LEADERSHIP TEAM MEETING NOTES – July 14, 2016
In Attendance: Linda Angel, Horace Dicks, Susan Kamas, Sue Bailey, Jerry Haisler, Vickie Gideon, Kimberly Patterson, Roy Highsmith, Lewis Boren, Ben Lopez, Vivian Naramore, and Terry Gearhart.
Last Meeting:
ShoreTel Installation: As with any new system, we are on a learning curve.
Social Media Policy:Pending release.
WIOA Funding: Jerry reported that the funding cap for WIOA training has been dropped to $2500. Exception is “short term” (3 months or less). Cap does not include support services.
Temple Business Center: Will meet with staff (including DARS) today. It will be the same presentation given to the Board. A new facility; a new beginning.
Emergency Management Improvement Team:Vickie meets with a security consultant tomorrow and the team will consider options at the next meeting. She will know more about staff training after the meeting. Looking at staff back-up addresses and phone numbers. Site plans are close to being finished and ready for review at thenext team meeting. Team will give feedback on its work at the All-Staff meeting. ACTION: Vickie and Jerry to discuss next steps including 3rd party trainers.
Workforce Updates:
Best Companies, Quality, and SEE, pages 13-22:The LT discussed all these subjects.
Opinions were given on quality as it now exists in WSCT. Several offered opinions that we have fallen away from our focus on quality and gave examples. The LT feels that we need a renewal of our focus toward quality improvement and getting back on our “journey”. What we are experiencing is not anything unusual for previous Tx Quality and Malcom Baldrige winners. It’s not a destination and a “journey” that requires continued focus to maintain the highest level.
The Texas Quality conference was a good one this year. Linda commented that they are re-focusing their efforts. Changes have brought them back from mediocracy to projecting themselves as a quality organization. North Central Workforce Area is now on a quest for excellence; the only workforce area in the state currently applying. She touched the high points of how to follow Baldridge principles. Dr. Mac McGuire gave a good presentation covering quality from the highest management to the lowest level employee e.g. “Own the journey you are on.”
The LT discussedJerry’s notes (pages 18-24) and reviewed the comments on the companies that presented. They included: references to Covey 7 Habits; use competitive energy to become engaged in the process; be passionate and disciplined; leadership legacy, build something that lasts; use different process tools such as “change management” and Six Sigma; what we do daily (in quality) is our culture; use lessons learned as a reality check and be honest; quality is not an add-on or something else to do but rather “what we do” and it is to make the organization better.
Page 17: LT discussed the items on Page 17. A lot is going on in our organization. Quality processes should be built into our business design and improvement efforts. Use quality processes to implement WIOA. We’re not trying to start a “new project”, rather to improve how we do what we do. PLAN: Begin by refreshing the LT in quality principles, asking Mac McGuire to get us re-grounded in the quality process. Comment was made that not all supervisors were involved in the last quality process and that all leaders/supervisors need to be involved. LT discussed breaking into criteria teams in January and talk to staff about where we are in these, what we do and don’t do.Bring in Mac McGuire again to “orient and energize” all staff. Identify opportunities and adjust business model. Are we ready to get into this or are we just “surviving”? What is the time frame? Would start with LT and management and then to all staff.
Comment was made that if we improve in quality, we must make it stick for the long-term. It has to be a life style, not just something to win a trophy. LT discussed where we are in customer service and satisfaction. The consensus is that we aren’t there yet. Have we have forgotten the basics? If we talk it, we must walk it. Comment was that we are simply too busy with performance issues and the everyday jobs. Do we start over? Comment was made that supervisors must orient new hires on quality principles and our involvement and commitment to these at the very outset of employment. LT is of the general opinion that we need to jump start quality again.
Jerry commented that we are very good at what we do and we have a good culture but our actions are not always consistent with our quality processes. For example, how do we act on customer feedback; do we just react and not take a systematic approach; secret shoppers? A comment was made on phone conversations with customers (overheard) and quality is not always reflected there. Improvement through teams has had good results. Are we broken? No but there are inconsistencies and we have sometime fallen into old habits or individual preferred ways of doing things. Affects our customers.
