Sunday, June 10, 2012

Crowd Sourcing Improvements

At our last Labor/ Management (L/M) meeting our Deputy State Forester (now acting State Forester) Paul Bell asked if our outreach for agenda items was good enough, are we hearing what is going on. I want to know that too.

We, the crowd, are a source of ideas to improve our service delivery and make changes or affirm processes that continually improve how we do business and operate in our workplaces. Labor/ Management meetings are one way to bring those ideas forward. Pretty much un-filtered they are heard by the Deputy State Forester and Human Resource Chief as they are presented by your elected union leadership. The recent publication “Out of State Dispatch” came in part because of an agenda item from one of our meetings. Now in one place you can know a little more about what to expect before you go out of state to help on an incident.

Rumor Control is another agenda item. What are you hearing that needs to be checked out? Our Committee may not have all of the “Myth Busters” tools but do a pretty good job of finding out the real or developing story behind a rumor.

Paul put a good question to us “are we doing enough” to find out what the issues and rumors are within the Department? That is our responsibility as your union leadership to seek out and be available to field these ideas and concerns. Look up Bryan, Doug, Tim or myself, we are all in different geographic areas and also as close as your phone or e-mail. I want to know.