From Workstations to Working Beyond Stations

The role of a Branch Service Manager (YMCA of Greater Charlotte) can be perceived as something of a do-it-all role. In the space of my time in this role (2.5yrs at the Simmons branch), activities have covered operational, sales/retention, and information service modes. As such, I’ve had a bit of freedom to explore some elements of the role where processes and accountability have fallen from primary organizational objectives, or seen a significant redesign in light of new rules (federal, organizational, and cultural).

The two most significant actions that have occurred within my time in this role have been the design, development, and release of several client (member and internal)-facing JotForms, and the use of a personal iPad to lower barriers to interaction for parts of the sales/retention experience. The latter is what I wish to focus on, as I believe that with the right kind of perspective, that the role of a Branch Service Manager (and even that of a Sales and Service Representative) can better look like the type of customer relations professional who increases the perceived quality value of YMCA leadership and services.

Backstory

Within a few months of my transition into the Branch Service Manager (BSM) role, I thought it a good idea to embark on an experiment by which I would utilize my personal iPad as a direct touchpoint when interacting with members for matters of information retrieval that were not related to transactions. At the time, it was my understanding that the CRM (customer relationship management software platform) utilized by the YMCA of CLT was not suited for touch-based input, and therefore using it would necessitate logging into the YMCA CLT domain using an approved remote desktop application. I was later granted access to utilize an approved remote desktop application from my iPad, and this led to an understanding of what challenges were left in completing the sales transaction when utilizing a tablet device.

Continued use of my personal iPad offered several efficiencies over common methods of interaction and annotating:

• Instead of carrying a notebook to meetings, I was able to take advantage my already entrenched use of Evernote for notes during internal meetings; this later morphed into the use of Evernote’s Penultimate as it was better for handwriting quick notes and appending photo assets to those handwritten notes.
• Setting up a folder (browser bookmarks) with common links to public and internal sites make it easier to answer most questions related to facility and program usage; rather than waiting for an available computer
• Development of the aforementioned JotForms decreased errors in recording and processing several closing transactions, increased response time for specific opening sales activities, and streamlined internal reporting for a few department’s quality assurance efforts.

Finally, a noted demonstration of the iPad to replace the often used Tour Card led to the acquisition of 4 iPad devices (2 used at Simmons and 2 used at Johnston) which have been used for similar types of information collection and membership interaction.

Shift in Physical Space

In the fall of 2014, physical reorganization at the Simmons branch offered a chance to further this iPad-initiated behavior. Upon moving my YMCA-issued workstation, I opted to not connect the tower to the monitor, nor to utilize a keyboard/mouse for interaction. Instead, I utilized an HDMI dongle, connected to the monitor, to broadcast the screen of my iPad (since updated to the iPad Mini 3) when needed for large screen interactions. As I was used to the touch-mouse gestures within the Microsoft Remote Desktop app, I could navigate within the YMCA-CLT domain efficiently when necessary. I could then use the physical desk-space for the remaining activities which required paper auditing (such as reviewing membership forms & longer-term consumer interactions using the telephone), while continuing to redefine some of the engagement practices which were becoming commonplace in several retail-service establishments.

Organizational policy shifted me back to the commonly-issued Dell workstation. But, not before I was able to get enough usage in a tablet-monitor driven experience to add depth to the items noted in this article.

Stationary Aspects of Administrative Functions

For those who work in administrative functions, a workstation is no less important than the desk it sits on, or the chair postured before it. Many of these roles offer minimal required client interaction, and for several of these roles, client interaction happens behind closed doors, where leaving a desk isn’t not the general practice. These roles require focused, dedicated space in order to formulate and report or data that needs a specific type of attention. The communication style of this role is largely temporal (“open office hours,” “will be in the branch at ‘x’ time,” etc.) and reactionary — so a workstation and its desk phone paring work to the advantage of managing programs and understanding the data streams to keep them going.

This describes about 1/3 of the role.

Supporting the Front Desk

Another — arguably more important — role is that of the Sales and Service Representative (S&S Rep). This person stands at the front desk and serves as the transaction agent, customer touchpoint, and knowledge repository of much of what happens within a branch. Some of this work is similar to that of those in administrative functions: information retrieval and analysis for example. It is the act of closing that informational loop with some kind of financial transaction (new, renewed, or closing sale) that separates the S&S Rep from other administrative roles. This person literally has to be able to answer questions about programs by which they have no oversight, while also taking on the financial responsibility of selling it, and the spatial responsibility of directing persons to it. Where the S&S Rep is not able to sufficiently answer the customer inquiry (the customer can be guest, member, other staff person, or program director), they forward that item to the BSM — who by role, would have greater insight into processes or specific spheres of knowledge.

This third of this role is best described as “supporting the front desk.” Its scope means to be accessible within the campus during hours of operations for such support, and for program/facility updates which might affect facility/program/service quality. Usually, accounting for this means leaving a physical space, but needing information encased within the YMCA-CLT domain. Traditionally, this has looked like accessing brochures, binders, or printing electronic materials for transactional consumption. This has evolved to knowing several of the detail-level elements of programs offered at a specific branch, alternatives towards stated programming, basic facility oversight (i.e., general security, notation of infrastructure issues, external campus awareness), responsibility for training/post-training corrective actions, and member communications after the initial transaction. My specific role, being a derivative of (upgrade from) the S&S Rep has to also be able to complete specific transactions unauthorized for the S&S Rep, or which need to be done in a timely manner when the Membership Director or other Program Director is not immediately available (limited scope of these actions).

