Q&A
Focus areas for NYCHA improvement: operations and organizational change
0:11:20
·
5 min
Neil Barofsky outlines key focus areas for NYCHA improvement, including both operational and organizational changes.
- Operational focus: Developing metrics for individual apartment issues, such as radiator outages
- Organizational changes: Improving resident communication, implementing the neighborhood model, and enhancing employee accountability
- Cross-cutting issues: Training, IT reform, and decentralized control of developments to improve responsiveness to residents' needs
Neil Barofsky
0:11:20
There's there's certain areas of focus for sure.
0:11:22
I I would sort of split them into 2 areas, some of the the operations areas, and then some of them in more of the organizational change areas.
0:11:30
So from the the operations areas, there are several really key metrics that have not yet been measured and reported out, and that's going to be one of our areas of focus in the next year.
0:11:43
So for example, NICE has done a commendable job when dealing with heat outages in buildings.
0:11:49
So when a boiler goes down and an entire, you know, heat is lost to an entire building, Nitro has has had solid response times and improvement in that.
0:11:59
But they haven't been measuring and haven't we haven't been reporting on what happens to individual apartments.
Chris Banks
0:12:06
Right.
Neil Barofsky
0:12:06
So for example, a boiler goes out.
0:12:08
Right?
0:12:08
That's gonna impact a whole bunch of apartments.
0:12:10
A radiator goes out.
0:12:11
That's only going to impact one apartment.
0:12:13
But the agreement foresees and includes metrics and performance goals to deal with individual apartments as well.
0:12:20
That's an example of one of the areas that we're currently working with Nitro right now to develop those metrics and to be able to to measure them, and then we'll be able to see how they're doing and and and to help them improve.
0:12:31
On the organizational change side, These are some of the bigger cross cutting issues that aren't gonna get solved in a day.
0:12:38
And as Matt mentioned during his testimony, these are areas like resident communication, like pushing forward, to putting more responsibility into the developments through the neighborhood model.
0:12:49
Holding its employees accountable through things like performance reviews.
0:12:55
Those are sort of bigger picture areas that, you know, Nitro recognizes has to improve that we're really going to focus on working with them.
0:13:03
So Basically, those are the things that don't impact just heat or just plumbing or just lead or just pets pets, but when they're improved, Nitrogen's numbers will improve across the board.
Chris Banks
0:13:16
Let me rec well, let me recognize president with us.
0:13:19
It's a councilman GLC, and councilman council member of Sanchez.
0:13:24
It's
Chi Ossé
0:13:25
council member cost today.
Neil Barofsky
0:13:26
Oh, okay.
Chris Banks
0:13:27
Council member cost.
0:13:28
Yeah.
0:13:29
Definitely staying corrected.
0:13:31
While we are going to talk to Nitro about some of the more numerical metrics and the agreement requires, what does Nitro have to do with the organization level to meet the requirements of the agreement?
Neil Barofsky
0:13:46
It really is along the lines of what what I was talking about before, and I'll go into a little bit more detail with your question.
0:13:52
So, like, organizational some of the big cross cutting organizational changes, if I could use an anecdote, it's a sort of layout where our thinking is on this.
0:14:03
One of the things that we do is we have several experts who work with night show frequently, and one of our pest experts will shadow exterminate Nitrogen exterminators when they go out and and do their work.
0:14:17
And one of his recent reports to us, he went out with a Nitrogen exterminator, and the exterminator was supposed to have 6 apartments they were supposed to to treat that day.
0:14:27
And he was only able to get into 1 because the other 5, no one was home when when he knocked.
0:14:34
The same expert has seen night checks terminators sometimes not understand or be properly trained and therefore not implement the most effective pest control, which means inevitably it's not going to treat the problem and that's going to require more resources for a follow-up visit.
0:14:52
Where sometimes the person is well trained, but just doesn't do a good job.
0:14:57
And I use this anecdote because I think it it it points to where the areas of focus need to be.
0:15:01
Resident communication and having the infrastructure and technological capability to have more effective resident communication is just of paramount importance.
0:15:11
From the resident's perspective, which is as Matt noted, is is really a hallmark of what we're doing, there is nothing that we hear more in the sense of of not just despair, but of humiliation, really deep emotional, understand and it's understandable.
0:15:27
You take a day off from work because you think your apartment's gonna get prepared, and you lose a day of pay, and night shift doesn't show up because of communication snafu.
0:15:35
It's just it's devastating for the resident, but it's also a tremendous loss of resources for Nitro.
0:15:40
They're paying this exterminator to do that work, and and and they can't get in to do their job.
0:15:45
So that's one area.
0:15:48
Training.
0:15:48
You have to have adequate training so that when you make the visit and get into the apartment, you don't have to go back to refix or retreat something.
0:15:56
So that's really important organizational change.
0:16:00
Excuse me.
0:16:00
And then accountability.
0:16:02
Nitro has to be in a position where it can clearly and easily identify its low performers and either get them the training they need or, you know, get them the discipline that they need so that they can adequately serve the residents.
0:16:16
And get the job done.
0:16:17
So those are some of the big cross cutting areas.
0:16:19
And I would just add to that, keeping the push forward with the neighborhood model, which is moving more decentralized control of development so that the people who are in the development, running the development have more control over their development and can be quicker and more reactive to respond to residents' needs.
0:16:38
I would say those are the areas probably organizational wise that we're most focused on.
