Todd Nacapuy

Chief Information Officer, State of Hawaii, State of Hawaii

Supernova Award Category: 

Future of Work: Employee Experience

The Company: 

From the clear waters of the Pacific Ocean to the active volcanos on the Big Island, Hawaii is known for its close ties to nature and its unique culture. With population spread across multiple islands, Hawaii also offers distinct challenges for the state government as it works to reach all 1.4 million citizens quickly and efficientlyWhen elected to office, Governor David Ige promoted the idea of paperless workflows. By reducing the amount of paper that the government uses, Governor Ige recognized that the state could cut costs and positively impact the environment. But just as importantly, adopting digital processes, including supporting electronic documents, helps the government communicate more effectively across islands and deliver citizen services as efficiently as possible.

The Problem: 

With the state population spread across eight islands, simply getting paper documents to the right signer can be difficult. State personnel frequently work outside of their offices, flying between islands to meet with colleagues or talk to constituents. This could introduce delays in citizen services, as it took longer for agencies to receive, review, and approve proposals and contracts. Delays were often compounded if the document needed multiple signatures. Administrative directives, for example, need to be reviewed by as many as two dozen managers, leading to two dozen chances for delay.

The Solution: 

Every department and agency have their own methods to keep operations running smoothly. Rather than mandating specific tools and workflows, the State of Hawaii prefers to offer scalable, versatile solutions that departments can adapt to their needs. When Hawaii began developing its electronic signature capabilities, which the state eventually branded “eSign Services,” it looked for the technology that would be easy not only for the IT team to implement, but also for end-users to use. After evaluating multiple solutions, the State of Hawaii decided to base its eSign Services initiative on Adobe Sign, the electronic signature solution within Adobe Document Cloud. Adobe Sign is simple enough that just one employee deployed the entire solution. But, it is also complex and flexible enough that departments can work with Adobe Sign as a standalone solution or integrate it into Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Outlook workflows.

The Results: 

Since deploying Adobe Sign, the State of Hawaii has seen dramatic changes to the working environment for employees. The HR department not only sends documents for signature in much less time, but it can track document status and save audit trails for heightened traceability on every document. Integrations between Adobe Sign and Microsoft SharePoint further streamline workflows and make processes easier for employees.

Metrics: 

Starting with the governor’s office, agencies and departments across Hawaii quickly adopted Adobe Sign. So far, the state has processed more than 400,000 documents through Adobe Sign, including travel forms, authorization forms, spend requests, accounting forms, and acknowledgement of pay stubs for 40,000 individuals every pay period. Working with digital documents reduces the amount of paper printed across the state by 24,000 pages every day. Between reductions in paper, ink, printing, and employee labor costs, the State of Hawaii saved almost $5 million over 2.5 years. Newly hired government employees, who once spent two hours filling out onboarding paperwork on their first day, can complete online forms at home before ever setting foot in the office. First day employee onboarding now takes the HR department just 20 minutes.

The Technology: 

Adobe Sign

Disruptive Factor: 

Technology plays a critical role in transparency, which is key to restoring faith in the government. Switching from paper-based forms to electronic documents allows the State of Hawaii to improve public accessibility to government documents and increase transparency for their citizens by making it easier to store and retrieve documents.

Shining Moment: 

The journey through the heavily dependent paper-process has decreased tremendously since going digital.  What used to take days or even weeks to get a signature is now only taking an average of four minutes. As shown on the eSign website, the digitizing of the paper process reduces its environmental impact:

  • 143, 977 gallons of water saved*
  • 12, 107 pounds of waste saved*
  • 46, 930 pounds of wood saved* numbers as of July 27, 2018
About State of Hawaii

The Office of Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) provides governance for executive branch IT projects and seeks to identify, prioritize and advance innovative initiatives with the greatest potential to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and improve transparency and accountability in state government. For more information, visit ets.hawaii.gov.