CE Managers Meeting Minutes
11-18-16
Compiled by Laurie Covington, Mary Wagoner and Yolanda
Anguiano
Customer Experience Updates and Announcements: (Laurie)
Liz’s mother passed away suddenly on Sunday morning so she is in New Mexico
taking care of family. The funeral is on Monday, but she is not expected
back until after Thanksgiving. Please keep her and her family in your
thoughts.
Young Neighborhood Library is now
open in their new building. Laurie congratulated Cedric, Jerome, and the
rest of the Young team plus everyone in DS, SPACES, Communications, and CE
Admin for pulling off the carnival. It wouldn’t have been possible
without them and the other staff that volunteered their time for the
event. Laurie encouraged staff to check out the new building and the
technology like the 3-D printers, touch screen computer sign on, and event
monitors using REACH.
Robinson has officially been packed
and turned over to the contractor. Thanks to Mary, Patrick, Dominick,
Sara, Pat, Celeste and the other staff who were able to help A-Rocket get the
building packed in just one day. Robinson is getting a complete
renovation of the existing space and should re-open in 2018. If customers
wish to know the improvements, direct them to the HPL Website for more
information: ROB
reno .
Jungman hosted a Veteran’s day
event last week. Tim Siegel brought memorabilia from his time in the
armed forces to let customers see it and ask questions about serving in the
service. CE Admin will be looking for additional opportunities to
celebrate those who have served in the future. If interested in helping
with a team or to host an event, contact Tim and Dominick.
Promotions:
·
Chris Arrowood is now officially a Librarian III
Group Manager for the Hillendahl and Ring Grouping.
·
Jennifer Myers is now a Librarian III over the
Heights Neighborhood Library
·
Jose Santoyo is now a Librarian III Group
Manager for the Pleasantville and Tuttle Grouping.
Please congratulate them on their promotions.
Vacancies created from the promotions will be posted soon. Expect
additional vacancy postings after Thanksgiving.
Kronos Payroll Approval-Holiday Season: There
was an email sent this week about the upcoming Kronos approval dates.
·
This week timecards must be approved by 8AM
on Saturday, November 19th (because of the Thanksgiving holiday)
·
Luckily Thanksgiving week is not an approval
week so the December 2nd approval time is the regular noon deadline
·
For December 16th—Timecards must be
approved by Saturday, December 17th at 10AM.
·
The rest go back to the regular noon on Saturday
deadline.
Holiday Schedules: Remember that we are
closing at 6pm on Wednesday, November 23rd. Staff that would
normally work 11:15AM-8:15PM on that day should adjust to a 9AM-6PM (or
8AM-5PM) schedule. Kronos should also be adjusted.
For Christmas, we are closed on
Saturday, December 24th and Sunday, December 25th; all
staff should have their schedules adjusted to work Monday through Friday
(12/26-12/30) so that they will properly get paid for the holidays. The
actual paid holiday is Monday, December 26th. If someone would
normally take Monday off and their schedule is not adjusted, they will not get
the holiday. Contact Gloria Edmond (x38856) in Payroll if you need
assistance changing that week of their schedules.
Floating Holiday: Don’t forget that
staffs need to take their floating holiday by the end of the calendar year.
IRS Forms: Locations should be receiving
email notification about ordering tax forms—it is that time of the year
again. If locations didn’t receive an email about the IRS forms, contact
Laurie.
·
Contact the IRS TFOP Administrator at WI.TFOP.Administrator@irs.gov
if you need assistance.
- Include your TFOP account number to help us identify your account.
Librarian’s Guide to Homelessness: Online
workshop: Suzy Benton sent an email about this mandatory training
that all staff should complete by February 6, 2017. It takes about 2 ½
hours but you can start and stop as it is divided up into units. Staff
must pass the test to get their certificate of completion. The
certificate should be sent to hpltraining@houstontx.gov
and include name, e# and date of completion to get credit.
Employee Discounts: City of Houston
employees can still get discounted Harlem Globetrotters tickets for December 26th
and 27th. There are also discounted tickets for Kurios by
Cirque du Soleil in April and May 2017 as well as discounts for movies and
indoor Go Karts. Check the link: staff
discounts.
2016-2017 Wellness Program: Win for Life:
As a reminder, staffs only have until December 5th to complete
their health assessment and achieve the discount. Covered spouses can
also complete the assessment for an additional discount. To complete the
health assessment, the following biometric values must be reported: blood
pressure, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, height, weight, and waist
circumference. This is the first step in the wellness program.
