WHAT DO autonomy, creativity and consistency have in common? They are all characteristics an agency owner would like to see in each employee. Autonomy gives employees the sense that they control their destinies and have the opportunity and authority to make decisions. If management supports and reinforces self-directed decision-making, fewer decisions need to be considered by multiple people, and the agency runs more effectively. A secondary benefit is that employees who have more autonomy experience less stress in their daily work.

Employees with creativity are more likely to contemplate alternative solutions to workflow logjams. They think about unique ways to solve problems. When employees couple creativity with autonomy, there is less need for direct management. This enables agency managers to spend more time on strategic activity and other tasks that can that propel the agency to new heights.

Consistency has many applications. An employee can have a consistent work ethic, which enables a manager to rely on the employee for a certain level of production every day. Consistent attendance relieves a manager from having to cope with frequent absenteeism. It's important for effective agency workflow that employees follow consistent procedures. When tasks are done in a consistent way, one employee easily can step in for another and follow through on any unfinished work. Consistently following procedures leads to greater accuracy and improved customer service.

While all of these characteristics are positive and beneficial, two recent experiences demonstrated to us that they also can come into conflict. About three months ago, our local post office started closing a half-hour earlier. Our staff consistently had taken our mail to the post office at the end of our workday, 5 p.m. Some of our mail needs special handling, requiring the help of post-office personnel. Therefore, the change in closing time meant we needed to change the time we delivered our mail to the post office.

Our staff had been taught to be autonomous and encouraged to use their creativity in problem-solving. They decided it would make more sense to take the outbound mail to the post office in the morning, rather than break up the end of the workday with a trip to the post office before it closed. The logic was solid, and delaying our outbound mail overnight was not a problem. However, the change that flowed from this decision created a critical, initially unidentified E&O exposure.

Under our previous procedure, mail was consistently routed to an outbound work area for delivery to the post office. Under the new workflow model, consistency was lost, with some outbound mail remaining on CSRs' desks overnight in anticipation that it would be mailed the following morning. The staff, however, had overlooked the possibility that mail left on a desk overnight inadvertently could be discarded by a cleaning person or anyone else passing by a desk. Compounding the inconsistency problem, different people left mail on their desks on different days.

We corrected the problem by establishing a procedure requiring all mail to be sealed and postmarked for the following day and deposited in a mailbag in the mailroom. No mail was to be left on any desk at the end of the day. This was a minor correction in terms of the action required, but it did re-establish a sound, consistent procedure for handling outbound mail, which is critical to an effective E&O loss-prevention program. Any agency must be able to testify that such procedures are in place to meet the legal test of reasonable notice to an insured or other party by regular mail.

A second experience demonstrated the importance of the consistent use of terminology in regard to entering client-information notes into our agency management system. Because CSRs usually document conversations with clients while they are on the telephone with them, they use abbreviations to enable them to write notes as quickly as possible. As I mentioned in last month's column, one of our CSRs exercised her autonomy and creativity to begin using "LL" as an abbreviation. It had a clear, logical meaning to her, but she did not inform the rest of the staff she was using it. We discovered the new abbreviation during one of our regular audits of the transaction-activity log. As an experiment, we asked all the CSRs what they thought the abbreviation stood for. Some said it clearly indicated a landlord policy; others were just as sure that it stood for liquor legal liability insurance. But what everyone immediately recognized was the possibility for misunderstanding, absent consistent meaning for each abbreviation used in the office.

The two episodes I've described demonstrate that while it's important to promote employee autonomy and creativity, it's also necessary to have certain checks. Any change in procedure needs to be approved by management and communicated to everyone. This is not so much a matter of management imposing its authority as it is providing an additional perspective from someone who may view an issue in a different way. The key is to maintain and reinforce autonomy and creativity without compromising good process and consistency