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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-09-25 Minutes for Communications Working Group Meeting Date: Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 Time: 10 a.m. Location: 1C Attending: Susan Hajnik Paul Wirch Laura Pinto Jenny Bilenduke Curry Clifford Duncan Anderson Stephen Myers Sarah Vaisler Leanne Walker Basia Radomski Absent: Marie Marano Linda Coutu Cindy Fleming Mark Berney Section 1: Introductions, background The group spent a few minutes introducing themselves. Each person identified internal and external communications concerns they face in their department. Basia is the Communication Manager, focuses on communications, marketing, tourism. She manages five staff members (three full-time and two part-time) Basia is looking to make changes in how Clarington communicates externally to the public, as well as internally across departments Jenny works in Engineering Services. Some of her communications concerns include making sure that the public is aware of both major and minor projects, road reconstruction and anything that impacts the lives of residents. She wants to make sure that the public is aware of projects before they come across closed roads. Jenny has to communicate information about the capital budget, what projects are on the go. Jenny has no internal issues. Paul is a Planner in Planning Services. He is responsible for communicationg information about current developments, site plans (before construction begins), Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington 40 Temperance Street, Bowmanville, ON L1C 3A6 905-623-3379www.clarington.net providing council with new policies. Some of his communication is mandated by provincially legislation. Paul is looking for new ways to engage and get new voices, ways to partner with other departments. Internally, Paul is looking for ways to communicate with one another. He suggests having a staff directory with photos, making people aware of different projects as they come forward. Not everyone is aware of planning newsletter. Sarah is a marketing manager for the Clarington Library. She is responsible for marketing communications, children’s events. Sarah is always looking for ways to partner with Clarington. Library staff deal with public and need to be kept in the loop for what is going on in the town. The Library staff mostly rely on email for communication because the staff is mostly made up of part-time people across the various library locations. Sarah will guide staff along so that they are as connected as they can be to the goings on in Clarington. Curry is the Corporate Initiatives Officer in the CAO’s Office. He is interested in integrating with other services in a way that effectively gets a return on investment on time spent on the committee vs. the output that the committee achieves. Susan works in Operations. Communicating with the public in a time efficient manner during the winter/ice storm is very important. Susan has some concerns regarding internal communication because there is no access for operations staff to log in or they are not tech savvy. They would benefit for the information to come in the format of a newsletter. Operations wants better communication between themselves, engineering and planning. Steve works in Community Services. Communication can be an issue for various reason: satellite locations (rec centres), high number of part-time staff, difficult to get message down to front-line staff. Wants communication to come in the most effective format; could be newsletters or other means. Laura is a Financial Analyst who deals with assessments, appeals. She considers Finance to be the hub of the municipality because all initiatives require money, which creates lots of communication between departments. Internally, Finance has great communication, staff receive webinars or seminars frequently, and head of department tries to include staff. She has notices a big difference in last six months, since the Communications survey. She has no challenges in her position and staff are good at getting back to clients quickly. Duncan works in Animal Services. He is looking for ways to better communicate what everyone does across departments. Know what everyone does in each department makes it easier to provide answers to the public. Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington 40 Temperance Street, Bowmanville, ON L1C 3A6 905-623-3379www.clarington.net Discussion: Corporate database to log complaints and track how they are resolved. Jenny suggests corporate database to log complaints. There is currently no corporate- wide complaint tracking system. She wants to be able to see how departments respond to complaints. Sometimes there are the same complaints that come in and it would be nice to see how it was dealt with on a previous occasion. Different departments should be able to access when there is an overlap. Example given by Duncan. Someone called about a pigeon coop. Call sent to animal services but the question needed to be dealt with by another department because there were by-laws involved. Curry adds that Chatham-Kent uses a common corporate information system different from LDO. It is managed primarily by address or name so that staff can see if a complaint comes in for the same address. Laura mentions that City-wide (software) offers modules to assign a work order to an employee. Basia finds it difficult for new employees to understand what each department does. Inter-departmental communication is also difficult. If a press release is going out to the public, all the departments that have a stake in the news have to be in agreement. A central reporting data recording system won’t happen overnight, but Basia will look into it some more. Group discussion about money being a big consideration. Cost of a system would be expensive, IT can’t get budget support. We are heading into budget right now, we should go to department heads. Curry