CE Managers
Meeting
04-29-16
Compiled by
Yolanda Anguiano
CE Update: (Michele Gorman) Michele introduced
our new Senior Manager of International Services Helen Chou. Michele
noted that in the FY17 budget presentation Dr. Lawson presented to the City
Council in the end of April, International Services and Programs to celebrate
Houston’s diversity, including ESL and citizenship classes, are listed as one
of HPL’s FY17 department initiatives that supports the City of Houston’s Plan
Houston strategy of
supporting our global economy. Helen will continue building on the foundation
that former Senior Manager Shammi Gill began. Helen is a native
Houstonian who most recently worked in the Singapore government with
international non-profits. Her goal is to enrich the community by helping
new immigrants find respect, build roots and celebrate their heritage.
TLA &
PLA attendees need to email your notes on your conference takeaways to
Laurie. She will be posting them to the CE blog. Those who attended
either conference will be asked to present their takeaways at our May or June
meeting and/or Youth Services meeting. The email invite will be
forthcoming.
Over the
last few months Michele has been out visiting libraries. These visits are
not an indicator of a problem or issue; they are an opportunity for Michele to
spend time in a location talking to managers and frontline staff, asking and
answering questions, and taking stock of our facilities. If Michele is in your
library please take the opportunity to spend some time touring the building
with her. Share feedback about your location and ask questions if you
have them. The same is true for Deputy Director Weeks, who also makes regular
visits to the libraries to visit with staff and see how things are going.
Michele also
asked if managers could report the extra efforts their location did in response
to the floods like Heights printing out extra forms for customers’ tax
extensions or Dixon holding extra programs for the kids that were off from
school.
The 2016
Volunteer Appreciation Celebration took place on the 27th. Michele
was moved by the speech Cyrano Machey did regarding volunteers and how they
inspire him. One of Oak Forest’s volunteers was selected as volunteer of
the year, and Michele was also very touched by Jesus Villegas’ tribute to
him. Michele also praised Janna and Christy for SWX/WAL being recognized
as the All-Star team. They continue to knock it out of the park with their
volunteer program!
Blue Ridge
is now closed for renovations. Michele praised the interdepartmental
effort it took to get the facility ready for closure.
Kendall
received a new sorter attachment and the equipment has been working well.
Customers are happy with it.
Stella Link
has started a story time and music program at a senior center. Manager
Edgar Fuentes reads the stories and CSC Jacob Hornbeak plays guitar.
Thanks to
everyone for their work on improving the quality of incident reports. Michele
sees an improvement in the writing quality and attention to detail.
Michele
thanked Kallie Benes and the Youth Services team for a great Día program at
Discovery Green. The event was attending by many families. It
focused on four countries: France, China, India and Mexico. Staff members
Christy Chang, Nagma Akbar and Teresa Lopez participated in the storytelling by
reading in their languages.
Michele
thanked all the locations for the great work they are doing with Passports. She
acknowledged several compliments that have come in recently for staff who
process Passports. In late March Dr. Lawson received a compliment on our
passport service at Central from Associate Presiding Judge J. Elaine Marshall,
who noted that staff were professional, courteous and friendly, and she was in
and out with a new Passport in 20 minutes.
The three
presenters for next month’s “Commitments to Solutions” segment are Mercedes
Mayne, Dominick Spinelli, and Jose Santoyo.
Digital
Strategies: (Rick
Peralez & Joe Sullivan) Digital Strategies is working with the new
reservation system vendor on the problems Central has been experiencing.
They are making sure the reservation system works properly before it’s
implemented at the rest of the library locations. Customers have
appreciated the new automatic extension function.
Joe Sullivan
works with salvage. His team gathers the old IT related equipment and
gets it ready to be salvaged. If you have large items or large quantities
that need to be salvaged, Joe’s team will come to you; otherwise, he asks that
you pack the items up and send them to him via delivery. Examples of
small items include mice, keyboards, etc. Please
email Joe when sending items to be salvaged with the g-tag/serial numbers and
what the items are and copy Celeste. If the item has no g-tag, please
include that in the email. Joe will handle the paperwork that will go to
Mary Tombiri in Financial Services. He asks that there be one point
person per location that handles salvage items, preferably the
manager. Joe only handles IT related equipment and not furniture. Joe explained that he is trying to improve the
equipment inventory system and create a more accurate account of what we
actually have. The City will not give us the funds to replace an item if
the old one is still in our inventory. The City has a replacement
schedule for public equipment and staff equipment. Each type has a
different schedule. The public one has a shorter time-line than the staff
one. So, if you have an item that is non-operational and needs replacing,
please begin the salvage process.
