The AAA Club in South Jersey serves members in Camden, Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland counties with 130 employees through two Branch Offices and a main office in Voorhees NJ.
In early 2002 the senior management team engaged the services of a consultant to assist them in developing a strategic plan with a view to increasing membership retention and customer satisfaction. The senior team presented the strategic plan to the middle managers to enlist their support for the plan and to assist them with getting employee buy-in.
The Challenge
Over the next few months it was apparent that this approach was not working. Both middle managers and employees were focused on performing their daily activities without seeing any connection to the plan, and so were not committed to its implementation.
A management task team determined that the reason the managers were not getting employee buy-in for the changes was that they lacked the skills and the tools to effectively lead people. Many of the middle managers had been promoted into their positions because of longevity, or because they were good at their jobs. This exercise with the strategic plan helped them to realize that they needed education in leadership, and particularly in how to communicate with employees more effectively.
The Process
AAA South Jersey's President, Joel Vittori and Executive Vice President, Carol A. Scott made the decision to embark on Leadership Development Process in late 2002. A key factor in that decision was that the process would be spread over a two year period, allowing time for managers to apply what they were learning from each stage before moving on to the next.
Another key reason for choosing the process was that it provided the opportunity to get all employees involved and learning through the distributive learning process. The needs assessment done by the management task team had also identified that expectations were not clear. Employees were not clear on what management expected from them, and management was not clear on what employees' expectations were.
During the first stage of leadership development, the managers learned how to use Inscape Publishing's Work Expectations Profile with their team members to get expectations out in the open. Once all employees had taken the expectations profile, communication across the organization improved significantly.
As Carol Scott put it:
"This exercise has really made me feel more comfortable with each of my direct reports. I feel like I tapped into a wealth of information that will allow all of us to perform better personally as well as professionally. I personally have gained so much from this process."
The Results
The most important results the organization has seen since embarking on this process have been in customer satisfaction and employee accountability.
The Roadside Service now has the second highest level of customer satisfaction of all areas of the club. Over the past year this group has moved from 71st place to 35th place in customer satisfaction across all 81 clubs in the Association.
In the Travel Department they have moved from 69th place to 41st place in customer satisfaction and there has been a noticeable increase in the number of customer response cards coming back marked as Totally Satisfied.
One of the reasons the senior managers did not get the buy-in to the original strategic plan from the middle managers or employees, was that they had no involvement or input into the process. Now, task teams put together to plan change initiatives consist of senior managers, middle managers and employees, and the results are very different. Employees are now taking ownership of critical results such as membe
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AAA South Jersey Increases Customer Satisfaction & Employee Engagement