TALLAHASSEE, Fla. –The Florida Sterling Council today announced the School District of Palm Beach County, Division of Human Resources recipient of the Governor’s Sterling Award for 2021.
Governor’s Sterling Award and Georgia Oglethorpe Award
With the 2021 recipient, the Florida Sterling Council has now recognized 90 organizations since 1992. Combined, the two-state award processes have recognized excellence for over 50 years, honoring organizations and businesses that have successfully achieved performance excellence within their management and operations. The Florida Sterling Council partnered with the Georgia Oglethorpe Award in 2018 to administer its processes.
School District of Palm Beach County, Human Resources Division
The School District of Palm Beach County Human Resources Division and its 101 employees provide services through its departments, including Employee and Labor Relations, Professional Development, Recruitment, and Retention/Non-Instructional and Administrative Staffing, Professional Growth, and Compensation and Employee Information Services for full time, part-time, and former employees.
The School District of Palm Beach County is the tenth-largest in the nation, the fifth largest in the state of Florida, and the largest employer in Palm Beach County. The District serves more than 22,800 school district employees, including more than 13,480 teachers.
The HR Division has implemented an industry-leading service delivery model that focuses on continuous improvement and the utilization of its HR Partners as human capital diagnosticians and brokers of HR services. This model is coupled with processing centers and an award-winning HR Customer Care Center (CCC) available for all employee inquiries.
The Division has pursued a course of performance excellence in its processes that has benefited not only its metric-driven results but also driven a sustainable culture of performance. Multiple quality improvement tools and techniques are employed in the Division’s operations, including scorecards, real-time dashboards, process control charts, integration with feedback and review models, and others that all together form a systemic approach to performance excellence.
Customer-focused services provided by the Division show excellent results and beneficial trends on customer satisfaction key indicators that exceed national customer service benchmark ratings across many of their core functions. These include service ratings from customers to their CCC, job processing turnaround times, overall customer rating of HR from schools, and performance on scorecard metrics.
The Division launched a district-wide lean six sigma training program leading to improvement projects across the organization with a year-over-year time savings equivalent increase. Process improvement methodologies resulted in a 38% reduction in the teacher hiring process time.
“Earning the prestigious Florida Governor’s Sterling Award is an honor and a testament that organizational visions can be achieved. Leading with a high-performing team and a continuous improvement framework, our organization moved from transactional to transformational to improve outcomes of students and staff,” stated Chief of HR Dr. Gonzalo La Cava.
“I am very proud of the accomplishments of the Human Resources Division,” added Superintendent Dr. Donald Fennoy. “Their vision and focus on continuous improvement has resulted in the transformation of an organization to become a role model for public and private human resources departments.”
The School District of Palm Beach County, Human Resources Division is a first-time recipient of the Governor’s Sterling and Georgia Oglethorpe Award.
Recognition for Best Practices
Two organizations are being recognized in 2021 for Best Practices: CareerSource Central Florida and University of Miami – Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency.
CareerSource Central Florida
Customer Focused Excellence - Youth Program
CareerSource Central Florida (CSCF) invests in young adults by helping them launch their career journey by providing academic consultative services focusing on building their skills, inspiring confidence, and showing them how to take charge of their future. CSCF’s Youth Services helps young adults earn their high school diploma and GED, learn on-the-job skills, and develop their professionalism. In addition, CSCF’s annual Summer Youth Program allows young adults to gain exposure to college experiences and multiple career pathways in high-growth industries, receive professional internships, and participate in specialized career training. During its 2019-2020 fiscal year, CSCF served more than 2,000 young adults throughout Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Lake, and Sumter Counties.
