Headlines

Building Bridges, A Way to Knowledge Based Operations

by Anita Bingaman

The Payroll Client Service and Production teams have never been short of knowledge. Both teams are the front line for questions about OPUS, underpayments, retirement, separation checks from more than 300 Payroll Coordinators. However, there was a problem. There were times when customers had questions for both teams and often did not know which team member to call for which question. On top of that, some questions started with a person on the production team, led to a person the Client Services team and then back to the production team. Are you confused? So were the customers.

In addition to the customer being confused, members of the two teams also realized that they were often talking to the same customer to solve a problem. The Production team member would explain what information was needed for a Production process, after which the Client Service team member would have to help the customer in getting appropriate information into OPUS. A two step process instead of just one.

Confused customers and wasted time are definitely not the goals for Payroll. Something had to be done. The two teams got together and engaged in an old fashioned brain storming session to see how the two teams could work together to better serve the customer and make better use of their own time.

The first step was to set up partnerships. A team member from the Production team was paired with a team member from the Client Services team. Each of these partnerships was then assigned a set of departments across campus, the U W Medical Center and Harborview. Then the teams identified key processes where each person lacked knowledge and started cross training in those areas.

This new partnership opened the door to many new possibilities for working with the departments on a proactive basis. The new mini-teams are Lisa Scheyer, CST, with Sam Castro, PST, Sadiq Lew, CST, with a person to be hired, and Farida Ablang, PST, with Christa Woodhull, CST.

One example of these new possibilities is action taken by Christa and Farida . They identified areas for improvement unique to their assigned departments, UWMC and Harborview Payroll Offices. They made personal visits to each department. Christa and Farida made suggestions for improving documents sent to Payroll and at the same time got input from the departments about how Payroll better serve them.