CHAPTER 5
IMPLEMENTATION: WEAVING PERFORMANCE INTO THE ORGANIZATION
The Service Fitness project took shape at a statewide insurance company where the declining performance of three hundred customer care managers in field offices had resulted in a request for additional training. The two performance consultants on the project quickly discovered that the customer care managers were experienced, long-term employees faced with a number of challenges, only one of which required training. The other challenges were:
• Following obsolete procedures
• Misunderstanding/misusing internal controls
• Confusion about work priorities
• Lack of staff cross training
• Lack of delegation skills
• Lack of contingency planning
With the support of their client, the finance manager, the consultants designed and developed a front-end analysis to expand the information they had already gathered. By meeting individually with each key stakeholder, the consultants were able to gather detailed information and build consensus at the same time. When they formally reported their findings, the stakeholders understood the complexity of issues impacting the customer care managers and were open to a multi-layered solution.
The consultants responded by proposing a three-day off-site offered regionally around the state to actively involve all the stakeholders. Core elements of the Service Fitness project were:
• Pre-work to gather data to be used in the off-site
• Alignment among executives on establishing and communicating service-related priorities to the field
• Opening session to gather critical issues from customer care managers in attendance
• Activity-based sessions on identifying and setting priorities and contingency planning
• Delegation skills training
• An open forum on Service Level Agreements with the managers of the supporting processing centers
• Distribution of job aids for the twenty-five most commonly delegated tasks
• Post-program project designed and completed by each customer care manager to improve work in her/his office, presented regionally six weeks later
Service Fitness was a major departure from other programs previously experienced by the customer care managers. Results included:
• Dramatic reduction in the number of customer care managers going out on stress leave
• Results from post-program projects published and distributed to all customer care managers for their use/adaptation
• Twenty-five job aids expanded to include those suggested by customer care managers and the regional processing centers, became an on-going project to standardize operational procedures across the organization that was updated quarterly
• Systematic delegation of lower level responsibilities to junior employees
• Reassignment of leadership in the processing centers to ensure that service level agreements were met and that the concerns expressed by the customer care managers during the Service Fitness program were addressed
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