|
In This
Issue...
 Is Anyone Out There?
Increasing A Good Idea's
Profitability
Internal Quality
Audits
Every Summit Beckons A
Conqueror
Finding Your Way Home In The
Workplace
Features...
Peter Block Column
Views for a
Change
Pageturners
Heard on the
Street
Sites
Unseen
|
|
 Every Summit Beckons
A Conqueror
Scaling a Staff Training Summit in the Shadow of
Mt.Ranier
Whether in line at
the DMV or at the take-out window of a fast food
restaurant, it is not uncommon to encounter an impolite
employee occasionally. But it has become increasingly
familiar. In fact, customer service complacency seems to
occur all too often
When Nancy Tam Davis and Carol Cook,
trainers for Pierce County, Wash., noticed poor customer
service had begun to effect their organization, they did
something about it. Through investigating the problem and
its origin, they found that all signs pointed to one
over-riding problem: training.
Soon, they had embarked on a mission to
provide an effective training program aimed at all front
line employees—receptionists, office assistants,
counter staff, etc. Through designing this interactive
conference, the trainers experienced exceptional
results.
When Nancy Tam
Davis joined Pierce County, Wash., as a trainer about a
decade ago, she knew she faced a big task. Located just
south of Seattle, the county covers 1,790 square miles,
from the Puget Sound to Mt. Rainier. Its 2,700 employees
work in 51 facilities throughout the county, serving
700,000 residents in 21 incorporated communities, three
military installations and an American Indian
reservation.
Davis, like many county employees, was
guilty of being a bit complacent. “I believed we had
no competition,” she recalls. “What could
people do? Move to another county? Well, three of our
largest population areas incorporated and are turning their
backs on county services.”
That was a wake-up call to the county to
emphasize service to citizens, a call relayed back directly
to Davis’ unit. In 1994, when asked to create a unit
to coordinate organizational development and training,
Davis and her assistant, Carol Cook, conducted a survey to
identify current levels of training and training needs.
They discovered that almost two-thirds of county employees
felt they had difficulty getting needed training. The
reasons most frequently cited were time, money and
scheduling conflicts.
Davis and Cook’s study found
several paradoxes in their survey results. The people
responsible for first contact with
citizens—receptionists, office assistants and counter
staff—typically received the least amount of
training. Even more troubling was supervisors’
sentiment that funding for training was insufficient, while
training dollars went unspent annually.
“Over 20 percent of our training
budget was being returned unused,” says Davis.
“I went to the county executive and asked for 10
percent of that to let us try something. This is where the
paradox met the potential.”
Davis smiles. “When the going gets
tough, we go out to lunch!” As she and Cook scratched
their heads, Cook asked a crucial question: “If
support staff are so important, why can’t they attend
conferences and workshops like managers do? Better yet, why
don’t we create our own conference?”
Making It Happen
Davis and Cook hatched a plan for a
support staff conference for 200 Pierce County employees
termed, “The Front Lines,” Together, they made
up the people creating the public’s impression of
county services. Davis offered upper management a
straightforward guarantee: “A full-day professional
conference with 14 breakout workshops, a keynote speaker,
buffet luncheon and a transaction book for each
participant, for under $40.”
To make this work, they identified a
team of support staff with outstanding customer service
skills for their steering committee. Davis and Cook had
attended many conferences, including AQP’s, which
provided excellent models.
Davis says, “The team shaped the
theme, intent and design. They chose the workshop topics,
which included communication styles, violence in the
workplace, telephone skills, technology in the future and
about 10 others. Our office’s role was to manage the
background work and leave the visioning and design to the
team.” The advisory group’s activity was
limited to four meetings.
By tapping into Pierce County’s
internal training resources and inviting the county
executive to be their keynote speaker, Davis and Cook held
down costs. “Now we had to deal with time. We
repeated this conference in full on a second day so a
department could send half of their support staff one day,
and half on the second day, and not bring a halt to the
business process.”
A Vision Into a Reality
They used guerrilla marketing.
“Carol researched all our employees,” Davis
says, “and pulled together the names of everyone who
might remotely fit a support staff category. We made up
mailing labels, and routed our brochures directly to those
employees.” Although a few supervisors objected to
the end-run, Davis defused objections by citing her mission
to build the capacity of Pierce County by developing
employees.
They made a positive impression on
attendees by offering 15-minute chair massages. “That
was a hit,” Cook says. “The line was
long.” To refine future events, they surveyed the
audience and learned that their buffet needed dessert
(chocolate, specifically) to please attendees. “We
never made that mistake again,” Cook laughs.
Their positive results were not achieved
without anxiety. “The week before that first
conference,” Davis recalls, “Carol and I were
looking at our budget to see how we could supplement funds.
We had a few hyperventilating moments.” But they
achieved full enrollment, and the cost per participant was
$32.09. “You could hear our sighs of relief. For the
first time in the history of Pierce County, we had 200
support staff attend the same learning event and experience
no discernible drop in services.”
A Reality Exceeding Expectations
Employees felt it made a
difference, rating it 5.25 on a possible 6-point scale.
“We’ve now run this conference three
times,” Davis says proudly, “and that’s
the lowest rating we’ve received yet.” In 1996
Pierce County’s Support Staff Conference was
recognized by the National Association of Counties for its
“distinguished and innovative contribution to
improving and promotion of County Government in the United
States.”
Davis and Cook, plus Heather Angove, a
training specialist who joined their team more recently,
say the real satisfaction has been hearing people on the
front lines say things to one another like,
“It’s so good to finally meet you. I’ve
been talking to you over the phone for years.” Davis
says, “In an odd sense, it was a reunion for people
who had never met.”
The success of the Biannual Support
Staff Conference—today their biggest challenge is
handling registration so everyone who needs to attend can
sign up before the program is full—has inspired a
series of similar events. Angove was brought on board to
facilitate programs such as a Biannual Supervisors
Conference (co-sponsored with a neighboring county) and a
“tool-kit” series of workshops for supervisors.
The enhanced value of training has encouraged specific
county departments to use training programs as benefits:
the road maintenance division guarantees workers 40 hours
of training annually, and information services provides a
customer service training program for all of its
employees.
When asked for their best advice about
staging a conference for a large and varied staff, Davis,
Cook and Angove all express similar sentiments. Cook says:
“Bring the best of your support staff together to
make it their conference. For us to plan it for them, would
have lost a lot of the creativity that we had.”
Angove quickly adds, “If we ask people what they
need, they are pretty much able to tell us.”
Working in the shadow of Mt. Rainier,
Davis warmly says, can be an inspiration. “What can I
say? We’re from the Northwest. Every summit beckons a
conqueror.”
In Pierce County it’s evident that such challenges
bring out the best.
July 2000 News for a
Change Homepage
|
|
|
|
|
Issue Highlight -
WWW
