Articles in this newsletter:
JJC Delivers Customer Service Training to
Troy School District
Training tailored to needs of parents, students, teachers, and general public.
A young boy walks into a bank with a large bottle filled with coins. He is on vacation with his parents and brought his coins with him to exchange for dollars at a bank along the way – any bank along the way.
He struggles across the lobby to the teller station and manages to slide the bottle on the counter. He informs the teller that he wants to exchange the coins for dollar bills. The teller looks down at the boy and asks in her monotone voice: "Do you have an account with us?" The boy just stares at her and says, "I just want to get dollars for my coins." He didn't know anything about having an account at the bank and, as it turns out, he didn't have an account at this bank. Thanks to the teller, neither, he or his parents ever will.
That is the opening to one of the many stories trainer Sue Dailey told at a recent Joliet Junior College (JJC) customer service class for the Troy Community Consolidated School District 30C (TCCS) on Friday, February 26.
"Customer service is all about fulfilling the needs and expectations of your customers on a consistent basis," said Dailey who reinforced that idea with many stories about businesses that delivered exceptional customer service and those that were only interested in taking the customer's money.
The three-hour course was tailored to the needs of the 20 secretaries who work at the middle school and deal with many issues unique to them. "For us," said one of the secretaries, "our teachers and staff are our customers and so are the parents and the public in general."
JJC was asked to provide a customer service class by Joanne W. Schochat, J.D., assistant superintendent of Human Resources and the General Counsel for TCCS. Schochat remembered the positive experience she had when she called Amy Murphy, director of Corporate and Community Services for JJC, about Spanish classes the District needed last year. "I called Amy and she was so flexible, she suggested sending the instructor to our site instead of having our teachers and staff attend a class at the college," said Schochat. "Everyone was satisfied with the instruction."
"The district was interested in customer service training that would help them deal with the many diverse customers they serve," said Murphy. "We brought in Sue Dailey to not only teach the class, but make it relevant to the secretaries who deal with teachers, parents, students, and other administrators regularly."
Schochat agrees: "What's great about this course," she said, "are the real life issues that are brought in."
Dailey made a point of stressing the importance of each secretary to the success of the District, the parents, the teachers, and the students. "There are no unimportant jobs," she said when talking about handling phone calls. "Each and every call is a new opportunity to impress someone."
To learn more about JJC's customer service classes and workshops, call Amy Murphy at (815) 280-1418, or e-mail amurphy@jjc.edu.
Top 10 OSHA Fines of 2009
This article is reprinted courtesy of Fred Hosier and Safety News Alert at www.SafetyNewsAlert.com. February 22, 2010 by Fred Hosier
In the first year of the Obama administration, OSHA was busy handing out fines the likes of which hadn't been seen for eight years. Here's our rundown of 10 significant fines from the last 12 months, and what they mean for businesses:
OSHA issues largest fine ever: $87.4 million to BP. This fine demonstrates OSHA's intent to check up on companies once they've made serious safety mistakes. The agency evaluated BP's progress after the 2005 fire and explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 more at its Texas City, TX refinery. OSHA issued 270 "notifications of failure to abate" and identified 439 new willful violations at the plant.
Two executives face prison time and huge fines in deaths of five workers. Phillipe Goutagny and James Thompson, executives with RPI Coating, each face 2.5 years in prison and a fine up to $1.25 million if convicted. On Oct. 2, 2007, vapor from a solvent ignited inside a tunnel at a hydroelectric plant in Colorado. Workers survived the blast but were overcome by smoke and fumes and died of asphyxiation. OSHA says it will work more closely with the Justice Department in cases like these to bring criminal charges against executives with penalties that include prison time.
OSHA wastes no time in using new per-employee citations, issues $1.2 million fine. G.S. Robbins & Co. of St. Louis, MO, was hit with 21 egregious willful citations for hazardous chemical handling. Each citation was on a per-instance basis. Even during this period of difficult economic recovery, OSHA won't hesitate to use per-instance, per-employee fines to hike total fine amounts. This wasn’t the only instance in which OSHA used per-instance citations in 2009 (see item #7 below).
Company hit with $1.14 million fine following employee complaint. Are the big fines relegated only to incidents involving deaths or multiple serious injuries? Hardly. OSHA began a December 2008 inspection at Milk Specialties in Whitehall, WI, in response to an employee complaint. Willful citations were issued for the employer's failure to comply with OSHA's confined space and lockout/tagout regulations. OSHA is taking employee complaints seriously.
