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Surge Management: Riding the Waves of Data Processing
Reprinted from: Dollars & Cents, July 2009

By: Chris Stelzig
When crunch time approaches, is your association ready for the loads of data that need to be processed? Have you ever hired a temp who required hours of training on your association management system? Find out how to better approach these "surges" in data and how firms that specialize in data staffing can help you through the busy times.

Shoshana Kornfeld, membership and marketing research assistant for the American Society of Plant Biologists (APSB) did everything right to plan for her maternity leave. Her office contracted with a temp firm, wrote out the expectations of the temp, conducted one-on-one training sessions, and then spot-checked the work prior to and during her actual departure. But sometimes, planning is just not enough. The experience turned out to be a disaster.

"We thought we were not asking for too much, mostly someone who could follow instructions and do basic computer database entry following our specific guidelines and answer customer service emails,” Kornfeld says. But despite all her advance preparations, she still got burned.

"We found that even what we thought of as our minimal requirements were too much for the college kids sent to us, who seemed to have very little real work experience or knowledge of how to comport themselves while at work. One left the office unlocked overnight and laughingly asked if this was a problem the next day.”

Whether it is planning for a staff member's absence, unexpected flu pandemics that shutter the office staff, or dealing with the natural cycles of association business, we have all been there before: the clock is ticking away and the pile of work on your desk is actually getting bigger rather than smaller. Your boss wants a progress report on conference registration numbers. "How soon until we're caught up on data entry?" she asks. But to run the report, you need to finish the data input—the data that just keeps growing. How will you get it all done?

It boils down to too many pieces of paper and too few hours on the clock.

Plan for the Surges

These data surges, which are standard for most associations, are manageable, but they do require planning. Often, the organization is staffed for the regular season, but for planned absences like ASPB's or during busy times of the year, they need to hire temporary help. This process is called surge management.

There are four options for working through surges:

Shift personnel from other parts of the organization.
Hire temporary employees.
Absorb the work with existing staff.
Contract with a data solutions firm.

Drohan Management Group (DMG) is an association management company in Reston, Virginia, that has struggled with this problem before. It uses iMIS as the association management system for all clients. For Bill Drohan, CAE, president of DMG, solution number one is just not an option.

"While we do have a number of people trained on iMIS, we are not able to move them to other clients, since they have other duties to do. So, we try to hire temporary people who are trained and know how to do the input,” Drohan says. All AMS’ come with their challenges and learning curve, so the DMG experiences are not unique to iMIS.

Similar to APSB's experiences, hiring temporary help also has offered some challenges for DMG.

"Here, in Northern Virginia, there are a bunch of customer service/1-800 companies, so there are a lot of people who have experience doing data input and answering the phone, but we have found that it is not often in the iMIS program,” Drohan says. "We look for people trained in iMIS because the people we have hired who have not been trained in iMIS tend to make mistakes. If they are not quickly corrected, the mistakes become multiplied by at least a factor of 10.”

Drohan recently promoted a part-time employee to full time to work through some of DMG's surges, abating the situation for a time, but he remains on the lookout for other solutions.

In these lean economic times, many associations have already cut staff positions where possible, so not a lot of surplus labor is available in house to shift and cover additional workloads, even for short periods of time. And often when this does occur, the result is a shortcoming elsewhere in the organization. As Kornfeld puts it, "We have a very small, very busy staff with no one with extra time to fill the gaps."

Find Firms That Specialize in Data Processing

For some organizations, that leaves data firms as the most workable strategy. A data solutions firm offers qualified personnel with a long-term stake in the success of the work in addition to being a way to manage a problem without increasing fixed costs.

DataMax Solutions, in Rockville, Maryland, is a firm that fits the need of some associations. President Bob Lesser says the reason that people turn to firms like his is obvious. "The primary reason people choose a data firm is that there's a lot of detailed, time-consuming work that is more expensive to do inside, and there is not one person assigned, so the work was not being done accurately. Here you have a company that specializes in it.

"This is not just a data entry position. There are a lot of questions that we can ask that you cannot get from a temp agency,” he concludes.

A number of qualified data firms serve the association community. For a partial listing, consult ASAE & The Center's Buyer's Guide under Data Processing/Automated Data Entry. When planning to hire outside of your organization, it helps to have a timetable for how long you intend the surge to last.

Planning for surge management, like most business challenges, is just a matter of determining the need, researching options, and then implementing the solution.

Start by reviewing your database transactions for at least the three past years (this allows you to see trending numbers as well as current data). Run a count of all financial transactions that occur during the year and chart them. If your organization is like most, you'll find definite peaks and valleys. For some, often there can be as many as eight to 12 times (or more) as many transactions during the busiest months compared to the slower months.
Determine what your existing resources can handle. Have an open and candid discussion with your executive team about what level of backlog you are willing to accept. If your standard turnaround time on data is 48 hours, are you willing to let that go to 72 hours during the surges? 96 hours? A full week? If you are not willing to allow a longer data entry window, then you'll have no choice but to either authorize and mandate overtime or seek assistance elsewhere.
Determine the rate of entry for your data. This does not have to be an exact science, but it is helpful to have a sense of how long it takes a skilled professional to enter a dues renewal, a meeting registration, or a new subscription. Each piece of work can take different amounts of time, and to plan properly you'll need to know what is expected. Once you get a sense of how long each transaction takes, then just do the math to figure how much you can handle in house and how much you need to seek outside assistance to complete.
Plan ahead. If you can see from your transaction count that six months down the road you'll be hitting a surge, make your plans now. Talk with existing staff about expectations and what your plans are. Contact your data solutions firms now so that they can learn your options.
Document your expectations into a form that you can pass along to the incoming team, such as a data entry manual. Provide this to the data firm no less than a full 30 business days prior to the start of the work relationship. If you don't allow enough time for the temporary team to learn your data structure, your business practices, and your organizational culture, then you are dooming the process to stress, if not outright failure.

Most data solutions firms like to operate as an extension of your staff. This is true for membership associations, trade groups, as well as AMCs. No matter what solution you choose, though, be sure you have buy-in from all the stakeholders in your organization. A team environment is the best solution for all.