National Hammer Award
(Continued hem Png* A2l) (1875-1965) had said, •'Example is
not the main thing in influencing
others it's the only thing.”
Hawkins said the award was
very much appreciated by the team
because it signified that to them
that somebody was noticing, other
than die people they served, that
government could change and also
that they were allowed to make
their own decisions and have input
into creating and carrying out a
better way of providing service.
"Basically this idea started back
in 1991, and it was at my sugges
tion to my former supervisor Dr.
Ulysses Lane, area veterinarian in
charge Hawkins said.
She said that essentially the way
service was provided was accord
ing to political and geographical
subdivisions, not according to ser
vice need.
This both frustrated workers and
those needing die services of the
APHIS Veterinary Services to do
business.
The change essentially was to
remove the heirarchy of Hawkins
being supervisor to that of team
leader, respecting the integrity and
intelligence of other team mem
bers in getting work done and in
knowing what needs to be done.
Geographic and political bound-
The fact that this is an election
year, and that President Clinton
happened to be in Scranton the
same day had nothing to do with
Dunn's presence in Harrisburg, he
said. In effect, Dunn said that the
area of USDA he currently over*
sees is a service function that has
as a necessary function of its inte
grity to distance itself of political
manuevering.
He said that allowing Hawkins
and the others to take on responsi
bility for changing the way gov
ernment does business, to delegate
that authority was a risk for the
team's supervisors implying
that the supervisors would have
been responsible should the pro
ject fail to succeed or result in
problems.
“But it is an example fo what
can happen in government,” Dunn
said. “This is not a political ploy.
This is a genuine effort to do some
thing to improve government.
They got an award that was a Ham
mer Award. The real reward for
them was to provide service to
their customers.”
Dunn said he believed in what
noted philosopher, physician,
music scholar and Protestant cler
gyman Albert Schweitzer
tries were removed from die ser
vice region. The strategy instead
was to focus on serving the areas
where the work was needed.
Further, part of the team’s
responsibility was to go out to indi
vidual farms for field service, for
which the farms previously had for
be charged $350 each. The team
worked with those needing the
work done and (similar to how the
Holstein Association USA now
tries to group its classifications, for
those familiar with that service)
was able to get service trips lined
up to that nine than one farm in an
area could receive service per trip,
thereby reducing die cost per farm
to $5O. a reduction of $3OO per
farm per trip.
In 1991. when Hawkins first
joined the USDA, having sold a
small animal veterinary practice in
the Allentown area, she said the
eastern region received42o permit
applications. Of those received,
only 130 were served with an aver
age turnaround time of 11 months.
Under the team and service
approach, in 1993 the team
received 580 permit requests, all
were served and average turnar
ound was reduced to 30 days.
“Our field team solved this
problem in several ways. First we
plotted the premises when our
byproducts inspections needed to
be done. With this information we
UncMUr Farming, Saturday, February 24,1996-A25
were able to ‘batch* several pre
mises together and go out and do
several permits at one time, bring
ing the average manhour for a
single inspection from an average
of four hours to approximately one
hour per inspection.
“In addition, we set up a piority
system for handling permits. Base-
d on priority, we decide to handle
many non-priority permits by
phone and fax. This allowed us to
greatly increase the number of per-
mits served and to decrease the
cycle time,” she said.
Two team members purchased
their own phone answering
machines and fascimile machines.
At their own cost, one member
even installed a separate telephone
line to handle agency business.
“I ran a veterinary hospital in the
private sector,” Hawkins said,
“and when I came to work for gov
ernment, I was shocked at the way
things were done and how low a
priority was placed on customer
service. So that was my impetus
(to change government).”
She said she received tentative
approval for a one-year pilot pro
ject and then it had to be evaluated.
The group set up goals, such as
improving animal disease detec
tion service for such disease as
tuberculosis, and to respond more
quickly to the animal byproducts
customers, such as taxidermists
who need to have animal part
imported, or bone meal coming in
country, or even pig ear doggie
chews coming in from Brazil.
She explained that all that has to
be tested for approval. “We had a
tremendous number and they just
weren’t getting serviced because
the vast majority were falling with
in one person’s jurisdiction (under
the old government setup.)
The team approach was to spend
more effort in where the work was,
instead of having one worker over
worked and the other perhaps
undetchallenged.
The group started tracking tire
number of permits, how long it
took to service customers, tracking
the rate of submissions for disease
testing at slaughter houses and
other pertinent measurable para
meters of business.
Once a baseline of current aci
tivity was established, the team set
about improving those numbers.
The team also developed a
survey for customers, the first
developed by theUSDA’s veterin
ary services in the nation.
“Compared to the way govern
ment normally works, this was a
significant change,” Hawkins said.
The group began and continues to monitor
its success according to customer
satisfaction something Hawkins said she
was used to doing in the private sector.
Again receiving the award and having
Assistant Secretary Dunn travel from
Washington on a Friday morning during a
heavy winter snowstorm impressed Hawkins,
she said.
She said Dunn took out two cards they
are cards issued by the Clinton Administra
tion and signed by those who receive them as
a promise to make government better by rein
venting regulation and government.
As a member of reinventing government
team, the card says the bearer will invent a
government that puts people first by “putting
customers first, cutting red tape, empowering
employees to get results, (and) cutting back to
basics.”
On the reverse of the card is a list of the
ways in which this will be done. "We will:
create a clear sense of mission; steer more,
row less; delegate authority and responsibili
ty, help communities solve their own prob
lems; replace regulations with incentives;
‘develop budgets based on outcomes; inject
competition into everthing we do; search for
market, not administrative solutions; (and)
measure our success by< customer
satisfaction."
On the other card, on reinventing regula
tion, is printed, “All regulators will: cut obso
lete regulations; reward results, not red tape;
(Turn to Pago A 32)