The AT&T
contract has been approved by City Council. It’s good for the next three
years. It will improve our network across the system and provide more
bandwidth to support future upgrades. Rick hopes to get approval for
network access contracts that will deal with the internet soon. The new
contract will help with capacity, faster computers, and more
applications. The E-Rate deadline has been extended for thirty days because
they switched to an on-line portal.
Digital
Strategies continues to send notices on upcoming tech updates. Please
make sure you follow the recommended steps to prepare for them.
Rick
reported that they are still working on the issue of other departments
accessing the city training portal from our public computers and the YouTube
issue. The YouTube loading issue is system
wide and is being addressed with the help of HITS. The problem is not
within network. The short term solution is to use Chrome, but there is a
delay. Internet Explorer and Firefox don’t work. The public Wi-Fi
also works. Digital Strategies will be sending an update email regarding
this and the training portal problem soon.
The copier
contract negotiations have progressed. The RFP (request for proposal) is
going to be released today. Coin Copiers will be one of the companies
bidding on the request. They have shared what they can do for us based on
the services they’ve provided another library system on a smaller scale.
Some of the features include centralized printing, accepting coins, bills, and
credit cards, and wireless printing. The credit card payment process
would run on its own system, not ours. Another vendor who was at TLA has
also expressed interest in the bid.
Some asked
if Internet Explorer could be removed from the terminals because of poor
service. Rick said we could hide or disable it, but not remove it
altogether.
Some public
computer desktops in our locations are running with a very small amount of memory.
Rick has put in an order for more memory or PC replacement, which may kick in
with CIP.
Youth
Services: (Kallie
Benes) Children’s Book Celebration-Books Alive Art contest is off to a great
start. You should have received brochures and a backdrop for customers to
take pictures with their imaginary friend. There have been 60 submissions
so far, much more than in previous years. The deadline for home and
school submissions is this Sunday, May 1st. The judging will
take place next week. The event is May 14th. The Adventures of Beekle author Dan Santat will be the speaker.
Summer Reading
Program is running a little different this year. Registration will open
to schools earlier than the public on May 1st to encourage students
to register before the summer break. SRP runs June 1st to
August 1st. The theme is Aim for the Stars. New this
year will be family participation. The parent or caregiver can enroll in
the Adult SRP and the child enrolls in the juvenile one. This is being
done to encourage adults to model good reading habits and foster a love for reading.
Upon completion,
families will be entered to win a prize pack. A “family” consists of one
adult (mother, father, guardian, grandparent, aunt, and caregiver) and one
youth. If there are multiple children in the family, then a different
adult needs to register with each child (father, older sibling, aunt/uncle,
etc.). There should be similar information that links the adult and
child’s accounts together, like same last name. The adult enrolled in SRP
will be asked to review an adult book and one children’s book to complete the
program and qualify for the prize drawing. Only one child per
parent/caregiver qualifies for the prize pack, even though there may be other
siblings participating.
Each participant
will elect to follow the “hours read” or “books read” method of measurement
upfront. All juvenile participants will get a book when they
register. Prizes at the 5, 10, 20, and 30 book level include stickers,
ribbons, Chipotle meals (5), Dynamo/Dash BOGO tickets (10), Astros tickets
(20), and trophies (30). The top two readers at each location, child and
teen, will win a bike. Children that attend five or more programs will
get a four pass for the Children’s Museum. Those that complete the family
program will be entered to win prize packs that include tickets to the Health
Museum, the Butterfly Center at the Museum of Natural Science, and the Bike
Museum, as well as Raising Cain meals.
Training on
Summer Reader was done at this month’s Youth Services meeting. If
managers feel their staff need a refresher, email Sara Pope a request that she
come to your location to conduct a training. Youth staffs that attended
the YS meeting are also encouraged to train their co-workers.
