DMV Offices Reopen Following Half-Day ‘Operation Excellence: DMV Training

Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices have reopened following a historic half-day training session that provided new tools to assist more than 5,000 front-line staff in processing REAL ID transactions and providing excellent customer service.

“Real, tangible change is coming to the DMV,” said DMV Chief Deputy Director Kathleen Webb. “We know that our customers deserve consistent, quality service on every visit at every office. That is why we took the extraordinary step to stop business for half a day and give our employees the support and information to provide that service.”

Beginning October 1, 2020, the federal government will require passengers flying within the United States to present a REAL ID-compliant driver license or identification card – passport, passport card, or other federally approved document – before boarding a plane or entering secure federal facilities and military bases.

REAL ID applications, which are complex, must be done in person at a field office, and cannot be processed online or by mail. Field offices need to be prepared for at least a doubling of customer volume as the October, 1, 2020, enforcement date approaches.

Operation Excellence training took place at 183 DMV field offices, Commercial Drive Test Centers and Industry Business Centers throughout the state. The curriculum was based on efforts the DMV has taken to streamline REAL ID processing, including developing a digital REAL ID Field Guide that employees can now access at their workstations.

Operation Excellence is an initiative of the DMV Reinvention Strike Team, which Governor Gavin Newsom created in January to lead a comprehensive modernization and reinvention of the DMV with an emphasis on transparency, worker performance, speed of service and overall consumer satisfaction. The Strike Team was created in response to long wait times in DMV field offices, which were exacerbated by the federal government’s REAL ID requirements.

The Strike Team outlined its accomplishments in a final report, submitted Tuesday, July 23, to Governor Newsom.

“To many Californians, DMV is the face of state government, and we owe those who work on the frontlines the resources and support they need to do their jobs well,” said Government Operations Agency Secretary Marybel Batjer, who lead the DMV Strike Team. “Operation Excellence not only gives employees the skills they need to handle the historic and unprecedented REAL ID work, it is the renewal of DMV’s commitment to providing sufficient training on all significant policy and procedure changes.”

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