Focus First On Service

This manual serves as both a strategic training experience and a tool for achieving quality customer service at your water utility. Topics covered include communication strategies, automated technologies, complaint resolution, managing conflict, and more. It's informative and easy to understand format allow for quick results.

The importance of the first-year experience is now well recognised. This collection of papers makes a fascinating and important contribution to our understanding of students' transition to higher education. This is a scholarly, engaging and illuminating text, that is relevant not only in the context of South Africa, but for anyone interested in student learning in the first year of university education. David Gosling, Plymouth University

To distinguish an L&D program that affects learner behavior, you must put results first. Doing so helps you show the value of your work as a learning consultant and demonstrate the value of L&D activities. In this issue of TD at Work, Chris Adams and Beth Hughes introduce the Results Come First framework. You will discover: • how results should come first when engaging with clients • the forces that may throw off the balance of your development initiative • examples of how the framework works in action.

An essential guide for those charged with supervision of nonclinical staffin programs, agencies, and units within social service organizations "As someone who has worked in social service agencies, consulted with hundreds of them, and who teaches social service professionals, Ms. Summers knows the issues faced by agencies firsthand. From this experience she has compiled a thoughtful and well-organized text that identifies the principles of effective supervision." —Samuel Knapp, EdD Director of Professional Affairs, Pennsylvania Psychological Association From the Foreword The care of patients and clients of social service agencies is increasingly being performed by paraprofessionals or professionals with little experience. While there are many books written about giving quality clinical supervision, there is very little on supervising the least experienced frontline nonclinical and clinical staff to teach and promote positive and effective interaction with clients, and provide staff support and training that elevates quality care, improves job satisfaction, and minimizes staff turnover. Based on author Nancy Summers' many years of working with troubled social service agencies, Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence: Five Keys to Exceptional Supervision fills this need and offers numerous ideas for securing the best care for those served by social service agencies. Common problems faced by agencies are examined with regard to employee behavior and wellness, including staff teamwork, how to build healthy staff/client relationships, and the identification and prevention of routine disrespect of clients and their needs. Diagnostic techniques are presented for identifying these problems, as well as remedies and prevention programs that can be put in place without great expense. Filled with interviews and numerous case examples, Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence offers a step-by-step process for: creating good preventive measures to counteract negative practices that can occur; developing robust commitment and enthusiasm; and getting back on the right track after unfortunate incidents have taken place.

Work is central to a whole host of other rights, providing the basis for a safe, healthy and dignified existence. For members of minorities, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups such as migrants, however, it is all too often an arena of discrimination, abuse and exploitation. From poor pay and dangerous working conditions to a lack of basic labour protections and barriers to promotion, the challenges they face are wide ranging and often entangled in other areas of inequality, such as access to education. This volume brings together thematic chapters and case studies that explore different dimensions of work-related exclusion, from the legacy of colonialism in today’s economy to the persistence of slavery and caste-based discrimination. While abuse and exploitation are often rooted in specific local histories and social contexts, the increasingly interlinked nature of globalization has meant that companies, governments and consumers are now complicit in forced labour and other rights violations taking place elsewhere. A truly fair and inclusive labour market would deliver a wide range of economic and societal benefits, creating opportunities for marginalized workers to participate fully in the formal economy with the same rights, protections and support as those enjoyed by others, guaranteed by international law. Beyond this, however, it has the potential to deliver lasting change to the situation of minorities, indigenous peoples and migrants worldwide, ensuring they receive a proper share of any economic gains in their countries and can participate fully in public life.

The New Public Service: Serving, not Steering provides a framework for the many voices calling for the reaffirmation of democratic values, citizenship, and service in the public interest. It is organized around a set of seven core principles: (1) serve citizens, not customers; (2) seek the public interest; (3) value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship; (4) think strategically, act democratically; (5) recognize that accountability isn’t simple; (6) serve, rather than steer; and (7) value people, not just productivity. The New Public Service asks us to think carefully and critically about what public service is, why it is important, and what values ought to guide what we do and how we do it. It celebrates what is distinctive, important, and meaningful about public service and considers how we might better live up to those ideals and values. The revised fourth edition includes a new chapter that examines how the role and significance of these New Public Service values have expanded in practice and research over the past 15 years. Although the debate about governance will surely continue for many years, this compact, clearly written volume both provides an important framework for a public service based on citizen discourse and the public interest and demonstrates how these values have been put into practice. It is essential reading fo students and serious practitioners in public administration and public policy.

This manual serves as both a strategic training experience and a tool for achieving quality customer service at a water utility. Topics covered include communication strategies, automated technologies, complaint resolution, managing conflict, and more. Its informative and easy to understand format allows for quick results.