U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Working Together for Public Service
TYPICAL RESULTS
LABOR-MANAGEMENT COOPERATION AS A POWERFUL TOOL
FOR SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS, COST-SAVING AND
A BETTER QUALITY OF WORKLIFE
From school house to fire house, a growing number of state and local governments are forming cooperative workplace partnerships in an effort to transform their public agencies into flexible, customer-responsive organizations better equipped to serve citizens.
From the impressive and convincing array of data collected, the Task Force firmly believes that workplace cooperation -- in a model with major parallels to quality and cooperative efforts in the private sector -- can be a powerful tool to achieve improvements in service, cost savings, quality of work life and labor-management relations.
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
During hearings and site visits, the Task Force saw examples of all of these improvements occurring in activities that cover a spectrum of services, in jurisdictions large and small, and in all regions of the country. As the examples in this chapter show, these are improvements that citizens, workers, managers, elected officials and union leaders everywhere would be happy to see within their own communities.
One of the most impressive aspects of workplace partnerships observed by the Task Force is the renewed sense of job satisfaction and excitement which comes to those involved. Comments such as these by Rich Meserve, a Public Works Department employee and member of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 481 in Portland, Maine, were heard frequently: "We used to do the same thing every day. Our morale was sacked. Now the phrase is, "Let's do it", not just do it. We had pride in our work, but something was missing. Now we have different challenges every day and a belief we can handle all challenges. It's been a trip. People are doing different things every day and enjoying it. It's fun to come to work every day."
Equally impressive are the examples of innovations born from labor-management cooperation that allowed service improvements to be made not only within financial resource constraints, but which in many cases also led to cost savings and stable tax rates. Where the parties devoted their efforts, it was not uncommon to see increases of 30 percent to 50 percent in productivity and decreases of 25 percent in time-loss expense, such as workers' compensation, overtime and absenteeism. In situations where the public employees successfully bid for jobs against the private sector, it was not unusual for their bid to be more than 20 percent lower. Where overall cost savings were targeted, substantial reductions in department budgets were achieved.
The major assignment facing the Task Force was to determine how labor-management cooperation can best achieve service excellence; i.e. how it can be applied as a process to improve the quality of public services. Given this assignment, the Task Force was led immediately to observe labor-management relationships in which employees now are involved in meaningful decision-making on aspects of work that traditionally were considered the purview of managers and supervisors. Additionally, conflicts are more effectively and quickly resolved.
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
The intent of this chapter is to offer a quick glimpse at concrete improvements which these arrangements are providing to the benefit of local communities or states.
Snapshots of Success from Across the Country
The following stories highlight specific results and improvements that are occurring in local and state governments engaged in labor-management partnerships and employee involvement arrangements. These examples illustrate that where management engages workers and, in bargaining settings, their unions, in workplace innovations, the results are better; more cost effective services are combined with better quality of worklife and better labor-management relations.
Fewer Injuries, Millions of Dollars Saved
Here's what labor-management cooperation accomplished after one year of joint attention to employee safety in the State of Connecticut's Department of Mental Retardation:
- 40 percent reduction in injuries,
- 25 percent reduction in hours lost due to injury,
- Nearly a $5 million reduction from what had been an annual $25 million workers' compensation expenditure.
And these benefits occurred when the program was only underway in one-half of the department!
This is but one example of the results stemming from pilot programs initiated by a Quality of Work Life program funded annually at $350,000 through the collective bargaining agreement between the Department of Mental Retardation and District 1199/New England Health Care Employees Union (SEIU). Pilot programs drawing on these funds have been established in areas such as child care, training, absenteeism and safety.
In this example, labor-management committees analyzed the incidence of time-loss injuries, focused on the most common ones and put in a site-by-site injury analysis and prevention program. The employees used data and analysis, combined with their own knowledge of the job and desire to find an answer, to develop a prevention-oriented solution that increased the safety at the job site and reduced disruption to patient lives, mandatory overtime and scheduling problems.
It was determined that most of the injuries were sustained in lifting and transferring patients in the bathrooms and in related activities.
