A Strategic Plan for Service Integration

Methods: Consultation, Training
Topics: One Stops, WIA and Partner Programs, Staff Development

The employment service and WIA programs have been co-located for three years in the First Planning District in southern Louisiana. They have developed friendly working relationships and collaborated around several shared activities - greeter/receptionist function, designing and delivering core services in the resource area, and conducting joint staff meetings with on-site partners. Their desire is to fully integrate services by getting away from independent programmatic work activities, create clear lines of authority and responsibility with regard to One-Stop center leadership, and to better align State and local Parish policies and procedures.

Through a series of on-site consultations with system and program leadership and the facilitation of front-line, cross-agency work teams, the local workforce area now has structures, strategies, and tools to move one step closer to an integrated service delivery system.

• The newly organized leadership team has created documents outlining the responsibilities and service standards for the multiple centers, redesigned office layouts to better facilitate customer processes, reassigned staff to fulfill the variety of service functions, and established protocol for site coordination and staff supervision.
• Front-line work teams have standardized processes for customer intake, assessment, and service delivery, created "functional job descriptions" for integrated activities, and developed menus of services to get customers started on the right services the first time they enter the centers.

This transformation process continues to be a work in progress with many accomplishments to date and a fully developed action plan for next steps.

"Based on 'Mystery Shopper' feedback from job-seeking and business customers, our local area is taking steps to improve our services. Kip provided us with a framework for standardizing processes within our operations and is guiding us down a path toward better alignment of services across programs."

Melissa Kirsch, Workforce Board Director

Customer Contact: First Planning District Workforce Investment Board
Melissa Kirsch, Director
985-875-9275

Lead Consultant: Kip Stottlemyer
Stottlemyr@aol.com

Related Training: Building the One Stop Center of the Future TODAY!, Set Up for Success: An Initial Assessment Model and Practical Strategies to Quickly Assess and Serve Customers, Welcoming Customers to Your One-Stop Center: Greeting Customers for Satisfaction