One of the biggest and most difficult obstacles to outsourcing a facilities support service (custodial, grounds, or other) in the public sector is the ability of staff and community to accept the change, or even the consideration, in spite of current budget pressures and economic realities. The survivors in the current economic climate are those public organizations that have either already or are in process of making the fundamental changes needed to support services above just laying off employees that “may not” be providing the highest service value. Culturally, traditional public sector lay-offs generally retain the highest paid staff with the most seniority without regard to productivity, quality of performance, or current market rates that the same services can be purchased from contracted service providers.
The cultural shift to outsourced services is further discouraged by mid level managers that beat the drum about a loss of quality when they are often just concerned about their own positions and without specific quality standards they can really point to….or failed outsourcings that were not based on verifiable contractor performance standards. Administrators are often reluctant to pursue outsourcing when the staff and community pick up the drum beat due to not understanding how to facilitate the cultural shift and define “quality” either for in-house staff performance or a contracted services.
Facilitating the cultural shift in the public sector to consider outsourced services, that private sector companies have been doing for years, is a process over time that starts with a simultaneous broad based (service workers/managers, community, staff) discussion of current budget realities, organizational survival strategies for the future, and how best to define and achieve the highest value of service for the organization. At the very least, it focuses in-house service workers on the highest value priorities, what level of performance they need to achieve day-to-day, and if staff aren’t capable of meeting those standards, the basis for standards put out to the open market for proposals and quotes.
Outsourcing and slash cut-over decisions made as a last minute budget balancing desperation move, without the up-front buy-in of the community, staff, and establishment of performance standards will make outsourcing success more difficult and can minimize the savings to be realized. It is advisable to seek out those public organizations (school districts & municipal governments) that have been successfully outsourcing services and where possible, purchase staff time directly from those organizations or through their affiliated professional alliance groups. These alliances can provide a customized menu of services and documents to enhance an organizations internal staff and capabilities.
Although some private sector consulting groups may be able to provide some “general” expertise, it comes at a much higher and less flexible cost. Public sector organization or alliance staff can be more sensitive to the cultural migration and actual setting of standards process that is common to the most successful outsourcing public organizations. As a Facilities Mgr. for the last 25 yrs and currently with an Oregon Sch. Dist., that has been contracting support services for the last 12 yrs; we have been sharing our successful strategies with other SD’s resulting in similar success and savings. I would be glad to facilitate sharing of information to help other public organizations investigate outsourcing potentials and vendors that need to understand how bid and propose public sector outsourcing RFP’s and contracts.
tthetford@fgsd.k12.or.us