The solution: Minor remodeling, including the overwhelmingly simple application of non-skid surfaces onto the tile floors; purchase of back-support belts at about $19 each; and a training program developed and run by the employees themselves, giving each site a chance to perform its own analysis and to target the training.
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
Controlling Spiraling Health Care Costs
For the city of Peoria, Illinois, health care was becoming a yearly budget-buster. Costs were climbing annually at an average of 9 percentto 14 percent, while total city revenues were going down. Solutions seemed limited: take away benefits or ask employees to pay more through higher deductibles and/or cost sharing.
"Unfortunately, that's what we as a City Council did in past years," said City Councilman Dave Koehler, who also is director of the Peoria Area Labor-Management Committee. "We couldn't come up with good solutions. Two years ago, what we did has turned out to be very logical and the best decision of all. We turned this challenge over to the employees who were the users of the health care plan and said, `We'll provide the resources. You solve the problem.' With union cooperation, Peoria took health care off the bargaining table in 1993 and placed it in its own Joint Labor-Management Committee to Control Health Care Costs. After many months of education, frustration and compromise, the following parties entered into a three-year agreement to form the joint labor-management committee: the City of Peoria; City of Peoria Municipal Employees Association/American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3464 (COPMEA); Peoria Firefighters Local 50; Peoria Police Benevolent Association; Teamsters, Chauffeurs and Helpers Local Union 627; Laborers' International Union of North America Local Union 165; Central Illinois District Council of Carpenters Local Union 183; International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades Local Union 157, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 51.
City and union officials alike testified that the agreement to take health care "off the bargaining table" made mutually agreed-to flexibility possible and produced win-win solutions for everyone. A primary result of the cooperative effort has been a shift away from adversarial decision-making about health care to one based on cooperatively and jointly owned decisions.
In 1994, the city's health care plan was expected to cost $6 million, but because of the committee's success, actual costs were $4.8 million, for a $1.2 million savings. In the past, virtually every health care decision was fought over and ultimately arbitrated. Since the joint committee completed its planning and implementation work, no health care decisions have been arbitrated.
The committee consists of 8 union and 8 administration employees. It makes all decisions by consensus. This consensus-based decision-making process reassured the unions that they were not giving away their right to negotiate health care, and management that it was not losing control of this very costly area -- the medical care plan.
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
City and union officials credited the outside assistance provided by Health Research Institute of Walnut Creek, California. HRI offered a neutral, facilitative type of expert assistance unavailable in the past. HRI's approach is to educate and assist joint committees in identifying their mutually agreed-upon goals, then to identify actions that can be used as win-win steps to accomplish the goals. In fact, the two key ingredients for change such as this are education/communication and joint goal-setting, according to those testifying before the Task Force.
Reducing Regulation, Improving Customer Relations
In Madison, Wisconsin, as part of a broader labor-management quality effort, a labor-management cooperative project was initiated not to save money (although savings did result), but to improve electrical safety and ameliorate conflict between city building inspectors and private electrical contractors. The relationship was characterized by so much animosity that one service inspector was nicknamed "Dr. No." Inspections used to occur after hours, allowing for no direct contact with customers. Instead, contractors would arrive the next day to find red stickers awaiting them.
The need to change the method of operations also was driven by the increasingly diverse workforce in construction, along with more work being done by homeowners themselves with little or no knowledge of codes. Finally, the Building Inspection Unit of the city's Department of Planning and Development recognized the need to anticipate and cope with technological and other changes.
Management, the inspectors and their union, AFSCME Local 60, arrived at a bold idea: Develop a training program in conjunction with electrical contractors and deliver it on-site to the front-line electricians. In addition, inspectors began to work more as a team, not only in the field but in planning ways to make the inspection process more customer-oriented. Inspectors also have succeeded in convincing clients that the primary focus of the inspection is safety -- not onerous regulation.
|
The Task Force observed the following
|
Many positive effects have emerged from changes in process and continued employee involvement:
- By changing their role from "policeman" to "consultant", inspectors have built goodwill among clients. Inspectors now are able to suggest fire safety standards not covered in the code, such as educating contractors regarding the potential for fires caused by neon lighting or the old-fashioned "knob and tube" wiring found in old buildings
- The department has become more consistent in enforcement and has acquired knowledge about problem areas not covered adequately in the code.
