Establishment of Member Services Department
We are excited to announce that the Executive Committee approved the establishment of a Member Services Department at their May 7, 2015 meeting. The transition will begin in the 2015/16 fiscal year with the hiring of a senior management position reporting to the CEO with the title of Chief Member Services Officer (CMSO). A second member services position has been approved to be phased-in during the second half of the fiscal year.
We believe this marks a new phase in the EIA’s evolution focused on the services that we have historically provided and the expansion of new services that are of value to our members. Initially, Member Services will concentrate on existing services and enhance our marketing of these services to ensure that members are aware of opportunities that already exist. Simultaneously, we will begin development of a loss and exposure benchmarking tool, as well as a risk self-assessment tool. The Executive Committee has approved a new Data and Analytics Manager Position to head up our data collection efforts and to develop our benchmarking capabilities. Also approved for FY 2015/16 is the development of a risk self-assessment tool which has already been conceptualized and the RFP process has been completed and a contract approved.
At the direction of the Executive Committee, the roll out of new services will be careful and methodical ensuring that we are able to deliver high quality services with the available resources. Each particular service will be considered on its own merits including a determination how the services will be funded. Besides benchmarking and the risk self-assessment tool, the CMSO will evaluate potential new service offerings including practical training for risk managers, loss analysis, risk management contract review, and SIR analysis.
In order to ensure that the member services focused direction that we are moving in is in concert with the expectations and desires of the membership, the EIA contracted with John Nielsen of Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) to advise the Executive Committee. Mr. Nielsen conducted an initial organizational study in November of 2014 and followed with a final project, with the results presented to the Executive Committee at their May 7, 2015 meeting. The AJG project involved a survey of the entire membership and meetings with five separate focus groups. We are grateful to all our membership who took the time to provide input on the survey and to participate in the focus groups. Read the full AJG report prepared by Mr. Nielsen.