When entering an
event in the calendar module, if it doesn’t fit with any existing program
title-descriptions in the drop down list, you can request that it be added.
Staff can email Kallie for a youth program or Jennifer Schwartz to for an adult
program. They will get in touch with Saima in Virtual Services to make
the additions. The list of program titles and descriptions was created
for consistency across the system and to facilitate searching for a particular
program. The Youth Services blog has a link to the “Approved YS Program
List” on the home page, and both the youth and adult program lists are on the
training portal.
Crisis
Management: (Kallie
Benes, Fred Schumacher, Mary Wagoner) The group discussed what a crisis is, how
to manage it and to keep a sense of humor about it. A crisis is any
unplanned event, occurrence or sequence of events that has a specific
undesirable consequence. It can occur at any time and under the most
unfavorable circumstances.
There are
different types of crises: minor, moderate, major, and
critical/catastrophic. A minor event does not breach policy or procedures
or there is no injury and can be handled internally by local staff. A
moderate event is an incident or event that could escalate to a more serious
crisis and/or affect operations. It is not under control but doesn’t pose a
threat to off-site areas. It may require a response from external as well
as internal personnel. It can be contained in-house and has the potential for a
medium financial loss or for escalation with staff or customer. A major
event is a serious event that has occurred or is imminent which poses a
potential threat to employees, customers, the public or third parties. It
has the potential to seriously disrupt operations. It is not under control and
requires action by off-site personnel and has the potential for a major financial
loss or for escalation of tension between staff or with a customer. The
critical/catastrophic event is a serious event that has occurred or is imminent
which is having a detrimental off-site effect. It poses a serious threat to
employees, customers, the public or third parties and has seriously disrupted
operations and supply on a significant cross-product scale. It is not
under control and needs significant/immediate actions and assistance from
external personnel and emergency services. There is a strong likelihood of
fatalities and a huge financial loss. It calls for a full management team
response plus activation of site-wide Crisis Management and Emergency Response
plan.
The steps in
managing a crisis say the first two hours are critical. Staff members
need to assess the situation for the level of crisis and then take control;
identify, verify and communicate the facts. Negotiate for what you need
in an authoritative, clear, unemotional, rational manner. A Crisis
Management Plan needs to be activated, which should be a seamless process and
focus on outcomes. Try to turn negatives into positives or, at least into
neutrals.
Your crisis
response should begin with a key message. Know what you’re talking
about. Do your research and provide accurate information. Deliver
the message to key contacts and stakeholders in priority order.
Stakeholders are those who have interest in the crisis and how it’s managed
like the public and press. Complete initial reports on the crisis, focus
on ensuring policy compliance, communicate it to the appropriate people and
continue with the crisis plan.
Crises
happen at different times and are not always disastrous. Steps to
successfully manage them require degrees of thinking through the process.
Predict everything that could go wrong, identify the key issues, review and
update them regularly. Decide what your position will be on each
issue. Sometimes you will need to make the decision on your own. Take
preventative measures to ensure your issues don’t become a crisis, develop
management and mitigation strategies. Plan for a crisis; develop a
strategy on how to deal with it. Rehearse your emergency plan in your
mind or at staff meetings. Review your crisis and issue plans, update
them as necessary, undertake simulation testing to ensure your crisis plan is
robust and effective. Persevere and follow your plans, stick to the positions
you’ve taken, strictly implement your crisis and issues management policies and
procedures. Evaluate your crisis and issues management performance on a
regular basis, focus on continuous improvement, establish a benchmark.
The group
strongly suggests keeping the Library’s emergency phone line (832-393-1550) and
other important numbers on your cell phone in case of an emergency. They
encourage managers to have their “meltdowns” in private after the crisis has
passed, not in front of staff. They want managers to know that they are
not alone. They can call for assistance at any time by dialing
832-393-2707. Full PowerPoint is posted to the CE Blog.
Staff Off
Task at Public Service Desk:
(Craig Bertuglia, Melissa Gwinn, Iona Joseph, Maurina Powers) The group
presented different scenarios illustrating staff off task at the public service
desk and asked for feedback on how to deal with each situation.
1.