Ancillary Responsibilities

In addition to these items, there are some ancillary responsibilities such as

• moderating schedules towards non-business hours managerial support
• purchasing supplies (including printed marketing collateral, input devices, etc.)
• addressing minor technical support questions (beyond my role these go to the YMCA-CLT IS Department)
• contributing towards community support donation campaigns (marketing, financial, committees, etc.)

I’ve evolved in these responsibilities towards documenting and creating paperless forms with associated workflows to trim the administrative times allotted towards some member-facing and internal quality behaviors. Over 2 dozen of these forms/workflows have been developed, with a quarter of them in a live or beta state, and two having reached a level of association adaptation and use.

Summary of These Three Roles-Types

The role of a Branch Service Manager therefore comes down to three effective behaviors:

1. Perform validation on all forms processed by Sales and Service (S&S) Representatives
2. Support S&S Reps and other Departments to operational and sales excellence
3. Define and/or demonstrate operational efficiencies for department, branch, and association effectiveness

Only the first of these requires a workstation, and that’s due to the implementation ofPersonify CMS. For reasons not stated directly to me, there are no plans for tablet devices (iPad, Android, or Windows) to be utilized with Personify, and therefore any changes made within that platform’s interface and tools for those devices cannot be taken advantage of in the current software environment of the YMCA of Greater Charlotte.

The first item also has the condition of a few practices, inconsistent from branch to branch, towards the types of paperwork received by members, the validation of that paperwork by S&S Reps, S&S Leads, Branch Service Managers, and/or Branch Office Support persons. Some branches have moved into partial-digital forms. Some branches utilize the content types within Personify to store/manage data, and others use forms of various designs (formats, inputs, etc.) from various marketing epocs at the YMCA-CLT. These are items which are constrained to workstations, and the network drives attached to them.

The 2nd and 3rd items need only a browser and access to internal shared spaces (shared network drives, report portals, and other content stored on SharePoint, named ~YLife for the YMCA-CLT). These are items usually best served to internal and external publics when requested, but do require a knowledge of those spaces, what’s permissible to access in those spaces, and transmitting those to internal/external persons in the desired format.

Sales and other functions related to Personify which would be categorized under numbers 2 and 3 would be accessible via the aforementioned Microsoft Remote Desktop application. However, this access is restricted to specific types of persons employed by the YMCA-CLT and only on devices authorized for use on their networks (devices must accept a specific network, security policy).

Removing the Desk But Not the Office

The largest and most mentioned fear here is in some kind of removal of the office. Now, the Branch Service Manager role needs an office at times. There are specific behaviors such as validation and report generation which need a dedicated working space. Also, there are some member-facing conversations where the privacy of an office is necessary in order to secure the vitality of the mission. In another, more practical sense, there needs to be a place to secure the tablet device, charge it, and perform maintenance towards it.

In my ideal world, such an office would have seating for the BSM, a desk, and a docking station for the tablet. On the desk would be a secured wireless keyboard, and a monitor which would be connected to (wired to the dock, or wireless from the mobile device). I would probably add some kind of small feed scanner/printer for the tasks which remain that either need to become digital, or need a physical finishing point. However, I would aim for a non-printing finishing point for all things — elevating the computer competence not only of the work being done, but those being served.

So many people think Office & productivity make the PC form factor eternal. Not exactly. Those are tools, not jobs (Benedict Evans, Twitter 2015)

The software used currently needs to either be jettisoned for something else, or designed better to fit into a method where search-do-assign is the metric for success, rather than its current search-analyze-process scope. I don’t see that the decision makers even understand this direction, as the same CRM interface for point of sale is being used for analysis, while reporting is happening in other systems. To execute on this cleanly, a cohesive software vision — with different faces for behaviors — needs to be priority.

I don’t know that a dedicated phone should be needed in this setup. The idea of a desk phone precludes that one will be stationary more often than they are mobile. Instead, the IP-based telephone system of the modern office should allow for time-based rules which forward calls sent to an extension either to the BSM’s mobile device, or even directly to the tablet for audio/video/text responses.

Not Mobile-First, Service-First

Over the months that it has taken to compose this document, I’ve gone back and forth about whether the document or discussion as a whole is needed. There has indeed been an identification of the technologies and behaviors implemented, experimented on, and acquired — and the discussion of how we get there. And there are unspoken items within this document towards failures, mishaps, and personal/branch costs. At the end of the day, the goal for the Branch Service Manager has to be to serve its clients with the type of quality of service indicative of the values and mission of the YMCA. When service is laid first, it makes the discussion (the “how” and “why”) of behaviors and technologies easier to hear move towards.

The aim for this document is to lay out not only why revisiting the posture of the Branch Service Manager needs to change in the perspective of technology tools — but why such a change is a service-first attitude which positions branches and their members for the best possible results in a world that’s going to be significantly different going forward. It is very likely that this side of the discussion only resolves in the lens of a single person. And that’s ok. I only lay claim to the observations which shaped this piece, not any organizational decisions which led to how I performed actions, or changes in the role to which these observations are no longer valid.

At the time of the publishing, I am no longer employed by the YMCA of Greater Charlotte; and have endeavored to ensure that no persons or organization-sensitive information has been shared.

Additional Thoughts towards the Topic

• Frog Design: The Commoditization of the Workplace
• Frog Design: The Future of Enterprise Mobility
• GigJam by Microsoft
• World Economic Forum: Deep Shift: Technology Tipping Points and Societal Impact
• More Than A Gym Isn’t A Difficult Vision (Blog.ARJW, Medium)
• Techpinions: Why iOS Could Become the Enterprise OS of the Millennial Generation