11.13.2013rgta-board
Transcription Date: 11/17/13 – Transcriber: BP/lia
[BEGIN AUDIO]
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: We have a quorum, why don’t we get started rather than keep people waiting.
Good morning, everybody, I’ll call to order the Quarterly Board Meeting of the RGRTA and its subsidiaries for Wednesday, November 13, 2013, and it’s a little after 10:00 in the morning and we’re at the headquarters on East Main Street.
First item of business is the roll call and determination of quorum.
We do have a quorum present and with that I’d ask you to stand and join in Pledge of Allegiance, please.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited)
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Okay, thank you.
Next item up is the adoption of the agenda.
The agenda’s been circulated.
Look for a motion to adopt the agenda.
Commissioner Carl.
Second?
COMMISSIONER VITAGLIANO: Second.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Commissioner Vitagliano.
All in favor?
(Chorus of Ayes)
Any opposed?
(Silence)
That’s carried.
Next item up is the approval of minutes and acceptance of reports.
Two items: the RGRTA Audit Committee Meeting Minutes of October 3, 2013 and the Regular Meeting Minutes of October 3, 2013.
Could I have a motion?
COMMISSIONER JANKOWSI: So moved.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: Second.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Commissioner Jankowski.
Second by Commissioner Argust.
All in favor?
(Chorus of Ayes)
Any opposed?
That’s carried.
Next up is the Chief Executive Report.
CEO CARPENTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is a quarterly report where we go through our transit operating performance scorecard.
These are the four [SOUNDS LIKE] areas and the five major indices we use to determine the top score at the end of the year net income - - projection, customer satisfaction, ridership percentage growth for all of RGRTA, the on-time performance for RTS and all the regionals, and the employee success indicators, the employee engagement.
I’m pleased to report for the second quarter we have exceed the goals we established and we have a score of 109.3, a very strong performance financially and you’ll hear that in detail in Scott’s report.
The customer satisfaction index: ridership is very strong and our MPS score exceeded goal, and Joe Jablonski will be talking about in more detail the MPS score.
On-time performance, this year we significantly increased the goal and for the second quarter in a row we did well in historical perspectives, but we are not achieving the 90% objective that we had established for ourselves.
We were a little over 88% which would have been very strong in prior years but not at the level that we’ve established for ourselves for this year.
I’m pleased to report early indications are we exceeded 90% for October.
This past Sunday we had 97.8% on-time performance, the highest in RTS history and so we’re expecting the 3rd Quarter to be a good quarter for us.
The employee success indicator, I want to talk about that.
You see that we achieved goal but it’s down a little bit from the first quarter.
And so go onto the next slide.
There’s three portions of the employee success indicator that we look at.
First is participation.
Our goal for participation is 35%, the 1st Quarter we were over 40%.
82 people out of 200 responded.
This quarter we’re at 34%.
The overall average, which is of the – all the indicators that are used, what’s the average score – was the same in the 1st Quarter and the 2nd Quarter, 3.9, it’s a scale of 1 to 5, and on the overall employee satisfaction our goal is 4, we came in at 4.2, versus 4.3 in the 1st Quarter, so a significant drop in the score was not how people that responded are feeling about it, but the percentage of people that responded.
Looking at it a little bit more in detail, you see - - the response rate is very strong in comparison with what we’ve had in recent history from a couple years ago where only 14% responded in January 33% responded, in the 1st Quarter we had very strong response, exceeded our goal.
In the 2nd Quarter this year, second highest level but not at the goal we’re looking to achieve.
As far as the overall, 3.9, you see that that’s where we were at the 1st Quarter and it’s above where we were in January and in 2011-12.
The four scores that rank the highest remain the same.
My job is important to the success of the company, I’m motivated to do my best every day at work, if I had the opportunity to do the same job at a different company I probably would stay where I am, and I understand what is expected of me at work.
Those were the four highest scores.
And finally, as relates to employee satisfaction, you see here stronger than we were in January, not as strong as the 1st Quarter, but you see that the agree, disagree, and strongly disagree, very small percentage of the responses – the agree and strongly agree – very strong, and that’s how we end up over the score of 4, which would be everyone’s in agreement, a score of 5 would be everyone strongly agrees, and our average is just above that 4.0 score.
If there’s any questions on the employee satisfaction, I’ll take them now.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Tom, then Karen.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: This is pretty impressive.
Just the model itself – who does this, who administers it?
CEO CARPENTER: The People Department at random sends out 200 surveys.
If they’re connected to us electronically, they receive an email invitation, if there’s someone that’s a bus operator who’s not connected to us on the network, they receive a paper copy and then there’s a time defined period where they need to respond.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: But so it’s 200?
