Measurement efforts should be guided by the concepts of thoughtfulness, utility and credibility. Employee recognition directly improves work quality. Substantial employee recognition efforts currently underway should be enhanced to encourage employee recognition as the daily routine of managers. Emphasis should be placed on recognizing teamwork, risk-taking and creative thinking. Further, the county should expand and enhance employee development opportunities and provide each employee with support and assistance for development of individual professional development plans.
Interdepartmental teams can break down barriers and find solutions to shared problems.
Team partners may include managers, supervisors, employees, union representatives, external customers, vendors and agencies. There must be a careful analysis of the processes by which the county does business. The focus of process improvement should be on the customer and on work outcomes, with respect to human values. Identification of non-essential steps that do not add value to service or products, and ways to streamline and expedite work are necessary for successful process improvement. Continuous improvement requires incremental improvements over time.