Missouri Gov. Mike Parson presented teams from five state departments Tuesday with the annual Governor's Award for Quality and Productivity.
"My career has really been focused on public service," the governor said before presenting the awards. "So many times, you guys get overlooked a little bit as state employees.
"Since I've been governor, (I've) gotten to see the work ethic, the honor and integrity that people have - and that you people who are receiving these awards today are really trying to do things better for the state of Missouri.
"And the one thing I have learned from being governor (is), you have a lot more ideas and better ideas about how to make government better, to streamline government, than I do."
The awards recognize winning teams in three categories: Customer Service, Efficiency/Process Improvement and Innovation.
The five winning teams honored Tuesday came from among 19 that entered the 2018 competition.
"Each winning team has demonstrated that they met really strict requirements for excellence, effectiveness and efficiency," state Chief Operating Officer Drew Erdmann explained. "I do want to assure you that the other 14 teams really demonstrated the care, creativity and commitment that we would love to see in all of our public servants.
"All 19 teams really did inspirational work."
The five teams honored Tuesday were:
Missouri Division of Employment Security's "Unemployment Insurance Claims Cross-Training Initiative"
Anna S. Hui, state Labor and Industrial Relations director, said the initiative grew from the "spike in unemployment claims" that happens during the winter months each year.
Division staff who don't normally handle unemployment claims were trained so they could help with the increased workload, while still having time to do their regular work, she said.
"During this busy season, increased workloads and longer wait times create more pressure for staff and (for) claimants filing unemployment claims," Hui explained. "Compared to the same time span, one year prior, average call-wait times were reduced by nearly 54 percent."
The cross-trained staff handled about 9,300 calls, she said, for "2,150 hours of work. Without a doubt, this cross-training was a success."
St. Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center's Nursing Recruitment and Retention Team
Mental Health Director Mark Stringer noted: "We operate seven state psychiatric hospitals in Missouri - all of which have some very sick (and) sometimes dangerous people who need treatment.
"And you can't run a hospital of any kind without nurses."
Dr. Felix Vincenz, who heads the St. Louis facility, explained: "This team did a remarkable job of identifying some of the key problems in the facility around recruitment and retention - and did a really transformative job of changing the culture in our hospital."
The work resulted in a 60 percent reduction in psychiatric technician vacancies and a 22 percent reduction in PT turnover, he said. And registered nurse vacancies were cut by 27 percent.
"Those are no small accomplishments," Vincenz said.
Department of Revenue's Call Center "Road to 100 Percent"
In 2017, the state Revenue Department's Call Centers were "answering about 30 percent of all incoming calls - on a good day," Acting Director Ken Zellers said.
The goal was changed to answer all the incoming calls - no easy task for an agency's call centers that "receive about 1.9 million citizen-customer calls per year," he said, "(and) we were missing out on about 1.3 million opportunities to delight our customers."
But, between December 2017 and March 2018, "The team had turned the call centers around from answering 20 to 30 percent of the calls, to answering around 98 percent of all incoming calls," he said.
"Since then, they've had several days of 100 percent (and) the only acceptable number is 100 percent. And they're still working hard, every day, to deliver that experience to the customers."
Conservation Department's "Discover Nature Schools Team"
The program is the department's "flagship, nature-based education program for Missouri schools," Conservation Director Sara Parker Pauley said. "The goal of the program is to empower educators to help students discover nature - and to become knowledgeable citizens who value and support Missouri's fish, forest and wildlife resources."
Today, it serves more than 560,000 students in Missouri's public, parochial and private schools, Pauley reported.
"We've seen adoption of the 'Discover Nature Schools' curriculum by approximately 90 percent of Missouri (public) school districts - an example of an exceptional partnership between the Department of Conservation and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education."
And, she said, the program "is inclusive of all students, including those with diverse educational (and) physical accommodation needs."
Although it's successful, Pauley said, there's a continuing challenge to keep the curriculum up to date with education and technology standards.
MoDOT's TMA (Truck Mounted Attenuator) Flagger
This program received the governor's "Pinnacle Award," determined by the awards committee to be "excellent across all the categories," Erdmann said.
And its success means many motorists in Missouri soon will encounter a mechanical "flagger" instead of a human being in highway work zones on two-lane roads.
Transportation Director Patrick McKenna said the mechanical flagger was developed after several accidents killed road crew members.
"In 2018, 11 people were killed in work zone crashes on state (highway) system routes, and an additional two were killed on the local (road) system," McKenna said. "In total, at MoDOT, 134 MoDOT workers have paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to the public of Missouri" - including 19 since 2000.
McKenna said development of the mechanical flagger began in 2015 "and became a top priority in 2016, after two tragedies."
He added: "Test results showed motorists stopped sooner - and further back - than with a human flagger. Drivers also moved slower around a work zone when it was their turn to pass the TMA Flagger.
"The TMA Flagger is more effective than a human flagger."
The testing was so successful in the Kansas City area, McKenna said, that MoDOT issued a "request for proposal for the purchase of 44 TMA Flaggers that will be deployed across the state."
And the mechanical flagger has drawn interest from the FHWA and from officials in other states, he said.