Welcome to WordPress. This isAccording to a 2013 Gallup “State of the American Workplace” report, approximately 70% of employees are disengaged, resulting in lost productivity, poor customer service and safety performance, as well as other metrics of poor performance. Gallup estimates the cost of lost productivity at $3,400 for every $10,000 of payroll. When you put that into the context of our industry, with the $64,458 average compensation of transit employees, a transit agency with 2,000 employees is throwing $44 million out the window of a fast-moving vehicle!

Harnessing Employee Energy

Does any of this sound familiar?

• Your organization is trying to change the workplace culture. Customers are complaining, the executive team is receiving press inquiries and even the politicians are starting to call. You sense a lack of engagement amongst frontline employees.
• Your customer feedback continuously reflects a perception of poor reliability and dirty trains. After analyzing the customer survey results, you find a correlation between the perception of cleanliness and mechanical reliability. You take those findings to the maintenance department to understand the root cause.
• As you go into labor negotiations, the union demands higher rates for concessions and your Board has given you a target for the costs of the new contract and you are in a stalemate.

How did you work to address and to resolve those issues?

In trying to change the workplace culture, you may, over time, initiate programs to receive feedback from frontline employees and you realize the valuable insights they have about the customer experience and ideas that will improve the situation.

• To engage conductors, your organization offers improved skills and management training for the supervisors and managers, which in turn clarifies responsibilities and accountability at all levels to improve performance with limited resources.
• You hear from the coach cleaners that cleaning practices are less than adequate at one of the service areas which limits their ability to deliver quality cleaning. As a result, maintenance makes improvements and the ratings on both cleanliness and reliability of the equipment improved in next survey.
• You create a proactive negotiations strategy to link incentives to performance that provides additional gives but with savings that relate to performance and productivity improvements resulting in a win/win agreement. Backed by the use of agreed upon analytics, the agency is changing behavior with the use of metrics as an objective measure.

Easier said than done, right?

Change and the type of initiatives described above require time, commitment and resources. It’s about empowering and engaging employees at all levels, but particularly frontline employees, to ensure consistent service delivery, continuous improvement, and receiving documented feedback to measure the effect of such initiatives.

Frontline employees can be your organization’s greatest advocates – or your greatest liability. They are usually the face of your organization, dealing with customers and equipment every day.

I have found transit supervisors and managers so stressed to deliver day-to-day service and responding to situations that occur that they are unable to be proactive in their work. Even when they are willing to be proactive, they are often don’t have time to hear from the frontline folks.

However, I also think of Starbucks last week taking such reactive steps, which some estimate cost the company $12 million (a drop in the bucket to them but a hefty price tag to most transit agencies), to close 8,000 stores for employee training after an incident at a single store caused national outrage.

Unfortunately, given the demand for our industry’s services, I am fairly certain none of us could shut down operations for an afternoon unless there was a severe safety threat.

The value of proactive engagement

In my early days of managing a transit operation, I remember reading about one of the best service-based companies. I learned that their customer service strategy was focused on the employee, and the company realized the top customer satisfaction ratings in their industry.

Throughout my career, I have learned that integrating a process built on employee engagement accelerates change because you have so many more helping hands to take you there.

When organizations have conducted employee focus groups and forums, and reach out to the customers as well before issues escalate, both groups often have almost mirror images of what is going on their buses and trains. In taking the time to identify expectations and to engage employees to help us identify improvements, it is possible to focus on those issues that matter and are valued by the customer, instead of non-safety critical matters that are not valued.

When employees, supervisors, and managers are asked for input and they see that their leadership is focusing on metrics that affect their performance (and communicate it effectively), they will embrace the process.

When organizations, at all levels, commit to consistent reporting and a standardized process for managing change initiatives, employees will not only embrace it but take ownership.

When you focus on analytics and engagement you, as a leader, and your organization can see a change. You will be able to create a culture of continuous improvement, recognizing achievements. identifying the weak links in supervision and management, and providing the resources to address issues.

The wonderful part of such a process is that you will ultimately see improved safety metrics, productivity, and improved operations as frontline employees feel more empowered to make the right decisions in day-to-day operations.

In my experience and the approach we use at my firm everyday, the value of proactive efforts to gain back lost employee productivity has far outweighed the costs of reactive measures once issues escalate and your organization’s reputation, service delivery, and most of all safety is at risk.

So, my question to all transit agency leaders: Are you doing everything you can to maximize that $44 million?