to talk to frank about adding it to the agenda for discussion. Basia to include this item on future agendas. Section 2: Communications News email destination Everyone is aware of the new communications email commnews@clarington.net. The purpose is for everyone in all departments to get into the habit of emailing communications to share information about big and little items, both positive and negative. It is for all staff to use. Communications to disseminate information and inform everyone. Please continue to send news to this email. Nothing is too small. Section 3: Connected: biweekly e-newsletter Basia handed out a proposed initiative to improve communications internally. Clarington Connected is and internal e-newsletter that will take content that has been sent to commnews@clarington.net and share it across departments. The e-newsletter will be printed operations and staff in external locations. For example, someone in Operations who receives the email, could print it and hang it on a central board of leave it in the Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington 40 Temperance Street, Bowmanville, ON L1C 3A6 905-623-3379www.clarington.net lunch room for other staff to read. The premise behind the idea is to include news for municipal staff only. It’s a way for us to share major initiative and to stay informed. The issue that was handed out is a sample only. News can include: celebration of successes, retirements, and new employees. We need you, the stakeholders, to provide information from departments. Not everything will make it into the newsletter, but it is another tool that might be beneficial to keep everyone informed and engaged. We want to use commnews@clarington.net as the main way of receiving the content for the e-newsletter. What are your thoughts? Susan: Operations could print and put on lunch tables but will distribute to each individual Duncan: Likes the idea. It will provide information in another format. Basia: We can work out the logistics. Communications could print and send some copies to satellite locations if necessary, but doesn’t want this to become a bigger job than it needs to be. Leanne: The internal e-newsletter at the Region of Durham is hugely popular and they now distribute it every Friday. All staff at the Region (full and part-time) have a regional email address that can be accessed from any web browser. It allows all staff to access it whenever they want. Basia: This is a pilot – we can’t do this without participation from all departments. Spread the word and let’s see how much interest we can generate. Paul: Is it a goal to have this replace intranet? Basia: No, this is for people who don’t access the intranet. This also won’t replace the planning e-newsletter. There is a link to the Planning e-Update in the ‘Quick Links’ on the e-newsletter. Suggestion to add a link to the library in ‘Quick Links’ Basia: We wanted to see if this is of interest to the departments. Jenny: Jenny shared concerns that content that shouldn’t be shared could go out in the newsletter. She would like all content to be passed by the director of the respective department. Paul: Would it make sense to have a key person in each department to send info to? Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington 40 Temperance Street, Bowmanville, ON L1C 3A6 905-623-3379www.clarington.net Basia: This initiative is not meant to create more work. We will protect the privacy of information where necessary. Nothing to go out that shouldn’t. We will be sensitive about what goes in each newsletter. We can put a process in place to protect sensitive information. Curry: What it comes down to is what the purpose is. Is there a distinction between internal and external information? Are we informing about internal info or external community Basia: Both. Curry: At a past company, the on-going staff newsletter was a way to talk about the lessons learned or success achieved on a project and not about informing about the phases of the project and what the public needs to know. Basia: This is a sample, just a prototype. Laura/Susan?: Doesn’t think the department heads would let the issue go ahead without approval of each newsletter issue. Concern that what’s internal could become external Basia: Do we agree that we should move forward with this initiative? Is not to become a political tool. It’s meant to create a sense of ownership and inclusion for all staff. It will be light and fun, but will also include more serious topics. Everyone agrees that Basia to move forward with the initiative. Next step is to take it to department heads. Section 4: Media Centre external, social media Follow us on Facebook and twitter. We have built a media centre on the Clarington website. Operations to be a central focus during in the winter months. We want to guide the public to use the website as a tool. Some small changes made to the website have had a big impact. Check out the website. Section 5: Other Business Paul: Is there a mandate to follow for the committee – are we a sounding board or are we to deliver on something specific? Basia: I am still trying to figure out the path of where we should take this. This is to get to know everyone but to also see concerns from the departments, the big one being the inter-departmental communications. We can also look into other tools to communicate. Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington 40 Temperance Street, Bowmanville, ON L1C 3A6 905-623-3379www.clarington.net There is no concrete roadmap. Basia to think about the focus. We need to start talking to each other. Curry: The working group came up with three goals for the group. We should revisit those: Work more efficiently, Provide a higher level of customer service, Create a positive work environment. Section 6: Next Meeting TBA Next meeting – end of November. Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington 40 Temperance Street, Bowmanville, ON L1C 3A6 905-623-3379www.clarington.net