CEO CARPENTER: 200.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: Looking at 200.
And so the 34% response or 30% response of that –
CEO CARPENTER: Was 68 out of the 200 response.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: Okay, and what are you looking for, in terms of response, per se?
CEO CARPENTER: If you go to the next slide, these are the questions that they’re asked, so like as an example, “My job is important to the success of the company.”
There too “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “neutral,” “agree,” “strongly agree.”
And that would get a score of between 1 and 5, and so you’ll see for this one in particular, this is the 2nd Quarter is in the red, the 1st Quarter is in the blue, and you see that my job’s important, strongest score that we’ve had this year, and as you go through this, you see there were a number of areas where we scored better than the 1st Quarter, some areas we scored not as well as the 1st Quarter, but overall 4.2 instead of 4.3 exceeds that goal that we were looking for, which is on average everyone agrees.
So these are the 14 specific questions that are asked and - -.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: I just had one other - - well, how good do you feel the sample is?
Are you satisfied with the sample that you - - ?
Are you feeling comfortable with your response, with the number of responses and this - -
CEO CARPENTER: Yeah, feeling very strong, and in just a minute when Joe comes up, I’ll let him start his conversation with the master statistician - - masters degree in statistics he has - - to speak specifically, but I’m very much relying on we’re sampling 25% of the workforce and we’re getting a 34% response from that sample.
Now, through the course of the year, we’ll have sampled everyone and then we can collect everyone’s scores through the course of the year.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: Okay, then the final question is: what do you do with all this now?
CEO CARPENTER: We have laid out in the People Department a quarter by quarter education piece so that where communication didn’t score very highly, people wanted more communication.
We put work groups together specific for how do we get communication out there?
It’s easy to do an email blast to those connected to the network, more difficult for someone who’s a bus operator who starts their day - - [PH] Clinton to get on a bus, ends their day getting off the bus in - - Clinton and goes home, and we’ve got a good percentage of our works that say, “I don’t know what’s going on.”
I say, “Well, if you don’t make it here, so – so how do we get it to them?
Attached flyers to a paycheck?
So a lot of different ideas, as an example just around communication, but these areas where we’re not scoring as well.
“The person I report to makes a point to provide me with feedback,” then it’s supervision training that’s being done, so we’re setting up specific work groups to push these indicators above the 4 score, across the board.
COMMISSIONER ARGUST: Very good, thanks.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Karen?
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Maybe this is a Joe question.
Can you relate this to what part of a company they work for?
I mean, is it possible that everybody that loves it works in the gym or is - -
CEO CARPENTER: [SOUNDS LIKE] I don’t know.
- - I want you to [SOUNDS LIKE] come up here, Joe - -
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Because, so you must be finding out where they work as part of the form?
JOE JABLONSKI: One of the issues that we’ve been very careful about is the anonymity of the survey [Right.] so –
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Is it done on [PH] Survey Monkey?
JOE JABLONSKI: No, it’s – yeah, some of it is, and some of it’s by mail.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: But the electronic piece is Survey Monkey?
JOE JABLONSKI: Right.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Okay.
JOE JABLONSKI: So, the attempt is, at best, to make sure that we’re not going back to look at who responded [Sure.] and who did not.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: So do they say whether they’re in the union or not, or whether they’re a driver or an administrative person?
JOE JABLONSKI: That was not part of the [SOUNDS LIKE] question.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: So we don’t know where the unhappy people versus the happy people are?
JOE JABLONSKI: Now, if you look at the very first survey of 2012 and 13, that question was asked, I mean, we did break that down, so that we could get an idea of the respondents, so we do have some of that information, so we could profile that later on, but for all intents and purposes, it’s anonymous, okay?
So the one year, the annual survey that we do has some information based on the [SOUNDS LIKE] part.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: I guess what I’m really asking is, like, what’s the proportion of employees who are union people?
JOE JABLONSKI: There is six - -
MARYALICE KELLER: - - 75%, 80%.
JOE JABLONSKI: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Okay, so do we think that 80% of these respondents are union people and 20% aren’t?
JOE JABLONSKI: No.
FEMALE SPEAKER: No.
JOE JABLONSKI: It is not broken out that way, okay?
MARYALICE KELLER: The quarterly surveys are really meant as a pulse check, so we have the initial survey at the start of the year, which was much more comprehensive in terms of looking at some of the demographics, if you will.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Okay.
MARYALICE KELLER: Through the year, we’re just looking to pulse check how are we doing to measure against the actions that we’ve been putting into place, and then our plan is, again, to do a much more comprehensive survey that’ll help us look in greater detail at some of the things you’re asking, by department, by job type, that kind of thing.
So we’ll monitor that year to year but right now we’re just pulse checking.
