Workforce Engagement: Getting Internal Buy-In to Promote Progress

Workforce Engagement: Getting Internal Buy-In to Promote ProgressBackground:The South Central Regional Water Authority supplies an average of 2 m3/s (46 million gallons per day) to 428,000 people in a fifteen township region centered at New Haven, Connecticut. SCCRWA currently employs 268 people, of which 52% are represented by one of two labor unions. SCCRWA owns and manages 11,000 ha (27,000 acres) of watershed forest and relies on multiple sources of both surface water and groundwater. All surface water is filtered. SCCRWA utilizes its own employees for the majority of main replacements and leak repairs. Water demand has been declining by about 7% per decade since about 1990 due to loss of industrial customers and water conservation. The decline in water demand has required reductions in force of more than 10% since 2008.Three new initiatives are underway to improve employee engagement. The first step was the development of a five-year strategic plan with 15 goals addressing a balanced scorecard of Customer/Constituent, Employee Learning and Growth, Finance, and Internal Business Process perspectives. The second initiative was adoption of a formal and uniform personal goal setting and measurement process for all non-union personnel. The third step was a top-down restructuring and a bottom-up redesign of work processes focused on maintenance personnel.The Leadership Team’s comprehensive strategic plan provided employees with direction for the next five years by establishing strategic goals. The strategic plan served as a communications tool to reduce uncertainty about the future of the utility. Each goal is championed by a goal owner and a team representing multiple departments and levels, including members of the bargaining unit. The goals are cascaded to departments and individuals across the organization through a goal-mapping process that connects employees’ daily work with the five-year goals.History:In 2011, SCCRWA subscribed to the Success Factors© web-based performance review and goal-setting system. The process of goal setting begins with the chief executive officer. His goals are visible to the leadership team, and each member of the leadership team then develops goals that cascade from the ceo’s goals, or creates completely independent goals. The cascading process continues with managers and then their direct reports. Each employee in consultation with their manager authors their own goals, but the visibility of personal goals at the upper levels of management fosters alignment.In 2012, the SCCRWA engaged GHD to guide them in a structured process to re-design the way in which work is assigned and completed. The ultimate goal is highly-motivated self-directed teams with sufficient skills and flexibility to handle a wide array of tasks. GHD designed a sequence of small steps to elicit input from all levels of the organization and allow employees to experience changes at a controlled rate and in a controlled environment.The Process:This bottom-up approach has provided employees with significant input to the future organization, practices and technology. The process has included design and execution of a pilot program and is currently focused on developing a program to roll out piloted processes to the O&M organization. Another component of the overall program is the development of a skills matrix and progression program to better support employee development and career planning.The pilot program was designed to move a team of O&M staff to a remote location and assign that team O&M functions in a section of the service area. Relocation provided an atmosphere that supported creative thinking, progressive management of risk, and created a learning environment for volunteers. Participants were rewarded for their willingness to volunteer with new work experiences, individual learning, and growth opportunities.The pilot was designed by O&M staff through a facilitated process that included modeling several scenarios to identify potential new methods to test during the pilot. Staff determined the number of participants, equipment, materials, services, and facilities necessary and selected the remote location for staging the pilot. This level of involvement in the design created a strong desire to be successful during the pilot. The pilot team has demonstrated a significant level of ownership in the program and a focused dedication to the customers and assets in the pilot area. As a result, design of the future organization is considering replication of this “zone” concept. Performance results of the pilot will be presented to show how productivity and employee engagement have been effected by this program.Future Plans:As the process continues, roll-out of piloted organization, practices and technologies are planned. SCCRWA has adopted a Team Leader and Planner/Scheduler approach to managing resources (both human and physical assets) and the skills matrix approach is intended to develop a flexible workforce in the future. Both of these organizational changes have been tested in the pilot. From a practices perspective, planned maintenance has been a focus of the pilot and is expected to continue into the future. Planned maintenance will be a significant component of the future approach to Asset Management at SCCRWA. A new section has been formed centered in Engineering to focus on asset management. This team is expected to work closely with O&M staff to optimize life-cycle costs of SCCRWA’s assets over the long-term. Technology is viewed as an enabler of best practices at SCCRWA. As such, various existing and new technologies are being deployed and integrated to support optimum performance. Specific organizational, practice and technology initiatives will be described in the presentation and documents will be offered to attendees including job description samples, skills matrix sample, “as-is” and “to-be” work process model samples, and technology implementation overviews.Results/Conclusion:Employee engagement has been tracked throughout the process and results will be presented. Key practices to ensure engagement will be discussed. Finally, “lessons learned” from this experience will be shared to help other agencies considering a major change program prepare for the challenges they may encounter.