MAKING THE GRADE
SHANNON GUNDERMAN, CPCU, ARM, AIS, CWCP
Administrative Services Director of Yuma County, Arizona
The importance of obtaining feedback on your workshop performance cannot be overstated. Improvement is never realized in a vacuum. To be successful and to continue to succeed, one must be willing to accept advice, counsel, and criticism from others. This is especially true for risk workshop facilitators. One thing that you can do to solicit this feedback and to continue to improve (one of the part of the ISO 31000 framework) your risk identification process is to survey your workshop participants.
Did they enjoy the process? Did they feel that they learned something valuable and practical from the experience? Did they feel that the workshop was an effective use of their time? Getting answers to such questions will provide you with the necessary insights that will enable you to hone your facilitation skills, improve each subsequent workshop and further identity risks within your entity.
After a risk workshop has concluded, I ask participants to complete a brief, anonymous evaluation. In the evaluation, I pose the following questions:
- Did you gain new skills and knowledge that apply to your job?
- Was the information presented in a clear and well-organized manner?
- How would you rate the facilitator’s knowledge of the subject matter?
- Were sufficient opportunities provided for participants to be involved and ask questions?
- How well did the facilitator answer questions?
- How would you rate the facilitator’s presentation style and delivery?
- What suggestions do you have for improving the workshop?
Below each question the participant can select from various descriptive choices (be specific) ; additional space is also provided for participants to elaborate on their rating. The questions above may not be ideal for your participants. However at the least you should ask questions in three categories:
- workshop content
- facilitator effectiveness
- suggestions for improvement
Items 1 and 2 will help you to identify the general strengths and weaknesses of both the workshop content and your facilitating approach. Item 3 will allow participants to provide you with additional insights not covered in the prepared questions. Additionally, your survey should be succinct and easy to complete so keep the number of questions you ask to a minimum. Also, when you send your workshop participants your survey, be sure to tell them that it is short and will not take them very long to complete. This will encourage them to complete the survey.
In addition to requesting feedback from the participants, I also ask for input from my fellow enterprise risk management team-members who assist me. They always provide enlightening observations because they are not distracted by having to facilitate or actively participate and can therefore give their full attention to observing how you perform and how the participants respond.
By investing a little time to obtain and analyze feedback you receive, you will be able to improve the outcomes of your workshops and will “make the grade” as an effective facilitator! Do you solicit feedback from your meetings? If so what kind and how do you use it to continually improve?
By: SHANNON GUNDERMAN, CPCU, ARM, AIS, CWCP
Administrative Services Director of Yuma County, Arizona
SUMMARY OF QUALIFACTIONS
More than 15 years of public sector risk management experience | More than 17 years of legal experience | More than 22 years of public speaking experience
RESPONSIBILITIES
As the administratrive services director, Shannon oversees Yuma County’s property, liability, unemployment, and workers’ compensation programs. Additionally, he is responsible for insuring the County’s real and personal business property assets with a value of over $300 million. He also manages three separate annual budgets totaling over $4 million. Shannon directs the County’s loss control, safety, and privacy programs to assure compliance with OSHA, HIPAA, ADA and other regulatory requirements and supervises the Conflict Administrator’s Office which assigns legal counsel to indigent criminal defendants. He also serves as the County’s Privacy Officer and its ADA Title II Coordinator.
BUSINESS EXPERIENCE
During his service in Yuma County Administration, Shannon transitioned the County from a commercially insured to self-insured workers’ compensation program, which saved taxpayers nearly $300,000 in its first year of operation. He introduced and championed a pain management program that reduced the number of workers’ compensation claims, reduced the use of prescription medication in the County’s self-funded health insurance program, reduced worker absences, and improved morale. He created financial formulas to determine the amount of premium to charge each County budget in order to fund the County’s self-insurance program and developed the method of premium allocation; this procedure gave more predictability to the budgetary process and improved the County’s accountability in financial audits. His subrogation efforts recovered over $650,000 in County funds. Prior to joining County Administration in 2005, Shannon worked for six years as a paralegal and risk manager with the County Attorney where he assisted attorneys in the practice of the following areas of law: Contract and Agency, Administrative, Civil Rights, Property Tax, Torts, Premises Liability, Employment Practices, and Criminal. Before his career in public service, Shannon spent two years in the private sector as a paralegal with a bankruptcy law firm where he gained an extensive knowledge in the filing of Chapter 7, 11, and 13 bankruptcies.
ERM EXPERIENCE
After several years of discussions, meetings, education, and departmental outreach, Shannon was able to convince Yuma County leadership to support the development and implementation of an enterprise risk management program. He is now the County’s ERM project manager and serves as a leading member of both the County’s Enterprise Risk Committee and Enterprise Risk Development Team.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
PRIMA – Public Risk Management Association
RIMS – Risk and Insurance Management Society
ACIP – Arizona Counties Insurance Pool
EDUCATION
Certified Public Manager, Arizona State University
Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter, American Institute for CPCU
Associate in Risk Management, Insurance Institute of America
Associate in Insurance Services, Insurance Institute of America
Certified Workers’ Compensation Professional, Michigan State University
Certified Paralegal, National Association of Legal Assistants
Certificate in Paralegal Studies, University of Arizona
Certificate in Mediation, Institute for Conflict Management