Online Library Card Registration: Digital
Strategies and HALAN have been working toward creating a way to do library card
registration completely online. As a first step, HPL will be launching a
way for customers to renew their cards and update information through a web
form. The target date is December 1st. Customers will be
able to enter their card number and pin as well as ID number and add or change
an email address, phone number, and address. The information will
go to Circ Admin to make the changes. It may take 48-72 hours to reflect
on the customer’s record. After the first of the year, Digital Strategies
hopes to have online registration running. DS is working with a vendor
called Quipu who will provide real time address verification. Initially,
it will launch for customers to do from home, but the hope is to do away with
paper forms and set up computers or tablets at each location for customers to
complete their library card registrations.
Djuina: Djuina will be out on extended
leave through at least the end of November. Each of her locations has
been assigned a temporary Senior Manager from among Patrick, Pedro, Mary and
Laurie. Those locations can also contact 3-2707 if they need assistance.
Google Pages: Communications is in the
process of trying to “claim” the Google pages for all of our locations.
If you receive a post card from Google in the mail, please forward it to
Communications, Attn: Marjorie Gonzalez.
Blogs: In addition, CE Admin would like
managers to send in the login for their location’s blog/Google Account to
Yolanda Anguiano. As buildings have closed and managers have left, there
has been no one who can remember the blog/schedule login. A master list
will be kept in the CE Admin office.
Credit Cards:
·
Remind staff to turn in their credit card
receipts with their deposits. Financial Services reports that several
locations have not sent them in. These receipts should be treated
like cash and submitted with the deposit.
·
If there are issues with a credit card machine
not taking cards, try unplugging and plugging it back in; if that still doesn’t
fix it, contact Wells Fargo at 1-800-451-5717 and select option 2 and then
option 1. They will need your Merchant ID # and the address of the
building to reset it. The Merchant ID # is on the side of the credit card
machine. Dimitri can also be consulted.
Notary: Things are going well.
There was $24 in revenue in September and $324 in October (approximately 54
transactions). Continue recording notary stats into the daily stats
count.
TECHLink: The TECHLink Staffing
Questionnaire is due no later than 11:59PM on Monday, November 21st.
Please send responses to Liz, Laurie, and Leah Fraser.
iTeams: Mary thanked staff on behalf of
herself and Robin Cabrera for sending details of the incidents with iTeams with
the time, library card number, and computer number. In several cases,
that information has helped iTeams identify a solution. Some of the staff
work-arounds solved issues that iTeams hadn’t anticipated. They are continuing
to work on the issues so please keep reporting them to the Helpdesk and CC
Robin Cabrera and Mary Wagoner. iTeams will not be rolled out to other
locations until all major issues have been resolved. Robin will be
visiting locations in the near future to listen to your concerns and get more
feedback.
Literacy in the Bag: (Mary) Texas
Tamale Company and iWrite Books are partnering with HPL on the 2nd
annual Literacy in the Bag events. For these events, teams of volunteers
will be going to door to door with HEB bags filled with information about HPL
and literacy. HPL is requesting that customers place donated items in the
bags. The donated items will be picked up from driveways by a second set
of volunteers a week later. A third set of volunteers will be sorting the
materials. Two schools and the Friends of HPL will benefit from the
donations. If staff would like to volunteer, please let Mary know.
Special thanks to Jennifer, Melissa and Leonore for hosting these events!
Heights Library Event (12/3/16) 12PM-4PM: 1
volunteer for storytime still needed.
·
iWrite Book signing from 12-2 pm
·
I the Guy (how to write your own comic)
·
4 story times and activities (12:30, 1:30, 2:30,
3:30)
·
Set up at 10 am
·
Montrose Library Event (12/10/16) 10AM-2PM
·
iWrite Book signing from 12-1 pm
·
I the Guy (how to write your own comic)
·
4 story times and activities (10:30, 11:30,
12:30, 1:30)
·
Set up on 12/9 (Friday) and 8am on 12/10
Threatening Behavior: If staffs encounter
customers who are threatening them or cursing at them, they need to report it
to police. Let them know that the customer may be mentally
unstable. Get a trespass affidavit, and try and get the customer’s name
when possible.
Surveys: Mary announced several surveys
will be forthcoming! In addition to a Brainfuse survey, the other survey
will cover facilities information like emergency door exit alarms, fire
extinguisher tag dates, interior/exterior lighting, number of seats available
in a meeting room and the number of parking spots available. Several of
these surveys are so safety concerns about exit alarms, fire extinguishers and
lighting can be addressed. The meeting room and parking spots will help
us identify future CE Manager meeting locations.
