April 7, 2008 — Since government employees are getting a bad rap for providing poor customer service, senators passed a bill Monday calling for the development of clear-cut performance standards that can be used to gauge the level and quality of assistance provided by various government departments and agencies.
The bill, primarily sponsored by Sen. Liston Davis, states that "numerous" complaints made by local customers have "centered on the negative perceptions that the government is too slow; it takes an inordinate amount of time to get anything done within government; government employees are not helpful; and the government is too confusing because it is difficult for them to deduce who to contact for service."
To remedy the problem, the bill directs the heads of the Division of Personnel, Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Collective Bargaining to create specific customer-service benchmarks. Departments and agency heads will use these standards to evaluate the quality of service delivered by their employees and will subsequently submit that information to the Personnel director to be included in an end-of-the-year report. Customer-relations representatives — assigned to implement the newly created performance standards — will also be selected within each department and agency, according to the bill.
While the measure got the green light Monday from a majority of members of the Government Operations and Consumer Protection Committee, a few senators and executive branch cabinet members said improving customer service within government is not something that can "just be legislated."
"While the concept is supported, I am not in support of customer-service standards being legislated," said OMB Director Debra Gottlieb. "Being courteous and polite are traits that are learned at an early age, and customer-service etiquette is something that is developed through professional-development training, not through legislation."
Putting customer-service representatives in every government department and agency would also take another $2 million — the cost of about 80 new employees — out of the General Fund, Gottlieb added.
On the Personnel side, training workshops and initiatives have been streamlined and are now more "agency-specific" to include programs for middle management, according to Personnel Director Kenneth L. Hermon.
"Presently, the Employee Development Unit is gearing up to visit all government agencies to establish who should be the target audience for the first round of customer-service training," he said. "We will be interviewing supervisors and agency heads to get their interpretation of their agency's deficiencies and areas of specific focus."
Though some senators agreed with Hermon's remarks — and added that the measure, if signed into law, would be hard to enforce — the bill passed on a five-to-two vote, with Davis and Sens. Carlton "Ital" Dowe, Shawn-Michael Malone, Terrence "Positive" Nelson and Alvin L. Williams voting in favor. Sens. Juan Figueroa-Serville and Basil Ottley Jr. voted against the bill.
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