2014-10-15 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

Home

Merit Board of Appeals October 15, 2014 Chair Kuewa asked Ms. Toriano whether she has any suggestions for improvement—what's working and what's not working. Ms. Toriano replied that their department has been very specialized in the assignments that they perform. Making a difference for the various departments requires our staff to become better -rounded to address questions, whether it is transactions, classification, recruitment, and examination. Previously, if someone called this office, they would be referred to the respective section. If that person wasn't available to assist them, they would need to wait until that person returned. Ms. Toriano added that they have pretty much gone through the cross -training, which was started with a blueprint where it's totally flexible and it's still a work -in -progress. She gives the greatest amount of credit to Nick as he worked with them, held their hand, tweaked that blueprint when it required tweaking— and he's gained the support of all of them to say that they can do this and that it makes more sense now. We still need to finish this process because not all of the "specialists" have graduated to become a "generalist" in our processing center. This concerns timeliness and how we can improve. Mr. Hermes explained that, previously, they would have sections that would do certain things. For instance, when someone wants to reorganize their division, they would talk to a certain section. When that's completed, then they would want to fill some of those vacancies—and they'd talk to another section. Then, those people will need to be hired and paid—and they talk to another section He further explained that it was just a task for before them, and the sections were just doing it and no one was necessarily in the loop or discussing it. Inherently, the customer service element and the communications were hindered because of how our workflow was set-up. Mr. Hermes stated that we're on our way in what we're trying to achieve. As an example, if Chair Jube was an employee in our department, we'll tell you that in these functional areas, you will support these certain three departments. Almost immediately we saw re -growth in that personal connection. Our employees are more vested in a smaller group of customers (departments). Those customers come to rely on one person through the continuum of tasks, and they're all in the same loop. The have the opportunity to get to know each other and how they each think. This is something we've never had before. I think we're reaching this point where we're about to take off. This is something new. We have a sampling in the field, where the departments really like it. Chair Kuewa commented that this is a team of all the different specialties servicing those departments, and each team is an entity. Page 9