Create daily activities to be accomplished by individual workers which will lead to achieving Federal incentive payments.

In January 1999, Child Support Services of Davidson County, Tennessee (Nashville) took stock of their 66,000 caseload. If the county were to meet federal performance standards and contribute to Tennessee as a whole in obtaining maximum federal incentive payments, then actions by individual workers needed to correlate to those standards.

As in many child support agencies, workers’ and managers' daily activities are sometimes driven by crises. Cases are often worked on the basis of who called most often or complained most rather than on a more systematic basis. There was office-wide data to measure performance but individual workers did not have standards against which to measure their performance or track their improvement. Managers needed better tools to measure workers’ performance, reward good work, and identify and counsel workers about areas where improvement was needed.

As a remedy, a performance management system was developed for the entire agency based on four of the five federal performance standards and a future standard. These standards are: paternities

established, cases with support orders, current support collected versus due, cases with arrears payments where owed, and medical support. The plan was to work steadily toward meeting those standards on an agency-wide basis by creating goals for every worker and measuring them monthly. Managers were trained to develop internal production standards for workers in their unit. Goals for each unit were related to the federal standards. Each manager developed criteria for measuring workers based on his or her area of responsibility. Training for managers focused on how to determine reasonable expectations and set reasonable standards.

Key inputs, outputs and outcomes were identified to measure the performance of each group of workers. For example, in the enforcement area, inputs measured might be the number of messages closed (work-list items completed). Outputs might be the number of wage assignments issued, the number of liens placed on property, and the number of license revocations sought, and/or the number of collections from wage assignments.

Once what would be measured was identified, managers developed production and quality standards for workers. Managers approached this in several ways. One measure was average performance on the particular criteria in the past. "Time/motion studies" could be used to determine how long an average or above average worker spent on the various tasks required by the job. Working backwards to set a standard, managers might first determine the total number of actions needed to meet federal performance standards – e.g., how many paternities must be established, how many new support orders need to obtained. This number was then divided by the average number of employees available to do the work. This gave the productivity required per worker to meet the federal standard in question. The annual number could be used to develop monthly goals.

Through a combination of efforts, each manager developed specific production standards for the workers they supervise. Production standards were measures of key inputs, outputs and outcomes – for individual workers – with goals for each month. A compilation of these individual goals should allow the office to meet the federal performance standards.

In addition, managers established, accuracy standards. Five cases would be pulled at random from those handled by each worker each month. These would be reviewed by the manager to answer three questions:

Monthly quality/accuracy goals were set for each worker in addition to the production goals. Workers were given a score based on their performance on their case sample.

A simple data-keeping system was developed to track worker actions, for example, a tally of the number of work list items completed. Data are available from automated and non-automated sources. The manager reviews mentioned earlier are included in the evaluation mix to establish an accuracy score. Each worker receives a monthly report on his or her performance and brief discussion with the supervisor about their work. The report combines information about scores on both production and accuracy goals.

Workers who meet their goals are recognized each month at a staff meeting and given small rewards such as certificates or movie tickets. Promotions and salary increases may be long-term rewards for high performers. Counseling is used to address performance barriers for under-performing workers. In extreme cases, disciplinary action is possible, backed up by objective data on performance.

On a quarterly basis, performance standards are reviewed to see whether adjustments are needed. Those that appear to be either unreasonably low or unreasonably high are modified accordingly. In addition, on a quarterly basis the group looks to see if they are on track to meet the federal performance standards. If one area is lagging behind, additional resources which may be needed are identified and available resources reallocated if it appears necessary to meet current needs.

The most dramatic results have been seen in the area of accuracy. At the beginning of the project a sample of cases were examined from the period prior to the initiation of the project. Accuracy levels were not acceptable. Now the agency is near to achieving its goal of a minimum accuracy rate of 90 percent – a dramatic increase over the initial rate.

Outcomes have also improved substantially, with each month showing steady improvement – some months only two to five percent, others higher. A plateau has not been reached. The number of crises are reduced. Both managers and workers feel more in control of the work. Employee surveys show higher job satisfaction rates among workers. Employee turnover rates are down. Employees complain less often about being treated unfairly or asked to do more than their share.

Davidson County is an urban county which includes Nashville, Tennessee.

Regular IV-D funds.

Allocate time for managers to develop standards, to gather data, audit workers' cases, and counsel workers about their performance. The organization must believe this time investment will pay off. The managers’ boss must support this and be willing to give the managers time to start the process.

The message: "Stop, slow down, create the framework which will allow you to build the blocks needed to meet the tough new federal performance standards. Everybody works better if they know what is expected of them."