Bright Ideas: Mary spoke about the
City’s bright ideas initiative.
The City wants your innovative ideas about ways to save
taxpayer dollars and deliver increased value to our constituents. The City is
prepared to fund cost-saving ideas from City employees. The ideas should
be innovative and support greater efficiencies in the way the City does
business. The ideas need to be feasible and measurable.
To submit your ideas, go to: Bright Ideas. For any City
employee that submits an idea that is implemented and results in savings, there
is a possible cash prize of up to $5,000.
Thought Plan: This plan will provide a
pathway for front line staff to share ideas. Ideas can be submitted in
several ways and there will be an official application. If an idea with
merit is found, it will be presented to the Service Innovation Team
committee. If the idea needs tweaking, the staff member will get a chance
to revise his/her idea and re-submit it. The roll out for this initiative
is planned for January and Mary will be doing a road show introducing it with
more details in December.
Digital Strategies: (Rick, Saima, Loc) Loc is
the tech lead for the Hotspot program. Saima is overseeing the project
overall. The program will circulate mobile hotspots to customers who
don’t have internet access at home. The kits will include a mobile
hotspot and a notebook computer that can be checked out for 3 weeks. The
Wi-Fi name and password will be affixed to the hotspot. There will be two
types of carrying cases that will contain the entire kit (hotspot, laptop, and
chargers). Only the hotspot and laptop will have barcodes. DS is
working on FAQs and check-in and check-out guidelines. Customers will need
to fill out the online form for the checkout of the kit. An evaluation
form will need to be completed after every use because DS wants to gather
information on how the hotspots are used. Internet access will be
provided by Sprint, with unlimited data and filtering software like other
public terminals. The hotspot will be deactivated after it is three days
overdue.
The three month pilot will occur at
Acres Homes and Dixon. Only customers with accounts in good standing will
be able to check out these kits. City Council still needs to approve the
fines and fees for this program. DS hopes to launch the pilot in early
2017. They will be asking for feedback from customers and staff alike to
make the process work as smoothly as possible. Staff may need to have a
local waiting list for the kit because they will not be holdable like other
items. Customers will have three days to claim a hotspot kit from the
waiting list once they are contacted that it is available. Hotspots will
have to be returned to the original location where it was checked out.
There will be a separate phone number for hotspot help in DS. Each
location will have twenty-five kits to circulate. The next two pilot sites will
be Johnson and Mancuso.
Virtual Library Update: Event
Module training occurred yesterday and will be offered every third month from
now on. (Feb, May, Aug, Nov) Virtual Services is now responsible for all
intranet related matters. If intranet pages need updating, email Virtual Services. A new
survey asking how DS is doing will be coming out soon.
Youth Services: (Kallie) Please ensure that
all 20 Very Ready Reading storytime kits are done by June 1, 2017. If
youth staff members want to do their own storytime, make sure they follow the
VRR format. The YS team is visiting locations to offer support and answer
staff questions. Sara Pope and Angela Barratt are working on a four hour
VRR training for next January. Kallie asks that new YS staff and those
who are back-ups attend this training. Managers can go to the training
portal to register them. Kallie recommends that YS staff enact the ACE
storytime rules when doing any type of storytime. Explain to the audience
that they need to be Attentive, Considerate and Engaged.
They should sit, sing and play together.
An email regarding Flip kit rules
was sent by Kallie to YS staff on 11/16 around 9:20AM. She wanted to
remind staff about the Flip kit rules. All staff should be familiar with
them. A customer can check out as many Flip kits as desired. A
Children’s Museum pass is earned when a kit and a completed survey are
returned. If a customer returns several kits but only one evaluation,
they can only receive one pass. Each kit that is returned should be
checked out to the refurb account the same day it’s returned and sent to CMH
for refurbishment. There is a return checklist included in each kit, so
customers and staff know what should be in it. Staff should only charge
customers if the kit’s book is unreturned. If parts of a Flip kit are
returned separately, please send them to CMH, so they can be reunited with the
proper kit. If a customer can’t find a kit, they can browse the Master Flip Kits list and place a hold.
Every location should have Flip business cards in an acrylic card holder.
If you are low on cards or CMH passes, contact Evelyn Dravis.
The SRP 2017 theme is “Let’s Play”
and will have old school board games and video games incorporated in the
programming. It spans all age levels. The next YS meeting will be
at the CMH on Friday, 12/9 from 8:30AM-12PM. Make sure YS staff attend
because there will be a showcase of potential SRP performers.