Staff
getting emergency phone calls at the desk was one scenario. Managers
suggested the staff member take the call in private while the manager or other
staffs cover the desk.
2.
Staff
shopping on-line at the desk was another problem. Managers suggested
having the staff member do it on their break, or telling them to stop and
discuss the matter later in private. Take it as a coaching
opportunity. Having a “buddy” relationship with your subordinates may
impede your ability to proceed with corrective measures. The general rule is to
praise in public, but correct in private. If you can’t correct at the
time, redirect the staff member’s attention.
3.
Another
scenario was a staff member doing schoolwork at the desk. Managers had
varied opinions on what to do. Lack of planning on the part of the staff
member was brought up, as was the fact that you are not being paid to do school
work. The group encouraged managers to be proactive and discuss these
issues, rules and expectations at their staff meetings.
4.
Having
phone conversations at the service desk was the last skit. Although there
is no formal policy for having cell phones on your person during working hours,
there are guidelines found in the Employee Guidebook. Michele is working
on that.
A handout
with different policies on internet and email usage within the City was
distributed. It will be posted with the minutes.
Announcements: (Elizabeth Sargent) There
have been problems with staff filling out their applications for promotional
positions incorrectly. It’s important that staff answer the supplemental
questions correctly or they will not make it to the interview stage. With
the education question, if a staff member’s specific degree is higher than the
degrees listed; don’t mark “none of the above”. Choose the highest
degree. Generally it will say Associates or higher or Bachelors or higher
but if it doesn’t, check the one that is the closest to the highest degree
earned. If the answer to that question doesn’t meet the position’s
requirements, the application can’t be pulled by law, even though we know the
candidate is qualified. The experience question is also being filled out
wrong. Staff are only including their years of customer service
experience at their current position and not taking into account their total
career experience. Also make sure you fully update your application each time
you apply for something. Check to ensure your current position is listed
correctly and your education information is updated. This is needed to show you
meet minimum qualifications for the position.
Please
notify Sharon Alvarez (HR), Susan Lopez (HR), the Senior Manager, Liz and
Laurie if a staff member is going to resign. Send them an email.
Make sure the employee writes a resignation letter. A template can be
found on the intranet, in the forms section under HR.
Inform all
staff, especially new employees that the emergency line exists. (x31550)
Some expressed frustration about the timeliness of the message on that line,
but HPL can’t change the message until an official City communication has been
received.
Liz wanted
managers to revisit the policy on handling severe weather and approved disaster
time off (AP 2-3). There is a difference on how to handle an employee’s
time when the City has declared an emergency and staff are not required to
report to their designated work location versus when there has been a disaster
but the City is open for business and the staff member is impeded from getting
to work because of the disaster. Review sections 7.1 and 7.2 of this
policy. A key point to remember is when the City has declared an
emergency and instructed supervisors to use the disaster time off code;
supervisors should not alter comp time, wellness time, sick time, or vacation
time with the disaster time off code. This is a violation of AP 2-3 and is
subject to disciplinary action.
Please
complete the post-storm facility assessments after every storm. Train
staff to complete these in case the manager or assistant manager is
unavailable. This is important because the City has twenty-four hours to
report damage assessment after a storm. Send the completed forms to the
HPL – NL Admin and HPL – SPACES distribution list and cc Michele Gorman.
Make the assessment once city business returns to normal, even though the
location may be closed. A form will be added to the Resources page of the
CE Blog with the questions and the list of addresses.
As a
follow-up to the Staff Off Task at Public Service Desk presentation please make
sure to review AP 8-1 “Use of City Information and City Information Technology
Resources.” Page 8 covers allowed use and includes the following statement:
“Limited personal use of City IT resources to conduct non-City business may be
permissible when the use is authorized by management, incidental, and it
occurs occasionally during the City employee’s working hours. “ It cannot cause
or lead to any additional expense to the City, negatively impact overall
employee productivity, or interfere with the normal operations of the City
employee’s department, work unit, or the City IT resource.
Please make
sure staff are entering the number of FRIENDS and DISCARD boxes at their
location into the FIDS spreadsheet on the G-drive every Friday by close of
business; otherwise, FIDS will not know when to make a pick up.