- The quality of work life for inspectors has improved tremendously as their roles have changed. They now receive compliments instead of complaints from customers.
- While cost reductions were not the goal of the program, the training has reduced by 25 percent the number of inspections needed to complete a project. This saves about $30,000 annually, compared with the $3,000 to $4,000 annual cost to conduct the training program.
- In summary, the city has found that a compliance effort that emphasizes education instead of punishment enhances electrical safety, conserves resources, focuses inspection resources on safety outcomes, not inspection processes, and improves customer relations.
Reducing Department Budget Without Lay-Offs
Spurred by a severe, city-wide budget crunch, the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, in 1994, formed a joint labor-management committee with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 47 with the twin goals of trimming costs and improving service delivery. The initial effort of the joint committee was to set work standards that defined such things as the average number of containers drivers should collect per hour. This led the group to recognize that any goal would be difficult to meet if vehicles were not available in ready condition.
|
The Task Force observed the following Typical Results in:
|
Through the work of teams, the Bureau:
- Increased truck availability from 75 percent to 94 percent, largely by improving cooperation between drivers and mechanics and their respective departments;
- Reduced overtime by 54 percent due to increased truck availability; and
- Over the ensuing three years, expects a 25 percent departmental cost reduction without any lay-offs.
- "The worker who does the job on a daily basis knows firsthand of the waste and inefficiency that exists in the system, yet they seldom are asked for their input," said Los Angeles City Council member Jackie Goldberg, who was instrumental in passing legislation that established the joint labor-management committee. "Instead, their jobs are threatened with privatization.
- "If there are lessons from the private sector that the city should examine, it would be to follow companies such as Xerox that have regained their market share dramatically by involving line employees in the decision-making process.
- "City leaders should be looking for new ways to include workers in the dialogue to enhance service quality while making the shrinking budget dollar go further."
Increasing Police Services Without Increasing Costs
As part of an employee involvement effort, working in teams in 1982, the Charleston, South Carolina, Police Department began a comprehensive, anti-crime campaign referred to as "Take Back The Streets." It was designed to target several commercial and residential areas and reduce the incidence of crime and the influence of criminals. The Police Department tackled this challenge by creating a team-oriented community policing model that permits not only a neighborhood focus, but the sharing of resources and talents among neighborhood teams for vexing problems requiring special attention. Essentially, teams "borrow" resources and talents from each other. This not only eliminates a layer of specialists at headquarters, but also allows police officers to more fully use and develop their own skills, which leads to a greater variety of tasks and increased job satisfaction.
The result has been an increase in police services without an increase in budget, leading to a consistent, downward crime trend since 1982 in Charleston, including a period when most American cities had their highest crime increases ever.
Through the team approach and joint problem-solving, more services are provided within the existing budget. In addition:
- Coordinating with other teams, team leaders are able to draw upon greater resources for their neighborhoods.
- Merchants, citizens and tourists are safer.
- Police officers are able to use more of their talents, pooling their skills within the department to provide the equivalent of several additional positions.
- The department provides more services without the necessity of hiring a number of specialists for a central staff.
Improving Student Performance and School Safety
At the Foshay School in south-central Los Angeles, surrounded by fences and drug deals, the chapter chair of the United Teachers of Los Angeles told the Task Force, "No one was able to focus on education here until this principal arrived. Now we have a partnership," said Wayne Stevens.
Principal Howard Lappin arrived in 1989 at Foshay, a K-11th-grade school with 2,900 students. Two-thirds of the students are Hispanic; one-third are black, and 91 percent qualify for the Title One program (Federal compensatory education funding; also used to determine numbers of students who qualify for the free lunch progam). The scholastic records were among the lowest in the state.
Faced with an 80 percent student turnover rate, Lappin and Stevens worked together to institute a school-based management program and a Leadership Council to govern the school. The Leadership Council consists of parents, community members, teachers, staff, students, the principal, the chapter chair, other union representatives and a bilingual coordinator.
For the past six years, teachers and administration have worked together to improve the education of minority children. For the first time, teachers were involved in planning and curriculum as well as decision-making in general. The school's test scores in reading and writing have moved from near the bottom to the state and district average.
