Leadership and Engagement Program

Talent Blue Print

Having engaged, diverse, high-performing and innovative employees is at the heart of achieving service excellence. The Talent Blueprint identifies three priority areas that will focus our activities over the number of years.

The Blueprint is championed by senior leaders who are committed to resourcing and fully supporting our people and they will regularly monitor progress. All levels of leadership have an important role and are accountable to ensure our success.

The three priority areas are:

  1. Know & Attract – We know what skills and abilities are needed to move the organization forward to achieve our priorities. We identify, attract and retain diverse talent and skills that will enable us to perform successfully.
  2. Learn & Grow – We view learning as a strategic investment and believe that everyone in the organization has talent that must be developed. A work environment that values learning helps us to serve our employees, our organization and our community.
  3. Lead & Engage – Through leadership we will foster employee engagement and an enriched sense of belonging, purpose and pride in public service. As employees we experience work that is meaningful and rewarding.

Over the next 18 – 24 months the focus will be:

  • Corporate learning and development – providing a clear menu of career path programs, that are straightforward to access
  • Performance Development Planning (PDP) – making the process easier and more effective
  • Succession Planning program – pilot for Executive Team roles
  • Employee Engagement – survey and improvement planning

Expanded Leadership Charter

The Leadership Charter was created a number of years ago. It’s aspirational and clearly sets out the culture we all want work in and contribute to. It expects leaders at all levels to be accountable to their employees and the public, be clear communicators, empower others and support innovation. We know there is work to do to improve our culture and the next steps include:

  • Increasing communication and awareness of the charter to all employees
  • Providing leadership charter learning opportunities for our front-line
  • Finding ways to support and ensure that everyone is actively showing the mindset and behaviours we expect
  • Supporting leaders to develop strong, productive relationships with their employees using ‘back to basic’ expectations, skills and approaches

Culture of Collaboration

Working in municipal government requires us to work collaboratively across teams, departments, organizations, governments and with diverse members of the public. There are so many different interests and needs that it’s impossible and unacceptable to create important policies, or make significant service decisions working alone.

In fact, working with others often brings new resources and better solutions or service designs because you can focus in on what really matters to people. Everything in the Corporate Administrative Plan requires us to collaborate and we are all expected to build these elements into our work. Some specific examples of initiatives that demonstrate this approach are the Integrated Operational Review, Improvement Network Programs such as the Round Tables and Civic Accelerator and ongoing community engagement activities.