OPM Director Salutes Labor-Management Partnerships for Improving Customer Service and Saving Tax Dollars
Washington, D.C. U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director Janice R. Lachance and the National Partnership Council will present awards on September 15 to partnership teams at six federal agencies that have successfully launched an era of labor-management cooperation, resulting in better and less-costly service to the American public. The John N. Sturdivant National Partnership Award is given annually to labor-management partnerships that have worked together to fulfill the Clinton/Gore vision of elevating organizational performance and customer service. Partnerships at the six recipient agencies, and at four other agencies that will receive an Honorable Mention Citation, best illustrate the can-do spirit befitting a 21st century government. The six recipients of the 1999 John N. Sturdivant National Partnership Award are the:
Media are invited to the awards ceremony. The ceremony begins at 2 p.m., on Wednesday, September 15 at the Office of Personnel Management, Alan Campbell Auditorium, 1900 E Street, NW, Washington, DC. It is an extreme pleasure to honor these men and women who come from different backgrounds, who have different life experiences, who are of different races, genders and ethnicities, whose work collars may be blue or white, and who perform a variety of important jobs for the nation that requires various sets of knowledge, skills and abilities, said Director Lachance, who also chairs the National Partnership Council. I point out our insignificant differences in order to magnify our commonalities, which include working to make America the land of opportunity our forefathers envisioned almost 225 years ago. By working together, we have met their vision, and going into the next century, we most certainly will improve upon it. The National Partnership Council (NPC) was created by Executive Order in October 1993 and was born out of the desire of the Clinton/Gore Administration to apply the best practices of successful, private-sector businesses to government operations. The NPC is comprised of federal cabinet and agency officials, national union presidents, representatives from the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Senior Executives Association, and the Federal Managers Association. Giving labor a voice, and bringing management and unions together in partnership, is an investment in America, and an investment for taxpayers and businesses served by our federal government, added Lachance. Veterans Affairs Regional Office / American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2571 The Lone Star State has one additional star these days. The labor-management partnership team at the Waco Regional Office of the Department of Veterans Affairs came to the rescue of a tarnished business model and renewed the luster of the regional office through a relationship based on trust, mutual respect and a shared vision of success. Following years of labor-management conflict, the shine emanates from the overall improved service levels that managers and employees now give to their customers generally veterans and their spouses who count on the regional operation to process home-loan mortgages, administer compensation and pension cases for service-connected and non-service-connected disabilities; provided educational, vocational and rehabilitation services; and, accurately answer the nearly 3,000 daily calls they make to the regional office. Roughly 400 employees in the Waco office and its 12 field offices serve 900,000 veterans in 164 counties in the northern half of the state. Following the appointment of a new Director to the Waco regional office in early 1998, the labor-management team immediately discarded past practices of former management and union leadership and set out to create an atmosphere conducive to improving service to veterans, enhancing the work environment and improving cost effectiveness. Installed were negotiations that brought about alternative work schedules, realignment of the Veterans Service Center and incentive awards. Not even the transfer of half of the loan guarantee function to a regional loan center blemished the new-found trust, as management and the local union signed a memorandum of understanding that promised job transfers or reassignments to all affected employees. Partnership also has brought with it the added bonus of fewer tax dollars being spent on formal EEO complaints and unfair labor practice filings, as more issues are handled through the Alternative Dispute Resolution process. Less time in litigation, empowerment of teams and redistribution of resources have let Waco reduce the backlog of compensation and pension cases by 25 percent, eliminate busy signals on its toll-free number, and interview 95 percent of walk-in customers within 10 minutes of their arrival. Overton Brooks VA Medical Center / American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2525 Also part of the vast Veterans Affairs network, the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, provides acute-care and surgical services to veterans. In an era of budget austerity when faced with daily challenges from patient-care concerns and medical advancements, sometimes a random act of politeness can be a welcome arbiter. And with the help of an active labor-management partnership, Overton Brooks VAMC medical personnel and administrators are doing a better balancing act, without diluting patient care. For instance, with the blessing of the medical centers labor-management partnership team, administrators and primary-care staff served as quality- and cost-control consultants. They followed out-patient clients from the time they arrived for their appointments until they left the center. While the consultants observations, on the whole, were positive, some minor adjustments to administrative procedures and medical-service delivery were recommended and implemented, boosting patient care. In fact, the consultants findings facilitated the appropriation of additional resources to the primary care unit, improving employee attitudes about their work. The added funding, along with the unions sign-on to a personnel plan, allowed for the temporary shifting of medical personnel and staff from various parts of Overton Brooks VAMC to primary care, on an as-needed basis. Supplemental medical training for some employees was required to implement the plan. In addition, the primary care unit was restructured to resemble a typical family-practice medical office. Not only did an active partnership make it possible to improve actual patient care, it also led to improved morale at the center. And as one Overton Brooks VAMC aide said, A smile from the health-care worker to the patient, or from the patient to the health-care worker, can make all the difference in the world. U.S. Mint / American Federation of Government Employees, Locals 51, 608, 695, 1023, 3653 and 3740 The U.S. Mint has become an agency synonymous with customer service. Since the inception of the labor-management partnership, customer service has shown dramatic gains. The U.S. Mint is now one of the most highly rated customer-service providers in the United States. The Mint, with its 2,200 employees, is a self-funding bureau of the Department of the Treasury. Its mission is to produce circulating coinage; manufacture and sell worldwide numismatic and bullion coins and coin-based products; and, safeguard the nations gold supply. The first partnership agreement within the Treasury Department was signed in 1994 between the Mint and the American Federation of Government Employees. Their strategic plan included employee-centered goals, such as improved workplace safety and career opportunities. The Mint Partnership Safety Council helped the partnership meet the goal by establishing corrective and preventive actions that have resulted in a 50 percent reduction in workplace accidents and tremendous savings in accident-related costs. Between 1994 and 1999, revenues, profits, cost reductions, capital investment and customer service improved literally every aspect of the organization. Profits from producing and selling circulating coinage, numismatic revenues and the amount the Mint returned to the American public increased substantially. The Mint also enjoyed profits from cost savings, cost avoidance and improved resource allocation. The Mint has always had a strong union, but now union and management meet on partnership councils, teams and focus groups and at town hall meetings, instead of on picket lines. Improvements in morale and the workplace environment, combined with more employee training, have created additional opportunities and a greater professionalism. The Mint is particularly proud of one government reinvention initiative. The 1998 Alternative Dispute Resolution pilot project, which is now being implemented across the agency, has made formal grievances pretty much a thing of the past.