As Task Force members toured the school, they saw a safe environment with halls and classrooms filled with active, well-behaved students and teachers excited about their work. The annual dropout rate has gone from 21 percent of the student body to 3.5 percent and suspensions have dropped from 400 cases to 40. The contrast between the school and the world just outside the fence could not have been greater.
|
The Task Force observed the following Typical Results in: EDUCATION
|
Improved Labor-Management Relations Leads to Improved Customer Service and Cost Savings
Labor has had a 100-year presence in the transit and sewer agencies that have been combined into METRO. METRO serves King County, Washington, which includes metropolitan Seattle. Non-exempt employees are represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the Service Employees International Union. Over this long history, labor-management relations have been quite contentious, including a major impasse in the early 1990s. Increasingly dissatisfied with their adversarial relationship, labor and management turned to interest-based negotiations, seeking a more cooperative, service-oriented partnership. Since the introduction of interest-based negotiations, the collective bargaining process has moved much more smoothly and quickly -- an agreement recently was reached in one month instead of the usual two years of prior talks. Equally important, this new approach has allowed METRO to embark on a major cultural change process that involves considerable employee involvement with restructuring and redesign of work. The effort first began in the water quality division handling sewage issues, and later moved to transit.
|
The Task Force observed the following Typical Results in: PUBLIC WORKS
|
The impressive results of this cooperative approach are widespread throughout the agency as employees, organized into teams that often cross departmental or divisional lines, work with management to produce concrete results in terms of customer service and cost savings. A sampling:
- Teams of workers, represented by ATU Local 587, through a collaborative effort with management, were able to identify a number of significant cost savings in maintenance of the underground transit tunnel that runs through downtown Seattle. For example, working in teams, they reduced time required to complete routine work and made room for more frequent heavy cleaning, keeping a much higher standard of commuter cleanliness and appearance in the heavily used tunnel. Private contracting previously handled much of this cleaning work for $150,000 per year. Part of the solution also involved redeploying outdoor workers during seasonal downtime.
- In another tunnel maintenance project, METRO employees sealed the
granite floors for $150,000 less than the estimated cost of work
contracted out.
- Fixing chronic water leaks in the tunnel used to require more than
$100,000 per year in outside contracting. An intra-divisional team has
developed a different method, costing around $35,000 annually.
- Similar employee-management teams, in 1994, found ways to reduce
power interruptions to the electric buses from an annual average of 31
to only eight. This has provided significant relief for the hundreds of
commuters who had been forced either to endure hour-long waits for
repairs or were re-routed over alternative paths to avoid the disabled
bus, not to mention fewer traffic tie-ups for auto commuters.
- The unit that provided telephone information on routes and schedules
dramatically improved its customer service through an
employee-management team. The unit was receiving five million customer
calls a year (the bus system handles 250,000 daily riders), but
answering only 50 percent. Employee morale was so low and a group
evaluation of the supervisor was so negative that she resolved to make
the unit a better place to work. With that catalyst, a team of employees
tackled the various issues and became involved in a range of tasks that
used their knowledge of customer needs. For example, they now help plan
routes and schedules; they have developed an improved system map, and
have developed a phone menu system to answer calls more effectively. The
team's efforts led to increased morale and far better customer service.
The number of daily route-information calls answered increased to 90
percent from 50 percent, while the average wait time was decreased from
157 to 65 seconds.
- Gainsharing, in which a portion of the savings were returned to employees and a portion to ratepayers via the budget, also was part of a major effort to reduce costs and improve service in the large sewage treatment portion of METRO. Gainsharing was negotiated and developed by METRO and SEIU Local 6.
Joint Problem-Solving Leads to Increased Productivity
Rock Hill, South Carolina, a city of some 42,000, believes that if employees are more involved in decisions around their work, they will perform better. That's why an employee involvement program led to a significant restructuring of work in the horticulture department, the agency charged with keeping the City's landscape attractive. The City views landscaping as an important tool to instill pride in its citizens and to attract future residents.
