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Steve Fox is Treasurer for the Illinois Association of Clerks and County Recorders. Clerks and recorders might not be the first thing you think of when you think of government, but their responsibilities are critical. They’re responsible for keeping permanent records of deeds, mortgages, birth, death, and marriage certificates, economic filings — the county where Steve works has records going back to the 1800s! — as well as administering every facet of elections.
The 102 counties in Illinois are broken down into four different geographic areas called “zones,” each with their own subset of counties. “It’s more manageable for twenty or thirty counties to meet and get together on a more regular basis than all 102,” Fox explained. “Most zones meet monthly to discuss legislation, policy changes, and things that come up in our daily lives,” he continued.
Much of that communication was done by email, meaning communication across zones, or for the whole Association, became particularly challenging. To manage a large group of geographically distributed personnel, the Illinois Association of Clerks and County Recorders needed new technology.
Fox explained that he and his team searched for ways to improve organization-wide communication. Teams, and other off-the-shelf tools weren’t producing the results Fox and his team wanted. Eventually, they turned to Roundtable, which has been deployed by the Association for just over ten months, and the changes have been marked.
“There are two main things that stand out to me,” Fox said. “The biggest change is the number of emails, that’s how we communicated before. Emails have dropped roughly by 50% because peers can communicate with one another in Roundtable,” Fox said. “For me, personally? That’s ten hours every single week I get back.”
Time savings, and the associated dollar savings in labor hours through efficiency gains are one of the benefits we hear most about. For an average agency with 100 employees, they’ll save $650,000 every year through workplace efficiencies, saving their employees more than 21,000 hours every year in the process.
“The amount of time savings is enormous,” Fox said. But it doesn’t end there.
Because Roundtable’s platform centralizes knowledge in one place and pairs that with AI-powered search capabilities, public servants find information quickly.
“Our members can use Roundtable to answer their own questions in a timely manner without having to re-email, re-initiate a question or conversation is excellent,” Fox said. “You can just search for it.”
Fox explained how Roundtable turns individual experience into institutional knowledge. “I don’t have to give the answer 15,000 times. I can give it once,” and members can search and easily find it later.
“The tools that Roundtable brings highlight the ability for the person sharing the answer to do it, and do it more effectively.” For Fox, this is top of mind as he approaches retirement — his knowledge doesn’t have to go with him. “I feel like I’m leaving some of myself.”
Information in Roundtable is validated and trusted because it comes from public servants themselves. Whether it’s a document, meeting notes, or a point of contact public servant needs, Roundtable acts as a single pane of glass that enables communications and resource sharing across the entire organization, managed by the Association.
“We can share resources, we can plan events, we can share meetings in Roundtable, they are all great ways that they help us be better public servants for the people of Illinois.”
Watch the entire video with Steve Fox here.
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