A successful workplace creates an atmosphere of cooperation.
It puts everyone — from the lowest paid worker to the person who heads the enterprise — on a level playing field with one purpose in mind: creating the best organization possible.
Without a balanced give-and-take environment, where communication is free flowing and mutual trust is genuine, organizations often fail to best serve their customers. In the case of the state of Connecticut, that customer would be the general public.
For more than a decade, when John Rowland sat as governor, an atmosphere of mistrust and contention developed between his administration and the state’s public employee labor unions.
That mistrust got in the way. It eventually led to the layoffs and early retirements of about 3,000 workers, a protracted lawsuit in federal court and missed opportunities to revisit an expensive 20-year agreement covering health care and pension benefits for state workers.
Rell needs to banish the negative tone established during the Rowland administration. It has distracted both sides from working to create an environment where the enterprise of state government is clearly focused on better serving Connecticut residents.
The current administration needs to actively begin working to improve relations with the 13 labor unions that represent the vast majority of state workers. And the union leaders need to recognize that they too have a role in moving the relationship beyond the confrontation and mistrust that prevailed during the Rowland days.
The reason is simple. Taxpayers will benefit. Costs will be reduced. And the state’s services will improve.
Together, the administration and labor unions should reestablish an ongoing Innovations Committee comprised of rank-and-file representatives from various agencies who will identify areas for improvement in government efficiency and productivity.
The committee was abolished more than a decade ago. Its end stands as a symbol of the impasse between labor and the administration.
But its purpose would be more than symbolic. Government stands to learn much from the private sector, which has made leaps in productivity in the past decade thanks to a combination of technological advances and intense global competition.
Lean manufacturing and a commitment to continuous improvement in methods and “best practices” have helped transform business. Government has been much slower to adopt these advances.
The committee could help correct that by reexamining how the state provides services to the public, exploring areas ripe for cost-cutting, developing specific recommendations and then actually implementing them. Not all innovations that work in the private sector apply to government, which exists to serve the public, not produce products and services for consumption. But many could.
The committee should also begin to take a hard look at the state’s long-term financial prospects. The state’s current pay-later approach to its long-term obligations is, frankly, unsustainable.
Without a fresh commitment to cooperation by both the administration and labor, it’s hard to see how Connecticut is going to come up with a workable long-term solution.
The reestablishment of a working committee empowered to implement changes is a first step in the development of a desperately needed long-term plan to both reduce government costs and improve public service.