whether we prepare for it or not.

My goal is to make sure we’re ready - not just technically, but emotionally and operationally. 
 
One of the ways I’m doing this is through the AI Community of Practitioners that I created for our departments in the federal government of Canada. It’s a community for all of us. I built it because I want to learn, and I want us to learn together.

The conversations in that group have already shown me how much talent sits inside the Government of Canada - people building chatbots, data processors, workflow automations, and AI tools that solve real problems. It’s a reminder that our best learning will come from each other. 

What excites me most is understanding how we can maximise the benefits of AI without creating fear. AI is intimidating for many people, especially in HR where work is personal and sensitive.

If we want people to trust AI, we have to show them its value - not as a replacement, but as a support. My work is to make sure people feel safe, informed, and included as this technology matures. 
 
A big part of that is workforce preparation. We’re asking important questions: 

• What skills will people need to work confidently in an AI-enabled environment? 

• What training or supports will help them feel grounded? 

• How do we redesign processes so AI supports the work instead of complicating it? 

• How do we bring employees along in the journey, so they understand the purpose and see the benefits for themselves? 
 
I’m especially interested in agentic AI — tools that can handle routine tasks so people have more space for judgment, empathy, problem-solving, and human connection.

That’s the future I’m working toward: a workplace where AI does the heavy lifting and people do the meaningful work that only humans can.

7) What advice do you have for public sector innovators who want to build a career focused on serving all citizens?

My advice is to stay close to the people who use your services. It’s easy to get caught up in frameworks, policies, and technology, but none of it matters if you don’t understand the lived experience of the people you’re designing for.

Listen without defending, be curious, and don’t assume you already know the answer. 
 
You also need patience and courage. Change in the public sector isn’t fast, but it does happen when you push consistently and pair your ideas with evidence. Be brave. Speak your observations. Trust your instincts. Build strong relationships, share what you’re learning, and always communicate in a way that people understand.

Inclusion doesn’t come from big statements, but it does come from showing up, being honest, and building solutions with people instead of for them.  

8) Who inspires you to build a more inclusive and trustworthy public sector?

I’m inspired by the people who carry the weight of our systems every day - regional employees, staff with disabilities, people with lower digital confidence, and front-line teams who continue serving the public even when the tools make their work harder.

Their resilience and honesty ground me. They remind me of the human side of our decisions, and they push me to make systems that feel supportive instead of burdensome. 
 
I’m also inspired by the colleagues who keep experimenting, sharing, and learning even when the future feels uncertain. Their willingness to innovate inside a complex environment gives me hope for what public service can become. 

9) If you had an unlimited budget, what would your dream project be?

With an unlimited budget, I would build an open, interoperable HR ecosystem for the entire Government of Canada. One of our biggest challenges is that every department operates in its own silo.

If you work in one organisation, processes look one way; in another, they look completely different. Yet we all use the same pay system. There’s no reason we shouldn’t also have a shared, people-centred HR system that works across government. 
 
We actually designed a prototype that pointed to what this future could look like - a Single Employee Profile and a Manager’s Hub. Even though it never made it past the prototype stage, the concept showed what’s possible when we think beyond departmental boundaries. 
 
A single, government-wide platform would allow employees to carry their information with them like a digital fingerprint, instead of re-entering the same data every time they move.

It would support mobility between departments by transferring files instantly instead of losing them in long, multi-year delays that affect people’s lives. It would give managers a complete, real-time view of their team - training, certifications, career development, security timelines - so they can manage proactively. 
 
Employees could see when their language tests or clearances are expiring, and trigger action before it becomes a problem. Managers could understand the needs of their team at a glance. HR specialists could finally work strategically with clean, consistent data. And AI could sit behind all of it, providing predictions, guidance, and insights that help people grow and help leaders make better decisions. 
 
We already know this would solve real problems. We already proved parts of it through the prototype. What we don’t have yet is a government-wide commitment to openness and interoperability.

One day, I hope we get there - because a shared HR ecosystem would save money, reduce duplication, speed up mobility, and genuinely improve the experience for public servants. 

If I had an unlimited budget, that’s the project I would build. It would modernise the public service in a way people would actually feel.  

10) Outside tech, what excites you the most?

Creative work. Designing spaces, building things with my hands, gardening, landscape design - anything that lets me imagine something and then bring it to life.

Those projects remind me that design is everywhere, not just in systems and tools. It keeps me grounded and gives me space to think.

Creativity is how I recharge, and it influences the way I show up in my work as well.