Julia
Bradley: There is a
new e-learning course on reference training. There are many themed
segments and content for everyone. Julia’s team needs help with content
experts. Send her an email if you have expert knowledge and wish to
participate.
Helen
Chou: Helen Chou
reminded us of the City’s iSPEAK initiative. She included a handout that
will be posted with the minutes. The iSPEAK program offers assistance to
those customers with limited English language proficiency. There is a new
City language phone line that will connect staff to a live foreign language
interpreter (including Spanish) or interpreter for the hearing impaired.
The phone number is 832-393-3000. There is a Client ID (50-45-49) and
department code (talk to your manager for this code) you will need to provide
to get help. Please don’t share these numbers with the public. We
incur a cost of $0.56-$0.61 per minute to use the live interpreter depending on
the language, so please try and find a local resource/staff member who can
assist the customer prior to making this call. There is a flow chart on the
handout that guides you through the process of assisting a limited English
language proficient customer. Again, please note that this language line
does provide Spanish interpretation unlike the previous help available to staff
via 311. If you have questions regarding this program, please contact
Helen at x31511 or via email.
Three
Manager Commitments:
(Nathan Stokes, Alexandra Drake, Billy Glasco)
Nathan is
focusing his efforts on improving staff morale, better communication and time
management. He has bimonthly staff meetings where staff members share a
breakfast, have ice breakers and get to know each other while discussing
issues. This helps wake staff up and keeps them focused during the
meeting. Nathan tries to keep the ice breakers library related. In
terms of better communication, he has made it a point to reply to every email
he receives. In response to time management, his team is already planning
and creating decorations for SRP. Staff members are taking turns to cover
the desk so others can focus on programs or tasks that need to get done.
Alexandra
shared that she’s working on a balance of duties, food at her team meetings and
team building exercises. She tries to play into staff interests and
skills and makes sure they aren’t overwhelmed. The team building exercises
include skits and library mad libs in an effort to foster connections with each
other.
Billy is
working on prioritizing the schedule to delegate time to staff. He bought
a daily planner to help him juggle his separate duties as an assistant manager,
digital manager, and archival librarian. He is improving communication by
holding project meetings and providing staff with clear tasks with small
check-ups. He listens for feedback and improvements in an effort to build
more trust and be transparent with staff and his manager. He has made it
a point to recognize staff task contributions during the process, and not just
at the end.
In
attendance: Chris
Arrowood, Robert Lewis, Craig Bertuglia, Melissa Gwinn, Monica Siboldi, Paty
Bustamante, Brandon Pope, Tony Goodwyn, Marcia Cameron-Denton, Cylenthia Hoyrd,
Melissa Hayes, Dominick Spinelli, Leonore Hu, Erika Cardoso, Fred Schumacher,
Virginia Williams, Beck Gorman, Drew Alvey, Jennifer Myers , Christy Chang,
Donnie Byrd, Jenny Phengdara, Jayla Parks, Shirley Singletary, Billy Glasco,
Nathan Stokes, Patricia Ogea, Felicia Brisco, Tula Gorden, Jose Santoyo,
Melissa Ryans, Lauren Wilcox, Alexandra Drake, Iona Joseph, LeRoy Robinson,
Sylvia Espinosa, Michelle King, Richard Hurst, Kathrine Myers, Kelly Patton, Tara
Hornbeak, Vanessa Gempis, Karen Luik, Gary Lackey, Chris Patrick, Jennifer
Sessa, Maurina Powers, Derrick Spearman, Alma Avina, Edgar Fuentes, John
Merullo, Maggie Sepulveda, Dena Melvin, Tega Zoma, Julia Bradley, Kallie Benes;
Guest: Rick Peralez & Joe Sullivan; CE Admin: Michele Gorman, Elizabeth
Sargent, Laurie Covington, Mary Wagoner, Pedro Fonseca, Celeste Diaz,
& Yolanda Anguiano
Next CE
Managers Meeting is on May 27 at 8:30AM in Central’s Program Place.
Laurie Covington
Senior Manager of Customer Experience Administration
Houston Public Library | Customer Experience
500 McKinney, Houston, TX 77002
Office: 832-393-1367 | Email: Laurie.Covington@houstontx.gov
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