ACTION: Next steps for quality: a motivational refresher for LT, supervisors, and board staff with Dr. Mac McGuire, possibly at the joint meeting in December.He could also give an orientation to quality at the all-staff meeting in September. (NOTE: he is not available until after Jan. 2017.) Dates for forming criteria teams should be set after these sessions to begin re-engaging staff. Review at next LT meeting. Existing improvement teams may be tabled except for Emergency Operations which will be finished. Document management is behind schedule due to other IT priorities and work groups will restart and timelines reset. The focus is not “writing an application”; we are re-grounding our organization in Quality principles.
Survey of Employee Engagement (SEE)page 17 and booklet handout: Our results are in the handout, page 5. Our score is essentially the same as 2 years ago and the overall score is coincidentally exactly the same. A score of 350+ on an individual construct is consideredstrength. Less than 350 needs improvement. Our areas of strength are strategic, information systems, and job satisfaction. Areas of concern are pay, benefits, and supervision. LT discussed possible reasons why some constructs are not higher. Pay is a recurring issue. Comments were made that our pay scales are competitive along with benefits. Linda pointed out that our scores are still good, even in the areas of concern. We need to not just focus on the lower areas but also on the high ones to maintain our strengths. Our climate, page 7 of the handout, shows the ranges of agreement and disagreement. These are consistent with our Best Companies survey results. LT did a broad and general review of the SEE/Best Companies results and discussed how to present at an all staff meeting. Instead of improvement teams results being given at the all-staff, maybe do a short, facilitated discussion by Gina at all-staff on how to address. Include priorities; things staff want to stay the same and things they think could be done differently. We want reassure staff that we are addressing the issues that can be addressed. Are there ways we can look at things differently?
Institutional Analysis, page 7-9:We have been chosen as one of 50 “American Job Centers” (workforce areas) to participate at the national level and contribute to the understanding of the breadth of our services as an American Job Center. A study team from George Washington University will be here in October for a site visit. They will interview LT and staff. See Training and Employment Notice on pages 8 & 9. They will review the Temple Center (randomly selected).
Senior Spouses: Susan will be hosting a group of military spouses with Lynda MacFarland from Ft Hood at the Killeen Center. (NOTE: delayed until this fall).
New Board Position: Susan discussed the opening of a new staff position at the board. This person will be a grant writer with a focus on fund-raising, planning, and digital analysis.12 applications so far with some internal staff applying. (NOTE: this has been put on hold pending review of 2017 budget).
Travel Claims:Be sure you give detail to justify the request. If you don’t have an agenda then briefly describe the activity and purpose. This is an “easy” find for monitors!
Award Nominations for Annual Luncheon: Ben reported he is working on the nomination process and the selection committee. Forward nominations to Ben. Lewis and Camp WF is starting work on the luncheon themes.
Performance pages 24-30:There are 4200 pages of regulations with a lot related to performance. TWC did not get what they had hoped for in regard to performance recommendations. All 12 measures are in our contract. Out of School are not “college students”. Measures include tracking in silos and common measures. There is no clear way to set targets;great uncertainty on who counts and who doesn’t. Customer count will probably go down and cost per will increase. Self-service will not count.
Child care is good. CHOICES cost more for child care transitional. Result is we will be seeing fewer customers. More answers are coming from TWC. We are #1 in Adult Entered Employment and it looks good for us to maintain that. Youth efforts pulled this up. Ben reported that NCP has served 320 with $916k in recovered child support.
Communications System:Vivian reported that web conferences are now on the system. FAX service is not up to standards yet as there are issues with outbound faxing. ACTION: Lewis to find out how many outbound faxes are sent from the career center. Vivian will have instruction next week on outbound faxing. HHS only accepts fax, not scan to e-mail.
Next LT Meeting: August 18, 2016 at 8:30AM, Killeen Center. (Changed to Temple Aug. 18, 1:30 start time)
Meeting Evaluations:
What was good?
Great discussion on quality-excited about the journey!!Implementing quality;Great news about quality journey;Good discussion about quality. It’s good for us to refocus.
SOE stuff was really eye opening!
Gerry’s honest feedback on meeting evaluations;Honest discussions
Thanks for the food
What could weimprove?
I know we are extremely busy with lots of material to cover but I really miss the “what’s hot, what’s not” where we all shared what was going on in our lives. Was a neat personal touch, especially when we as a leadership team are somewhat disconnected. Some of us on the LT don’t interact much except at our meetings.
Needed much more time for the meeting
ELMO on the quality stuff next time; it went on a bit too long.
Agendas have been quite full recently. Perhaps less content or alternate “special” meetings via conference phone calls to cover other topics.