Previously, workers were divided into four crews: litter, mowing, mowing the ballpark, and shrubs and flowers. They moved from site to site with no particular attachment to any park or area. Under the restructuring, teams of two or more workers -- which include a lead worker and crew worker(s) depending on the number of workers a job requires -- gained responsibility for the full range of jobs at particular sites (there are 110 sites).
The benefits are noticeable:
- Productivity has increased as a result of a new work ethic that says no one is done until everyone is finished. Thus, the workload is spread more equitably, also ensuring that citizens receive full service in all city parks.
- Cost savings were realized from decreased travel times between sites. Also, new communications styles and technologies -- each team has a radio as a result of an employee suggestion -- have reduced the need for trips to headquarters, and teams can communicate easily with each other. Teams have determined efficiencies that have allowed attrition to reduce the needed number of positions.
- Teams decide who should be dispatched to finish any uncompleted job.
- A savings of $40,000 in maintenance costs plus the elimination of
one maintenance position resulted after supervisors began sharing with
employees budgets and financial constraints. Now that workers have
access to operating and capital budgets, they are working more cost
effectively. This includes increased preventive equipment maintenance to
control costs.
- Other savings resulted when group leaders developed a plan to remove incentives to use sick leave. Sick days dropped from 20 per person to about three annually.
The Rock Hill experience indicates that training is a key factor in the system's success: new workers receive 50 hours of horticultural training and 32 hours in customer service. Crew leaders get three hours in performance management training.
Simpler, More Flexible Contracts
Inspired by the need to remedy service problems, Mercer Island, Washington (population: 21,700), initiated a dramatic reorganization in the Maintenance Department in 1990 that has resulted in the replacement of a traditional, hierarchical structure with a flat, team-oriented structure established around products and services. This reorganization followed a similarly successful one in the Development Services Department.
The City worked closely with maintenance workers and their union, AFSCME Local 21-M. The move to self-directed teams involved rethinking and re-engineering virtually all aspects of the department, including organizational mission, the labor agreement (or "compact" as it came to be called), worker responsibilities and authorities, management responsibilities and authorities, and other issues.
Key to the success of this effort was early and constant involvement of employees and their union and a continuing recognition of the need to maintain job and pay security. According to Mercer Island representatives, the promise was made: "No one will lose their job, no one's pay will be reduced, but the work will change!"
Equally important were the changes made to the labor contract, which was transformed from a long, cumbersome, legalistic document into a much simpler, service-focused agreement. The new contract focuses on the collective service responsibilities of the parties and defines the structure through which the parties will discuss and resolve issues facing them. Contract provisions concerning wages and working conditions are clear. Provisions concerning work rules are subject to constant, joint re-examination by labor and management if service needs or quality of work life requires a re-examination. Continuous improvement is a fundamental part of the ethic in this relationship.
Today, nearly 50 percent of the maintenance employees are divided into four product teams: environmental, utilities, support services and special projects. There is no department director. Instead, four team leaders report to the city manager as a self-directed team. The city's Labor-Management Committee continues to serve as the problem-solving group for the union and the city.
The results of this move to self-directed teams include:
- Through attrition, full-time positions (mainly supervisory) were
reduced from 42 to 35, with attendant cost savings.
- There have been demonstrated improvements in customer satisfaction,
public relations, productivity and worker morale.
- The new organization has led to improved record keeping, reduced labor costs on a product by product basis, reduced overhead costs, and consistency in decision-making that has resulted in increased community and political acceptability of the department's efforts and credibility for its decisions.
Using Cooperation to Produce RESULTS
Even in a community where services were generally considered good, labor and management found that cooperative approaches produced substantial service improvements.
Beverly Stein, the county chair of Multnomah County, Oregon, won office in August 1993 on a platform of providing better services called "Results Not Excuses." Her first task was to seek innovative ways to improve county services and increase efficiency. What has emerged is a plan to do no less than transform county government. Emphasizing the county's commitment to outcome-based measurements, the plan was named RESULTS (Reaching Excellent Service Using Leadership & Team Strategies). The goal of the RESULTS campaign: to empower managers and employees so they can provide quality service, practice continuous improvement and, above all, improve the county's ability to efficiently respond to the needs of its customers while improving the work life of its employees.
