Published: September 29, 2026
At EDD, modernization isn’t “tech for tech’s sake.” It’s a customer‑first program that brings the voice of Californians into how we design and deliver services.
Recently, EDD Director Nancy Farias spoke with Governing magazine about EDD’s approach to modernization and rethinking government service from the customer’s perspective.
“Technology can handle a lot of the routine things but more complex situations still require people, and the empathy, judgment, and expertise of our employees,” Farias said.
The article describes how government services feel tangled and complex and explains how states like California are taking steps to design services that customers actually want. California is measuring success by how easily people get what they need. As highlighted in Governing, California is simplifying complex processes and delivering measurable results.
In practice this looks like:
- Faster eligibility decisions: Since moving key unemployment processes online, 371,000 eligibility cases have been resolved in under six days, on average.
- Help in your language, first time: 70% of chat interactions now resolve on first contact across eight languages.
- Self‑service that actually helps: More than 1 million disability customers have used self‑service to check claim updates, avoiding a call or a wait.
That customer-centered approach is at the heart of EDD’s modernization work across technology, processes and services. We use customer feedback and data to identify opportunities to make services easier to use and improve the customer experience.
EDD brings the voice of our customers into our modernization through surveys, research and usability testing. We listen to our customers to find where they face challenges then take steps to make services clearer and easier to use. Customers can already see these continuous improvements through myEDD, expanded language access, clearer communications, claim status information and ongoing improvements to online applications.
Read the full interview with Director Farias in Governing magazine pages 36-37.
As EDD’s modernization continues, we’ll keep listening to our customers, learning from their experiences and using what we learn to improve how we serve Californians.
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