How are we doing?
By Leigh Wilkinson, OIT
New York City Mayor Ed Koch was famous for approaching citizens on the street and asking, “How am I doing?” Partly due to his willingness to ask his question and listen to citizens, Koch was re-elected 3 times as mayor and would become one of the best known and well respected mayors in the history of the city.
Recently the Agency Information Technology Directors (AITDs) were asked to distribute an email requesting that state employees take a short survey to let us know what their thoughts were on OIT performance. It was the OIT version of “How are we doing?” We asked you to comment on several areas:
- technical environment – the equipment and software that are used
- business applications – both agency specific and enterprise applications
- help desk and service process for resolving equipment problems
- thoughts on interactions with core technology departments
- open comments on any OIT related topic
The survey closed Friday, December 7, 2007; 1,322 employees had taken the survey in the month that it was available. That number exceeds the goal of 10% of all the employees served through OIT and is a statistically valid sample size. Nearly all of the agencies were represented, as were all levels of state government employees; 888 of respondents were hourly employees, 197 were supervisors or leads, 149 were managers, and 88 respondents were directors, senior managers or above. This is an excellent distribution of employment demographics that will help analyze the data.
Many of the respondents took the time to explain their thoughts and concerns in comment fields throughout the survey. In the general comment field alone, 435 comments were received. Three hundred fifty-one respondents included emails requesting a copy of the results or to follow up on comments.
Over the next few weeks we will ‘slice and dice the data' to analyze responses in the following manner:
- produce a general report of the total results
- parse the data to send agency specific results to the AITDs and core technology departments. These OIT resources will be able to see how the areas of their responsibility, specific to their role, are being rated by the respondents
- review each of the comments made by those individuals who included an email to see if they require a follow up contact by an OIT resource.
Finally, the reports will be used in assessing and planning efforts to continue to improve service. These survey results will spark many thoughtful conversations and planning sessions in the future. Our goal is to meet your business needs in the most effective manner balancing efficiency with performance. Please look for the summary report and other information early in January 2008. In the meantime, please send any questions to Leigh.s.wilkinson@maine.gov.
A profound thank you to all of the employees who took the time to complete the survey.