Joe Devlaeminck, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 88, in Multnomah County recalled that when the chair ran for office, "I thought she was nuts. I thought that our workers were doing the best jobs that could be done. But, now I know we can do better. We all have a responsibility."
Since then, Multnomah County has engaged in a serious and effective labor-management partnership that produced some $160,000 in savings in its very first round of projects from a workforce already credited with being hard-working and productive.
"We need to engage government and community in a whole new way," said Stein. In Multnomah County, that involves developing a core of people in the county who are systems thinkers, have skills in team building, communications and facilitation, and are able to work as partners with other agencies, nonprofits, businesses, schools and community groups.
As Multnomah County and union officials recognize, this transformation will not occur overnight. As in all places seeking a new form of partnership, these changes in historic relationships and workplace culture will take time.
The county chair stressed that government, by its very nature, is inclusive and its policy-making processes entail reaching out to many different constituencies, its citizens and taxpayers, who have a right to be involved and be heard. That takes time.
Transforming Labor-Management Relationships
For nearly 40 years, a contentious relationship existed between the Phoenix Fire Department and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 493, which represents some 1,400 members. Then, in 1978, both a new fire chief and new union president took office. They decided it was time to focus upon their relationship in order to improve customer service. Their personal relationship was a key ingredient to the success of this cooperative effort and was critical to getting it started.
Since then, firefighters and management have held joint annual planning retreats. This process of jointly developing annual plans has become ingrained in the way the Fire Department does business and thus is expected to continue despite any turnover in leadership. The parties' effectiveness in jointly resolving issues was enhanced in 1984 when labor and management received training by the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service in "Relationships by Objectives." RBO, which is separate from the collective bargaining process, creates a way to place issues on the agenda and provides a focal point from which to start discussions. It also can indirectly influence the collective bargaining process.
Today, arbitration has not been used in Phoenix for 10 years. Labor and management no longer are preoccupied with fighting one another. Instead, they are working cooperatively to improve the delivery of services to its customers -- both citizens and employees.
|
The Task Force observed the following Typical Results in:
|
Creating High-Performance Workplaces
A decade ago, Hampton, Virginia (population: 134,000), had a workforce of 1,300 full-time positions, dwindling resources, and stagnated population growth. Businesses began moving to neighboring cities.
Today, the city attracts world-wide businesses, has one of the lowest tax rates in the southeastern Virginia area, boasts a low-debt service and has improved its commercial tax base. It sports a new corporate center, a revitalized downtown waterfront park and plaza, and a new golf course (built by city employees after private bids proved too high). And the size of the workforce is about the same as 10 years ago -- one of the smallest ratios of workers to citizens served of any city in the state.
The city reversed its fortunes by tackling its problems head-on with a decade-long re-engineering process that concentrated on promoting the qualities present in high-performance workplaces: clarity of purpose, and a willingness to share power with employees and customers, to take risks and tolerate failures and to remain focused upon results instead of activities.
The city developed a mission -- "To establish Hampton as the most livable city in Virginia" -- and a statement of organizational values -- "responsiveness to citizens, quality, integrity, teamwork, professionalism and innovation."
It then set to work to redesign the government's structure. This involved decentralizing management, refocusing assistant city managers from line tasks to strategic issues, extensively training employees in everything from benchmarking to joint problem-solving, and assembling most employees into self-directed work teams.
The human resources department has shifted its role. It serves as a consultant to departments, helping them create and implement workable ideas, but doesn't dictate any programs to be established.
According to Personnel Journal, this applies to the city's incentive program as well. Called `The Achievement Program,' it requires each department to develop an alternative reward system that provides incentives for innovation and productivity improvements. The only stipulation is that departments must share 10 percent of their annual savings with employees who make cost savings suggestions. There are no limits on non-monetary rewards. So far, the program has generated more than $4 million in savings since its inception in 1985, while rewarding workers more than $200,000."[1]
Citizens of Hampton, VA consistently rate employees' performance well above average -- more than 85 percent -- in annual citizen satisfaction surveys.
Streamlining Operations to Increase Customer Satisfaction
Faced with an extremely critical report of its employees, the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles formed a quality team of front-line workers plus district managers to recommend improvements. The team was assisted by two facilitators, one from inside the department, one outside.