De-Escalation of Staff Conflicts: (Alma,
Felicia, Sue, Nathan) In order to restore peace and harmony in the workplace,
managers should address issues up front. Conflict is created when there
is an expressed struggle between two or more parties who perceive incompatible
goals. Conflict can be internal (with self) and external (with other
parties). The problem can be conceived on the micro-level or macro-level
and have positive and negative effects. Conflict escalation can happen
when 1) a disagreement leads to polarization; 2) communication breaks
down; 3) a manager is perceived to favor a staff member; and 4) lack of
team work or support occurs and resentment of classification leads to a lack of
consistency. All of this results in poor productivity and team dysfunction
which is felt by customers. Good employees will depart and brand value
will weaken. If managers don’t address the conflict, they well be
perceived as weak and staff won’t respect them.
Dealing with conflict should be
seen as a coaching or mentoring opportunity. The group provided
guidelines on how to defuse workplace tension, which will be posted with the
minutes. Managers should address conflicts directly, listen to both
sides, bring all parties together, find common ground, encourage compromise,
confront negative feelings, and be positive. Respond rather than react,
evaluate the situation, be non-judgmental, know your team personally and how
they work and perform. Focus on how the issue is presented when
confronting staff. How the message is worded and presented is
important. Put ownership of observation of wrong doing on self not
co-workers.
Diffusing Difficult Situations: (Diane,
Tega, Karen, Helen) Difficult situations involve new customers, children,
students, staff, regular customers and those that are physically and
intellectually challenged. Different types of situations involve anger
and frustration, awkward situations and potential embarrassment, and long-term
conflicts between staff and manager. Guiding principles on how to handle
these situations are diagnosing the problem, being brief and to the point,
focusing on the situation, issue or behavior not the person and build
trust. Staff should deal with their feelings first, apologize for the
issue, put themselves in the customer’s place, show customer’s their listening,
don’t become defensive, focus on the problem, reflect the customer’s feelings
back on the situation, summarize the facts, empathize, ask questions to focus
on the issue and try to reach an agreement.
For awkward situations and
potential embarrassments, the group introduced “8 steps to say anything to
anyone” by Shari Harley. She recommends introducing the conversation,
empathizing, describing the observed behavior, sharing the impact or result of
the behavior, having some dialogue, asking for the recipient’s perception of
the situation, making a suggestion or request for what you’d like the person to
do, building an agreement on next steps (if any) and saying “Thank
You.” Have a way to structure the conversation. Develop listening
skills.
The group mentioned an article by
Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman on “What Great Listeners Actually Do” that was
in the Harvard Business Review. Good listeners make the other person feel
supported and convey confidence in them. They create a safe environment
in which difficult, complex or emotional issues can be discussed. The
listener seeks to understand the substance of what the other person is saying.
They capture ideas, ask questions and restate issues to confirm that their understanding
is correct. Good listeners tend to make suggestions. They provide feedback in a
way others would accept and that opens up alternative paths to consider.
For more details, the presentation will be posted with the minutes.
The group also reminded managers
that for an angry customer, staff is sometimes a convenient victim because they
may be having a bad day. It was suggested that there be standardized
language when dealing with fines which seems to be a common trigger. Sr.
Managers instructed staff not to cite policy when there is nothing on paper
formally stating it; like only teens in the teen room or only parents with
children in the children’s area.
International Services: (Helen) Citizenship
materials that were ordered are coming in December. Helen thanked staff
for completing her survey. Translated documents are now available from
the Print Shop for three of the five documents: 10 Cool Things, Library Rules, and All About Your Library Card. The documents are also available for download on the Intranet on the International Services page. Helen wants to build a
binder that holds all translated documents and a bin for citizenship
materials. She spoke about the need to have HPL help make Houston a home
for all people. The Library serves a diverse community and she shared the
City population statistics to reiterate her point. She wants to expand
the Citizenship Corners into an area that offers a range of information for
immigrant needs, not just citizenship. Items on language interpretation,
language learning materials, community services information are some of what
she is considering. Helen wants to continue to support staff with ESL and
citizenship classes, but she also wants to extend services to offer a place for
knowledge and understanding. If staff has ideas about this, they should
email Helen. The “Go Vote 2016” display contest
was won by Carnegie. Go to the HPL Instagram account to find pictures of
the entries. Helen also wanted to recognize Carnegie for their civic
engagement event where two students participated in a Lincoln-Douglas debate on
National Night Out on how a two party election undermines democracy.
Kudos went to Kelly Patton for running the program.
