Performance Matters

Rev Up Performance Measures by Overhauling Employee Training

Are you thinking about implementing performance measurement or looking for ways to rev up your existing program? Although performance measurement is an increasingly popular management tool that helps local governments meet community goals, employees sometimes need extra support to embrace this process.

A local government can boost employee commitment to performance measurement if it gives all employees a chance to take performance measures "out for a spin." The right kind of training can foster buy-in, communicate the purpose, ensure quality results, help overcome initial resistance, and ensure that your program reaches top speed in no time.

Training all staff about performance measures has worked for us in Westminster, Colorado. Before we established a training routine, the city's performance measurement program was not an accepted and integral part of the city's way of doing business. Today, Westminster's training consists of a mandatory class for all employees, small-group work sessions, expert-level exercises, and individualized instruction. The result: everyone benefits, from city employees to their customers.

One of the city's most popular training sessions is "Welcome to Performance Measures: A Tale of a Few Cities." This class gives a fun and creative spin to what is often perceived to be a dry subject, while still communicating the purpose of performance measurement as well as each employee's role in the city's performance measurement program.

During the class, members of the city's performance measurement team define terms, show how performance measurement is the city's way of expressing the organization's values, and encourage goal setting and evaluation. To keep participants interested and involved, we use examples from cities such as Oz and Whoville.

The class highlights the relationship between each individual's work contribution and the organization's ability to achieve the community's vision. Class exercises (you get to be a resident of Whoville!) get employees to think about their customers' needs and how the city might show accountability to its customers.

The "Welcome" session creates an immediate recognition of cause and effect, as employees can see the link between their job duties and the city's mission statement, the organization's values, their departments' performance measures, and the strategic plan. One parks worker noted: "I do a great job keeping the grass mowed in our parks. That shows my commitment to our values of service and pride. It affects our citizen survey results performance measures about the appearance of our parks. And that ultimately affects whether we reach our strategic-plan goal of creating and maintaining a beautiful city."

Before we started this training, individual employees felt less connected to the organization's overall success. In the class, employees not only map the connections between their jobs and the city's goals; they also look for ways to strengthen them.

After attending the "Welcome" session, the city's lead housing inspector decided that the rental-housing inspection program could improve its focus on the city's strategic-plan goal of "a safe and secure city." Today, inspectors direct their resources toward reducing the most serious life-safety violations in the city's rental-housing stock. The inspectors' efforts bring us one step closer to achieving all of the objectives of a safe and secure city.

Other examples abound. During staff meetings, the city's firefighters and paramedics routinely come up with suggestions on how to shave off seconds from their response times and how to improve on-scene performance. They challenge their managers to approach performance measurement from a variety of angles and to commit to continuous improvement. In short, they get it.

But we don't stop there. In addition to the "Welcome" training for all employees, Westminster also offers small-group work sessions that target specific measures for individual groups. In one such session, the city clerk's office met with members of the performance measurement team to discuss the frustration they felt about their lackluster measures and their struggle to make improvements. To focus the group on the most significant issues, we asked them to first answer what the city calls the "Three Big Performance Measurement Questions":

What do you need to know to confirm that your operations are running efficiently and effectively?
What would your customers (city council, the city manager's office, and residents) want to know about your operations?
How do your measures help the city show attainment of the strategic-plan goals?

After a lively discussion about what customers would like to know, staff in the city clerk's office decided to monitor (among other measures) turnaround times and customer satisfaction ratings for services such as business license applications. As a place of customers' first contact with the city, the clerk's office wanted to meet their expectations for promptness, friendliness, and thoroughness. Today the city clerk's office ensures that the city keeps its promises to its customers by coordinating efforts that cross departmental lines.

For Westminster, employee training is a key to performance measurement success. We make it fun, keep it specific, and show employees how the program can help them succeed in their jobs. Then we hand them the keys and let them head off on their own.

—Emily Moon
Assistant Town Manager
Windsor, Connecticut
moon@townofwindsorct.com

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