After team members were trained in the quality process, they began gathering data on customer complaints, wants and needs. The most frequent complaints by the public concerned long lines, and the need to make repeat visits because of inadequate documentation and unclear instructions and letters sent by the department. The team made 90 recommendations for improving service to the public, 10 of which required legislative action. As of April 1995, eight legislative initiatives had passed, following testimony by the front-line employees.
Team solutions led to both improved customer service and cost efficiencies, such as:
- Extending the vehicle tag conversion (license plate replacement) period from six to 10 years, resulting in a $6 million savings;
- Extending the driver license renewal period from four to five years;
- Eliminating the notary requirement on applications;
- Installation of 1-800 help telephone service;
- Ability to issue most titles at branch offices, rather than only at headquarters;
- Allow fully accredited dealerships to issue tags and registrations to customers.
Turning an Adversarial Bargaining Relationship into a Productive Partnership
For years, the University of Montana paid the lowest salaries in the nation for any Ph.D. granting institution. Labor-management relations were adversarial and narrowly focused. The University Teachers Union (UTU), an American Federation of Teachers affiliate, used to bargain with management over the "crumbs" left by the legislature, testified School of Business Professor Jerry Furniss, who also had been UTU president and chief negotiator. Since they were starting at the bottom, all issues other than money were ignored, he said.
All that has changed since Montana Governor Mark Racicot agreed in 1993 to try a whole new approach that involved the sharing of information and exploration of a wide range of issues, including workload and student access to classes, with the professors and their union. A strategic plan for bargaining was developed with the involvement of a professional mediator and trainer. Because of the traditionally adversarial nature of their relations, both management and labor leaders had to persuade their colleagues to participate. Furniss, for instance, put a chief dissenter to the process on the bargaining team and reassured members that they could go back to traditional bargaining at any time.
But early progress under the cooperative approach eliminated anyone's desire to return to the old bargaining techniques. Instead of stalemates and confrontation, a new agreement virtually "wrote itself," said Furniss, through the successful use of techniques such as:
- Loosening up the hierarchy in the bargaining teams;
- Eliminating chief spokespersons in the talks;
- Breaking stakeholders into smaller satellite groups to work on
specific issues;
- Using a mediator/facilitator and joint problem-definition and problem-solving;
- Setting time frames for completion of tasks and issues, and;
- Honoring confidentiality and permitting any party to withdraw from the process at any time. (No one has withdrawn.)
Savings From a Simpler Procurement Process
The Oregon Health Science's University had 14 different departments in procurement. Neither customers nor suppliers were happy with the process or costs stemming from such a needlessly complicated arrangement. A labor-management steering group, including employees represented by AFSCME and the Oregon Nurses Association from the various affected departments, initiated a study of the procurement process with the assistance of a consultant.
From flow charts, the team saw what the old process looked like, saw the opportunities for savings, designed a new process and decided how to implement it.
Pointing the Way to the Workplace of Tomorrow
These are just a few of the dozens of examples described in greater or lesser detail throughout this report that demonstrate the various ways in which public workplaces were made more effective, efficient and better places to work by involving and relying more substantially on employee judgment and experience. Some, called "Snapshots," are described in greater detail to provide an idea of the atmosphere and overall elements of the program in that location. Others are mentioned more briefly in connection with a particular ingredient, technique or issue.
All of the instances cited required new attitudes, approaches, changed roles and the use of a communication and decision-making structure to gain the interaction necessary to achieve workplace effectiveness. The examples take place in a variety of services and settings, and arise from different histories. All represent possibilities for other communities or programs that choose to venture into this more promising way of planning and providing public services.
The following chapter describes some of the forces compelling these new approaches to service delivery. Chapter Three summarizes some major demographic and financial features and trends concerning public service and the people that work there, as well as results of surveys and public opinion polls regarding government services. The report goes on in Chapter Four to describe "Nuts and Bolts", the "how to's" and conditions of achieving the kinds of service and workplace successes described above. The last two chapters (Five and Six) go over some activities by organizations at a national level that are required to support this more effective model of the state and local government workplace, and describe, particularly in Chapter Six, some of the issues that could benefit from further attention.