JOE JABLONSKI: But the survey is sent out in proportion to the population, okay?
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Right.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Steve has question - -
COMMISSIONER CARL: The whole program, is this all internally designed and administered so we don’t use any outside sources in this?
MARYALICE KELLER: Correct, it’s internally administrated.
We did work off of the Gallup, 12 question or 14 question survey that’s pretty well-known and it’s a common platform that people use, so we’ve based it on that, but it is all internally administrated at this point.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Frank.
COMMISSIONER VITAGLIANO: I just want to bring up, I think, where Karen’s going with this, is how do we touch these unhappy people?
We did this several times in my organization and it seemed like the happy people were on board as soon as the survey came out, you know, they jumped on it.
The unhappy people don’t fill it out.
And I think it’s a great point, who is filling this out, and you’re going to find that out, I guess, union, non-union, bla bla.
I just want to emphasize that the numbers look great, but it’s the people that are filling it out also.
JOE JABLONSKI: Again, I want to emphasize one of the greatest concerns that we had was the feeling in the organization that people would be able to see the individual responses, and so that we would not get a truly honest set of answers to these types of questions, so it was very important for us to ensure that level of anonymity, okay?
So it’s a good point, I think, that you make, but we balanced this out with that desire to make sure people’s opinions were protected.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: In looking at Frank’s point, every quarter you’re using 200 different people.
JOE JABLONSKI: That’s right.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: So over the course of a year, and in comparison year to year, you’re not getting the same 200 people per quarter and you’re able to see some consistency, I would think - - answers.
JOE JABLONSKI: And I think you are, based on what Bill reported.
You see that overall since the initial survey, all the metrics have improved.
So, we designed the survey and the number of participants to be 95% [SOUNDS LIKE] confident, so we want to have a level of confidence that it’s a reasonable sample that we’ve taken, and with it being anonymous and also a different 200, at the end of the year hopefully we’ve sampled a large portion of our population.
So I think that helps to some degree.
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: I think what I’m struggling with, Joe, I’m just making this up, but suppose the people in the union are happy and everybody else is unhappy, if they’re 80% of them, won’t it always look like the majority of people are happy?
JOE JABLONSKI: No, I would expect to see some changes, and again, even with the Quarter 1, the Quarter 2 results, if that were true, you’d expect very consistent answer, and to some degree that’s true but there are pieces of this that change, okay, when you look at Quarter 1 over Quarter 2 about half the metrics improved, okay?
So there are changes in the population that helped create those differences.
So have I answered the question?
COMMISSIONER PRYOR: Thanks.
CHAIRMAN REDMOND: Anybody else?
JOE JABLONSKI: So - - I’m sorry. - -
CEO CARPENTER: For our next presenter.
[LAUGHING]
CEO CARPENTER: Joe Jablonski.
JOE JABLONSKI: All right, so we’re going to talk about TOPS and here’s just some of the facts and we’ve talked about some of these in the past.
We have the four pillars that we’ve talked about, the financial, the customer service, two components to that, satisfaction and the ridership growth, the on-time performance, service delivery and then the employee engagement, which we just had a discussion about.
Today we’re going to talk about one metric, customer service, which has two elements to it.
It’s worth about 25 points of the total 100, 19 of those points associated with the net promotion - - which we’re going to review, 5 associated with the ridership which we reported on, if you recall, last month, and then 1 point assigned to the regional customer satisfaction.
So let’s talk about the [SOUNDS LIKE] net for voters score.
As you know, this year was more difficult than last, so the goal itself went up from 16-1/2 to 28, and the range was increased as well, so the maximum number – the ability to achieve those maximum number of points was much more difficult.
And if you remember last year, very oftentimes we were at the maximum which was [SOUNDS LIKE] about 24.7, and so when we talked about the goal for this year, we bumped it up and so maximum number of points now are obtained at 42, so an [PH] MPS score of 42, versus 21-1/2 last year, okay?
The [SOUNDS LIKE] trends as you can see if you look at September of ’10, August of ’11, October of 2012, and September of 2013, now we have four quarters worth of data to look at, and if you see, we started with a 16, improved to a 37, okay, that’s that high point there, and if you recall, or if you notice, that was done in August so we attribute some of that improvement in that score to the fact that we didn’t have school children on the buses, and that made a number of people very happy.
[LAUGHING]
JOE JABLONSKI: October, it was done in October last year, generally done in September, but we had, if you recall, another [SOUNDS LIKE] pick last year, we had some services changes so we had to introduce another pick, that means September very difficult to get the survey done, so we did it in October.
And the finally September of this year, the last two weeks of September, you can see that we’re at a 32, very good score, I would project that our December score is going to be somewhere in the same range, 30 to 38.