After two similar incidents, owner and manager go to jail. ANC Roofing of Santa Rosa, CA, owner Kenneth Alton pleaded no contest to failing to protect employees from a hazard. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and a $248,000 fine. Supervisor Robert McAfee pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor violation and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. On May 11, 2006, an ANC employee backed into an unguarded skylight and fell 21 feet to his death. Four months later, another ANC employee suffered major head trauma when he fell 19 feet from an unprotected skylight.
OSHA fines Wal-Mart $7,000 for worker trampling incident. A Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by a crowd of 2,000 shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008. OSHA said Wal-Mart should have recognized that its employees were exposed to being crushed by the crowd based on previous experience. Wal-Mart fought the fine. OSHA used the General Duty Clause to issue the fine and has said it will use the GDC in similar situations where safety was compromised but a specific regulation wasn't violated.
Company faces $1.09 million OSHA fine for 202 willful violations. OSHA didn't really need anyone's permission to start issuing per-instance fines (see item #3 above), but it got the go-ahead in the form of a decision from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC). The appeals panel ruled OSHA properly cited Smalis Painting Co. on a per-employee basis for violations of the lead-in-construction regulations, in connection with a project near Pittsburgh, PA. OSHA monitored six Smalis employees for lead exposure. Based on that data, OSHA issued violations for all employees who would have been exposed to the same hazards.
OSHA is getting companies to agree to implement safety and health improvements above what’s required by regulations. A-1 Excavating of Bloomer, WI, agreed to make numerous changes in its work processes in exchange for lowering fines from almost $900,000 to $470,000. A-1 has to hire a full-time safety director, develop and implement site-specific safety and health plans for all major projects, identify all job sites to OSHA before work begins for the next three years, reduce the salary of job superintendents and project managers who fail to comply with OSHA requirements, and retain a third-party safety consultant.
Cintas agrees to pay $3 million in fines and to comply with other conditions. In some cases, it hasn't been an either-or situation between fines and strict safety improvements. After a worker was killed when he fell onto an unguarded conveyor and was dragged into a 300-degree industrial dryer, Cintas agreed to the huge fine and to retain a team of independent experts to develop permanent fixes and review interim controls. Cintas also agreed to hire additional safety staff, conduct more frequent internal safety inspections, and establish new systems to examine employee complaints.
A construction company agrees to pay $750,000 in fines and cut the pay of unsafe supervisors. Broadway Concrete of New York, NY, agreed to reduce the salaries of senior job superintendents who failed to comply with job safety practices. Broadway also agreed to hire a full-time corporate safety director, develop a new corporate safety plan, and provide OSHA with information on major projects and access to all job sites for the next four years.
JJC Hires Two New Small Business Analysts
There is an old saying that two heads are better than one and Joliet Junior College (JJC) is taking it literally.
On February 15, Carol Turney and Brian Thompson began working as business analysts for JJC's Small Business Development Center. Their mission is to help small business entrepreneurs succeed – even in this economy.
"There are so many approaches to starting a business that many potential business owners fail to realize all their options," said Turney. "They need to reach out and do a great deal of research before taking that first step."
Helping entrepreneurs make a good start is only part of their job, however. Each analyst also brings their particular expertise to their clients. "I believe it is important in business to use all the tools available to help maximize revenue and control expenses," said Turney.
Thompson's strength is in business strategy and performance improvement. "I know how to measure and track results," he said.
"Both analysts bring years of experience and a depth of business understanding to the job," said Amy Murphy, director of Corporate and Community Services for JJC. "I believe new and experienced entrepreneurs will learn a lot from them."
Both Turney and Thompson have some words of wisdom for small business owners. Here are a few:
- Plan: To achieve long-term success, business owners need a long-term plan
- Stay Focused: Be flexible, but stay focused on goals
- Develop Good Relationships: Build relationships with other business owners, vendors, professionals, and most importantly, customers
- Advertise: Advertise even if it hurts. "Companies that advertise more during a recession do better in the long run," said Thompson. "They get a better market share."
For more information, or to schedule an appointment with Joliet Junior College's Small Business Development Center at (815) 280-1400, or e-mail sbdc@jjc.edu.