Inspire Wonder! Can-do culture, customer-centric systems, and barrier-free design

“Inspire Wonder: Can-do culture, customer-centric systems, and barrier-free design”

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Presenting at #BCLA2019 with the @whistlerpubliclibrary senior management team.

Some points from my bit of our talk:

  • Service excellence is a powerful means of spreading the good word about your library, attracting and keeping customers, but it can also help you to recruit staff!

  • How can we bring a service-focus to our “heart of the house” (circulation and technical services) operations? First, we had to reduce waste! We assessed for “non-value adding activities”—these are any processes not resulting in value to our customers. “Deliver value early and often” and “stop starting, start finishing” are two Agile catch-phrases we try to live by!

  • Provide space for regular reflection and continuous improvement. We meet with our team members in several ways. First, there is a mini-meeting every day. Second, we commit to one-on-one coaching, regular, 30-minute meetings. We also hold departmental meetings every quarter. In these meetings, we ask: What’s working well? What could we do better? We keep these ideas visible in our work area.

  • “Kaizen” is a concept that means “continuous improvement.” When we say kaizen, we mean small tweaks that we can make to make a big difference. Perhaps we need to move a meeting from the morning to the afternoon, so we can leave our mornings for knowledge work. Or, we start initialling our work as a point of quality control.

  • Nadine riffed on the 3R’s: reliability, responsiveness, and relationship-building. These apply equally to the back of the house! We have to be precise, prompt, and find ways to engage with our patrons.

  • Our Materials Management and Technical Services departments are committed to providing a great experience to our internal customers, i.e. our team mates! As managers, Nadine, Kaley, Elizabeth and I are dedicated to improving the employee experience. Since technology can be a stress point for all of our staff, I hold space monthly for “Techie Tuesdays.” Everyone is invited to bring questions, debrief as to challenging interactions they’ve experienced on the floor, offer input and feedback as to technology in the library, and shoot the breeze about tech trends and headlines.