START
DATE: JUNE 13, 2013
LOCATION: SACRAMENTO HALL ANNEX
TIME START: 2:00 PM TIME END: 3:00 PM
ATTENDANCE LOG
MEMBERS PRESENT
SUZANNE BRACAMONTE
ELENA COMPO
GINA LOMBARDO
JOEY MARTINEZ
NORMAN KWONG
ROBYN PITTS
ANDREW STIFFLER
SARAH WHYTE
JANIE XIONG
AGENDA
STAFF PEER AWARDS SUMMARY
MEMBERS ABSENT
OTHERS PRESENT
KIMBERLY DONAVILLE
AMANDA STAN
ACTIONS
START members noted that employees appreciated that Mike Lee recognized
recipients of the 2013 Staff Peer awards amongst their colleagues and peers by
going directly to the recipients’ offices.
This was the second year that Mike Lee and other ABA managers have visited
the offices of recipients, as opposed to a central recognition event.
STAFF PEER AWARDS COMMITTEE
FEEDBACK
This year, Andrew led the process, asking members to review nominations and select
their top two selections. Several members of the Staff Peer Awards Selection
Team provided feedback regarding their experience selecting the candidates.
Overall, they did not feel a silent ballet would have been necessary. In most
cases, the winner was unanimous, and in the event there was a tie, the
selection committee was quickly able to decide on one, or nominate both. Sarah
stated that we try to select one awardee per category, and only in the case of
the most difficult choice would we declare a tie. This makes the award more
meaningful to the recipient.
Participants felt that everyone got a chance to share their views. Sarah added
that while the selection team is somewhat limited to one recommendation per
category, Mike has approval authority. This year, he selected recipients he felt were
worthy, based on his observations and reading of the nominations.
SPRING SOCIAL EVENT
Awardees of Staff Peer awards were also recognized at the ABA Spring Social.
Several comments were made regarding this process:
 The poster of nominees wasn’t visible enough. This may have been due
to location.
 Schedule of when the names were being read vs. when everyone was
eating was awkward or felt odd. Perhaps a different time would have
been better to best recognize awardees.
In addition, the event was very well received and many START members noted
that the food was much better this year, and that the theme was fun. However,
some felt the Polynesian-themed dancers were misplaced. Perhaps reworking
the schedule of the day’s events could have addressed this issue.
ABA ANNUAL REPORT
Going forward, VP Mike Lee wants to narrow these events to one session, with
all offices closed during the event.
The 2011-12 Annual Report differed from last years as it was story-based
focused and emphasized staff accomplishments. Staff were included on the
cover for the first time.
Features of this Annual Report included:
 Staff - awards & recognition
 Staff – Made at Sac State campaign – ABA alums
 Customers –Programs
 Students – Student Community Service Officers (CSOs)
 Community – Foster youth internships in ABA
SPRING 2013 FOCUS NEWSLETTER
FEEDBACK
SUMMER 2013 NEWSLETTER
DISCUSSION
ABA STAFF PROFESSIONALS
MEETING DEBRIEF
The next report will focus on high-profile projects completed, such as
sustainability, and the SMART grid, as well as staff and department
accomplishments.
Sarah and Andrew had to remove the inclusion of the Behind the Scenes – ABA
After Dark feature due to work constraints. This feature will be included in a
future newsletter.
Lots of positive feedback from START members, including several comments
that the newsletter contained a lot of variety and that many members read the
whole thing.
A summer edition of the newsletter will be developed, with a projected release
of early August.
Typically, the summer newsletter is lighter in tone and content.
Following the Dennis Snow customer service training in January, ABA focused
on executing some Dennis’ strategies to align ABA with the new Redefine the
Possible initiative at the ABA Staff Professionals Meeting.
Managers talked about take-aways and what they have done to enhance
customer service.
Staff attendees participated in an exercise to identify their primary customers
and look at their services and how they compared to the Gallup Customer
Expectations Pyramid.
ABA WEBSITE PROGRESS & UPDATE
Several START members mentioned that there wasn’t enough time dedicated
for the activity as many groups did not finish.
The original goal was to conclude all of ABA’s websites currently in the WCM
revision into the Monet template by June 30. Sarah and Andrew are aiming for
this objective, and have made significant progress on all of the remaining sites.
Once the migration/redesign is completely, we will be working with web editors
to ensure that each editor knows how to maintain their respective pages.
Another issue to tackle in the future is trying to eliminate old content appearing
from searches, because obsolete pages have not been removed from the
server. A process is being developed to handle this issue.
RECORDED BY: ANDREW STIFFLER 9/18/2013