Harnessing staff ideas for improving efficiency and quality: CAF-based self-assessments in Hessen in Germany

Objectives

The Agency for Land Surveys and Geo-Data in Wiesbaden (in the state of Hessen) has been driving a far-reaching transformation process since 1999. In the first phase, many public services provided by the Agency were privatised. As a result, the original 100 surveying teams were reduced to 21 teams by 2013, with a loss of income from fees of €25 million. 

In 2005, the 56 local offices of the Agency were merged into seven new land survey offices (with five outlying branches,  which placed an additional burden on staff). At the same time, the Agency reduced staffing numbers by 30% within eight years through an employment freeze and it is estimated that the Agency will lose a further sixth of these staff by 2016 due to retirement. The average age of staff is currently about 50 years. 

The staff members are expected to continue the transformation process to deal with a number of challenges, including:

• The Agency is faced with an increasing demand for its work, e.g. in land consolidation processes across farms, transport planning, environmental protection and climate change projects. 
• At the same time, new ICT solutions for geo-data and the EU INSPIRE-Directive mean that the Agency has to advise local government and state agencies on these issues.
• The reform of the heritage tax in Germany and the internationalisation of the real estate market means the Agency faces new and increased demands for assessing real estate.
• Continuous ICT investments are required by the Agency in order to keep up with the rapid technological developments in this field.

In order to deal with these challenges the Agency has agreed a change strategy with the responsible state government department, which defines the key modernisation reforms for 2011-2016. This means that change management remains high on the agenda of the Agency.

Strong staff involvement has always characterised the change management process of the Agency, as a key element of the Total Quality Management philosophy introduced in the Agency in 2003. The so-called Common Assessment Framework (CAF) has been used to bring about culture change and drive quality improvement in the Agency. The decision to use the CAF was influenced by two developments: on the one hand, the responsible government department encouraged the Agency to take part in the famours Speyer Quality Award; on the other hand,senior managers were looking for a tool to evaluate 30 change projects which had the objective to introduce performance management throughout the Agency. The CAF was considered as the most effective tool to respond to both these demands. 

The Agency piloted the CAF in 2003 and repeated the self-assessment in 2006, 2008 and 2011. In 2011, it made CAF-based self-assessments mandatory for the whole Agency, i.e. the state HQ and all seven service units. 

The next self-assessment will take place in 2013. The objective is to take stock of the change management process, identifying positive impacts achieved but also recognising unwanted developments. Another objective is to strengthen staff engagement with the change process and to get the buy-in of staff to the new strategy of the Agency.