Creating Change Starts with an Organizational Assessment: A Field-Tested Approach

This presentation details the application of an organizational assessment methodology at several utilities in New England with service populations ranging from 60,000 and 120,000. These utilities have experienced a range of challenges from escalating costs of service to high staff turnover and competition from private operators; many of which can be traced to underlying organizational elements. The assessment methodology employed starts with an understanding of high-level organizations goals and performance objectives, then progresses to defining work flows and practices, understanding staff motivators and organizational themes, and mapping business processes. At all the utilities, the assessments were performed to help achieve efficiency and performance gains, while adopting Effective Utility Management (EUM) elements, Capacity Management Operations and Maintenance practices (CMOM), or better asset management processes in order to address immediate challenges. Results have ranged from staff realignments allowing the elimination through attrition of almost 10 percent of the staff at one facility; 20 percent higher productivity in key operations such as cross-connection control, backflow device testing and maintenance; and higher levels of service to customers through fewer billing errors, misreads and estimated bills.