HPL Foundation: (Sally Swanson) This Tuesday,
November 29th the HPL Foundation will participate in #GivingTuesday,
a global day dedicated to giving. Both the Friends and the Foundation are
combining forces toward the common goal to support and create awareness for
HPL’s programs. The Foundation is asking the public to make a donation on
that day at HPL Giving Tuesday.
They want people to share their reason for giving and spread the word on social
media.
There is another part of the
campaign involving #unselfies. Sally gave the group cards to use in
taking their unselfie. She wants people to write on the card why they
love the library, take a picture with it and post it to social channels, and
hashtag the post with #GivingTuesdayHPL and #unselfie. She wants this to
inspire others to be part of the giving campaign and discuss the importance of
HPL’s work.
The public can also participate in
shopping programs where a portion of what is purchased on-line or in person
will go to a designated charity. Amazon Smile was mentioned as well as
Kroger Community Awards. Customers can go to smile.amazon.com and search for
Houston Public Library Foundation. Purchases made will give 0.5% of
eligible purchases to the Foundation. Kroger Community Rewards allows you
to identify the Friends of HPL as an organization that gets a portion of your
purchases donated to them. The organization is attached to your Kroger
card. iGive is another on-line platform that connects the consumer
to other stores where a portion of the revenue goes to charity.
ULC Conference Takeaways: (Mary W, Mary H and
Laurie) The Urban Libraries Council Conference was attended by Mary Hammond,
Mary Wagoner, and Laurie Covington in October. The Conference focused on
one theme: Impacts and Outcomes. Impacts are what we hope for and
outcomes are what we work for. Programs and services are what the library
does. Inputs involve library resources that go into a program/service.
Outputs are what the library produces. Outcomes are the beneficial change
that occurs because of the library, and impacts are the long term effects of
outcomes.
CE Admin wants to tell the story of
HPL better for customers and the organization. The effort will illustrate
library statistics better and will be more easily understood. The group
cited several library systems like New York PL who have stories about how the
library changed people’s lives readily available. CE Admin is asking for
staff to ask customers to share their stories of how HPL has changed their
lives. Staffs need a media release in order to record their
stories. Use camera phones or other tech to record customers’ stories or
staff can ask the customer for permission to share their story. Please
place the videos on the Google drive or the G-drive. Send the media
releases to Yolanda Anguiano. The videos will be placed on the intranet
first. A suggestion was made to have an all-encompassing media release
sign posted during big library events informing customers that they may be
video recorded. A request will be presented to Marjorie in
Communications.
LMS Update: (Fred) Some Learning Link cards
were accruing fines but that problem has been fixed. If staffs notice
fines other than unreturned item charges on a Learning Link account, please
cancel the fine. Please share with your staff the information on Floating
accounts discussed in emails dated on 11/4 and 11/17 from Fred and Sara
Karow. Sara updated the FAQs. Renewals are now available
immediately as long as there is no extended hold.
Shared Commitments: The next presenters
for the Shared Commitments section of the December meeting will be Sue Kaufman,
Diane Doyen and Richard Hurst.
In attendance: Nhu Le, Felicia Brisco, Sue
Kaufman, Chris Arrowood, Shirley Singletary, Melissa Gwinn, Alma Avina, Leonore
Hu, Melissa Hayes, Sara Pope, Jennifer Myers, Jayla Parks, Cedric Clark,
Virginia Williams, Erika Cardoso, Donnie Byrd, Drew Alvey, Mercedes Mayne, Michelle
King, Melinda Campbell, Tega Zoma, Monica Siboldi, Christy Chang, Kallie Benes,
Robert Lewis, Maggie Sepulveda, Vanessa Gempis, Patricia Ogea, Derrick
Spearman, Rebecca Denham, Cylenthia Hoyrd, Marcia Cameron-Denton, Jerome Hurt,
LeRoy Robinson, Fred Schumacher, Helen Chou, Jennifer Sessa, Jose Santoyo, Iona
Joseph, Nathan Stokes, Craig Bertuglia, Tula Gorden, Ana Frade, Edgar Fuentes,
Karen Luik, Laura Montegrande, Hellena Stokes, Jesus Villegas, Gary Lackey,
Christopher Patrick, Sylvia Espinosa, Kelly Patton; Guest: Rick Peralez, Saima
Kadir, Loc Huynh, Sally Swanson, Phyllis Hodges; CE Admin: Laurie Covington,
Mary Wagoner, Patrick Atkins, Pedro Fonseca, Leah Fraser, Celeste Diaz, &
Yolanda Anguiano
Next meeting will
be at Park Place Library, December 16th 8:30AM-12PM
8145 Park Place
Blvd, 77017
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