Cities Gain a Competitive Edge by Striving for Excellence

Is government efficiency a pipe dream? In a guest article for GovExec State & Local, El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez examines performance excellence and strategic planning. Gonzales previously served as city manager in Irving, Texas, which won the 2011 Texas Award for Performance Excellence (TAPE) and the 2012 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, only the second city ever to earn such a recognition.

All across the United States, cities are competing hard to attract businesses and the jobs they generate or bring with them. Companies naturally prefer to do business with efficient organizations that provide outstanding customer service. Yet how many local governments live up to these reasonable expectations?

Government efficiency needn’t be a pipe dream or something we talk about but never get around to doing. There is already a clear roadmap to greater public sector efficiency. It is the private sector concept of continuous improvement, or performance excellence.

Performance excellence is a journey for organizations and companies looking to improve processes, services, and products. The origins of performance excellence can be found in the manufacturing sector, where even seemingly small improvements in efficiency can produce bottom-line improvements quickly.

For more than two decades, the federal government and many state governments have encouraged and recognized private and public sector entities for efforts to improve operations through state programs like Quality Texas and the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Although the overwhelming majority of honorees have been private-sector organizations, two municipalities have received the national award: the City of Coral Springs in Florida and the City of Irving in Texas.

The performance excellence journey starts with strategic planning, which is paramount to achieving meaningful and measurable results. By measuring what really matters, cities can improve services to their customers. This journey has to include city leadership, city staff and, most importantly, the “customers”—the city’s residents, businesses, and visitors.

In Irving, the city asked the Chamber of Commerce to conduct a survey among businesses that revealed it was taking as long as four months for the city to issue a permit. Clearly that was making Irving much less attractive to employers. We decided to relocate to one room all 12 of the departments involved in issuing permits, and to conduct reviews two to three times each day. Permit times dropped from months to 3.5 days, while the city’s effectiveness actually improved. That one step alone drove Irving’s performance to an entirely new level.

City employees play a vital role in the journey of implementing the strategic plan. It’s up to a city’s management team to help them understand the connection between the rather routine and perhaps unglamorous work they do and how it impacts the city as a whole. One of the first areas Irving decided to tackle was the city’s visual appeal.

Ten years ago, if you had asked the litter abatement team what their job was, they would have said, “Pick up trash.” Ask them the same question now, and they say, “I make the city look better. I pick up trash along the interstate as part of our strategic plan – to improve the visual image of the city.” This critical transformation in understanding provides them with motivation to take pride in what they do for the city, and that helps improve their attitudes.

The continuous improvement journey is in full swing in the City of El Paso, Texas, which has made changes internally to ensure city employees are successful. The city has provided values training for all of the department heads and the second layer of management, as well as launched Organizational Management Examiner training and Lean Six Sigma training, which provides a framework for better performance. More than 60 staff representing all departments participated in these efforts.

El Paso also has launched “U Matter,” a program to recognize outstanding employee performance, which can provide additional motivation and ownership to employees. El Paso also has implemented a comprehensive wellness program that incentivizes physical fitness and alternative wellness. Ultimately this initiative can and will reduce health care costs for the city.

Irving, for example, lost a collective 4,500 pounds through its fitness program. The police chief and I worked out together to show city employees that our health goals applied to everyone, not just the rank-and-file. The city ended up saving $26 million in healthcare related expenses, putting back into every city employee’s pocket $150 a month.

El Paso is establishing interdepartmental teams that are focused on quality of life, economic development and process improvement, among others. The challenge to the staff is to identify ways to cut expenses and improve revenue streams without sacrificing customer service or quality.  

Such financial goals can equate to significant savings for El Paso. And, if employees better understand their connection between how well they do their jobs each day and how well the city does against a number of key indicators, there is not limit on what the city can accomplish.

Government efficiency has its skeptics and naysayers. I know from personal experience and success, however, that it is not only possible, but absolutely essential if cities are to compete effectively not just with other municipalities across the United States, but throughout the world. By having a plan, executing to that plan, and truly measuring what is most important, any city can become a more efficient and high-performing organization that better serves its community and attracts businesses and jobs.

(Top image by American Spirit / Shutterstock.com)