12.2: Create an internal Innovation Academy to improve performance and empower employees to deliver customer-focused solutions within County departments

Issue Statement and Context

Technological and structural barriers hinder residents’ abilities to engage and access resources from the County. Residents find it very difficult to navigate between departments and find the resources they need in an efficient manner. There are also certain types of complaints that, due to their nature, cannot be addressed quickly, such as traffic modification, consumer protection issues, and numerous others, which residents often perceive as being unresponsive.

Providing accurate timelines to address concerns and complaints would go a long way to improve County service. County government is also viewed as being very decentralized such that it's hard for even County staff to see all their departments as a member of a whole, operating to a singular goal of serving the public.

Detailed Action Summary

The County will improve the customer experience across all County departments by creating a customer-focused continuous improvement program that teaches employees to improve their work by adopting proven methods and strategies.

- Launch an Innovation Academy (Academy) that incorporates the following components:
  - Makes continuous improvement training available to all employees, with a focus on performance improvement, leveraging a model adopted in Kansas City, San Jose, and the City of Miami in recent years.
  - Teaches employees how to develop "process maps," identify waste in their processes, identify the value of their processes to the customer, calculate metrics around processes, and prioritize the steps needed to be taken to solve problems.
  - Pilot the Academy across specific high-priority processes to be identified by the Mayor’s Office.
- In addition, implement the following strategies to improve customer service across County government:
  - Conduct an analysis of 3-1-1 data to identify patterns in service requests.
  - Work with every agency that directly interfaces with residents to “process map” customer service delivery and identify the major “pain points” that residents experience with County services.
  - For each major “pain point,” create a plan to improve customer service. Research best practice customer service models.
  - Adopt accountability measures to ensure solutions are working and celebrate successes to advance a culture of customer service across departments. Build on and expand the Communications and Customer Experience Department (CCED)’s YourEXP program, which asks residents for feedback after directly engaging with County services. Expanding this program to departments that do not currently make use of it would allow for bidirectional, personalized feedback that in the long-term results in better customer service and helps convert our residents from County service users to County service advocates.
  - Expand customer service hours for customer-facing departments (e.g., libraries) and shift the perception that "the County stops working at 5 p.m."

12.2: Create an internal Innovation Academy to improve performance and empower employees to deliver customer-focused solutions within County departments

Issue Statement and Context

Detailed Action Summary

Read More