Defense Contract Management Command Raytheon Tucson / American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3973 You know those mutual fund commercials that boast of record returns for their investors, then hedge the braggadocio with the caveat emptor: Past success may not guarantee future performance. The Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC) Raytheon in Tucson, Arizona, understands this message all too well, as its initially successful labor-management partnership plunged in value, recovering only when a white-knight in the form of a new management team emerged. Partnership at DCMC was embodied in the Labor-Management Council. The council was created in 1995, in part, to evaluate the effects of personnel and budget cuts on DCMCs ability to provide contract administration services to the U.S. Army and Navy. These services included contract oversight on compliance specifications and cost for tactical missile systems, such as the Maverick Missile and the Tomahawk Cruise Missile. The council also was charged with developing a plan to address skills imbalances and employee retention, training and placement during the streamlining process. Even after a 20 percent personnel reduction, which was accomplished through buyouts, normal attrition and personnel shifts, DCMC faced not a single filing of a formal grievance or an unfair labor practice. Another initiative carried-out with equal success was the Contractor Self-Oversight plan which had threatened to further reduce employment ranks. By 1998, however, DCMCs partnership had unraveled, and parochial interests emerged following a series of missteps and micro-management by leadership which had a different style than the command under which the council was founded. Though not an overt attempt to derail the council and its effective practices, the formula for past success had been abandoned, leaving the councils stock at a new low. In July 1998 and under a new command, the Labor-Management Council once again became a full partner in the business of DCMC Raytheon. In less than one year, the average customer satisfaction rating had risen dramatically to 5.8, with top score being 6. Where grievance and unfair labor practice filings had increased in the mid 90s, none was filed in the last two years, saving approximately $864,000 in this period.
Food and Nutrition Service, Western Region (USDA) / National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 227 Satisfying the nutritional needs of families and children in eight western states, American territories and Indian Tribal Organizations is what the Western Region of the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) does, and does rather well. But lets imagine, for a moment, the nutritional needs of the Western Region itself were to go unfed because one division was not communicating with, or feeding work product to, another division. This insufficient nutrient flow could jeopardize the entire operation. In pro-active fashion, management at the FNS Western Region, in partnership with the bargaining unit, boosted internal nutrient levels over the past two years by improving communications to employees within the organization so they could better serve each others needs. In establishing a customer-service mind-set for internal operations, the partnership also has transferred the customer-service culture to programs that serve the Western Regions external customers -- families and children who receive benefits from the Food Stamp Program, School Lunch Program, and Women, Infants and Children Program. In a climate of reduced government spending and agency budget cuts, the partnership council recognized that in order for the Western Region to accomplish its mission and reach its goals, it needed to be innovated and creative in the use of the agencys budget allotment. Savings in this area will supplement employee training and increase funds available for official travel. An example of forward thinking which has saved thousands of dollars can be illustrated by the Western Regions current practice of purchasing commercial software that extracts specific pieces of data from the millions of pieces stored in its mainframe computer. The data is reconfigured into useable products. Previously, any reconfiguration of data was time consuming and costly. To improve customer service to field offices and state agencies, the Partnership Council planned, designed and implemented the use of FOLIO 4.1 software and PC Anywhere software. This design allows the filed office and state agencies direct access to regional databases of laws, instructions, regulations, national policy memos, field office notices, administrative notices and the regions new union contract.
Internal Revenue Service North Central District / National Treasury Employees Union, Chapters 2, 8 and 29 Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, which comprise the North Central District of the Internal Revenue Service, are making their partnership work. The improved operations of the North Central District has made the IRS popular with quite a few people its employees for starters. The union and management are giving authority to front-line managers, and employees are finding ways to improve the IRS three balanced measures: customer satisfaction; employee satisfaction and business results. Examples of their successes include increased in-house productivity and alternative tax treatment for customers, which involve educational and community outreach programs. There was a time when IRS employees felt developmental assignments were not fairly distributed, however, a cross-functional team remedied this issue by developing a reporting process, and, a format for an Individual Development Plan (IDP) was distributed to all employees. Developmental assignments are now tracked, and the chances of employees being selected for these assignments have increased. Another cross-functional team scored by eliminating grievances over the distribution of administrative time for training. Now, both employees and managers receive consistent information concerning the amount of administrative time that can be granted for activities. A conflict management initiative, jointly shaped and molded by union and management, allows participating employees to be trained in mediation and facilitation techniques. This alternative has been implemented at the IRS to resolve disputes using third-party neutrals as facilitators, eliminating both costly and time-consuming litigation. Several committees also have been formed to focus on specific employee concerns. Employees who serve on the committees are selected based on a combination of diversity in location, job experience and interest.
Recipients of Honorable-Mention Citations:
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Web page created 10 September 1999