muniBLOG Archives

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 15TH FOR APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2019 CAMA CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIPS

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 15TH FOR APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2019 CAMA CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIPS – FOR CAMA MEMBERS

2019 Conference Scholarships
In recognition of the importance of promoting professional development opportunities for members, the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators established the CAMA Scholarship Program. Through the Scholarship Program, CAMA will provide six scholarships for the registration fee (in the amount of $725.00) for the 2019 Annual Conference (two to young professionals pursuing a career in local government; two to members working in municipalities located north of the 60th parallel; and two to members from smaller municipalities). Individuals are only eligible to receive a scholarship once to provide an opportunity to others to access this scholarship. The scholarship is not transferable and must be used in the same year that it was awarded. For further details and an application form please visit the CAMA website.

Please don’t hesitate to contact Ms. Jennifer Goodine, CAMA Executive Director at 1-866-771-2262 if you have any questions.

Bourse de la conférence
Pour souligner l’importance de promouvoir les occasions de perfectionnement professionnel offertes à ses membres, l’Association canadienne des administrateurs municipaux a créé le programme de bourses de l’ACAM. Par l’entremise de ce programme l’ACAM offre six bourses (valeur de 725 $) pour couvrir les frais d’inscription à la conférence annuelle 2019 selon le principe suivant : deux à des jeunes professionnels faisant carrière dans l’administration municipale; deux à des membres travaillant dans des municipalités situées au nord du 60e parallèle; deux à des membres de petites municipalités. Nos membres sont admissibles une seule fois à cette bourse de manière à ce que les autres aient la possibilité de la recevoir. La bourse n’est pas transférable et doit être utilisée dans la même année où elle a été décernée. Pour obtenir des renseignements et accéder au formulaire de demande, voir le site web de l’ACAM.

N’hésitez pas à communiquer avec Mme Jennifer Goodine, directrice générale de l’ACAM au 1 866-771-2262.

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New Partnership for muniSERV!

You already know muniSERV.ca offers a full suite of tools for municipalities – most of which are free.

But, we’re always on the hunt for even more new and innovative tools and resources to help Canadian municipalities – and we’ve found another perfect partner!

We’re pleased to announce that muniSERV.ca has entered into a partnership with GoByDesign, for their innovative new platform – BoxOfDocs, The Ultimate Sharing Platform For Canadian Municipalities.

Whether you are updating your existing bylaws or policies, or looking to develop new standards, and want to see what similar municipalities have in place, BoxOfDocs is here to help.

*Bonus Partnership Offer

Now, when you register for free on muniSERV, you can also activate your Free Trial of the BoxOfDocs, Municipal Premium Membership, which lets you effortlessly share documents with other Canadian municipalities and gives you with access to thousands of documents your municipality uses daily!

If you have not committed to being an active member for either muniSERV or BoxOfDocs yet, now is a great time to join both and network with other Canadian municipalities to take advantage of valuable tools and services offered under this new partnership.

Welcome BoxOfDocs!

Susan Shannon

Founder & Principal,

muniSERV & muniJOBS
 

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Four Budget Visuals That Help You Tell Your Story

Whether you have new council members, a new ratepayers’ group or increasing cost pressures, communicating financial information effectively can make the difference between adopting a budget in three meetings or three months. 

It can be tough though; people collapse municipal services and property taxes with other agency’s services and taxes, and services are easy to take for granted.

This budget season, let pictures do the work. Here are four images you can add to your budget presentation to help tell your story about why costs are increasing and how public money is spent.

1. Capital Has Changed

Why the increasing focus on capital? Local governments own most of the public infrastructure in Canada now – that means covering lifecycle costs, asset management, preventative maintenance and more. Try using this graphic depicting the transfer of assets to local governments to illuminate newer financial responsibilities.  

2. Project Commitments: Funded and Approved

Looking for a way to connect council-approved projects with annual funding?

Senior Management Team, meet the iceberg. It’s a graphic metaphor one Canadian city manager used to describe the growing number of projects council approved, announced without a funding plan, (also known as projects that were ‘below the [funding] line’) and deferred. The image highlights which projects the council-directed tax increase pushes forward to future years and the risk that political talk does not match budget walk.

 
 

3.  Demonstrate Value Through Better Billing

Are there special programs or project costs council wants to highlight? Separating an infrastructure levy from the operating levy on the tax bill can be an effective way to highlight costs. The City of Mississauga’s bill identifies three such levies for the City of Mississauga highlights three special levies: The Emerald Ash Borer Management Program (a tree pest), Capital Infrastructure and Debt Repayment and the University of Toronto Mississauga Campus.  

4.  Municipal Services are Bodily Services

Tired of comparing the cost of services to the cost of a cup of coffee to communicate that municipal services are good value for money? Try this instead: The services we provide are important because they support everyone’s bodily functions. Every shower, flush, cereal box and bike ride involves local services.

 
 

This budget cycle, give elected representatives the gift that keeps on giving: a metaphor about how far municipal tax dollars go with an hourly reminder from their own body.  

Enter your email here to get these images sent to you in a PowerPoint slide deck.

What other budget metaphors, pictures and visuals have you come across that help communicate specific program costs or macro/micro capital shifts?

 

Emily Harris has worked in municipal finance policy as an academic at Carleton University, as the Manager of Policy at the Municipal Finance Officers’ Association, as a Management and Policy Consultant in the Toronto City Manager’s Office, as a Financial Analyst in the City of Toronto’s budget division and as a private consultant, completing projects for Local Authority Services (LAS) and the Ontario Government ministries of finance and municipal affairs. As Director of The Policy Shop, she specializes in financial policy updates for local governments and can be contacted at [email protected]. 

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Technology in Hiring Is Growing. Where Should You Invest?

At some point in time, technology has disrupted every industry including recruitment. With more touchpoints across a multitude of platforms, companies are using technology to build a compelling employer brand, support the candidate experience and analyze their hiring team’s success.

In fact, an HR Service Delivery Survey reported that technology plays a key role in hiring in 92 percent of large companies, 77 percent of medium companies and 54 percent of small organizations.

A few of the most popular platforms include:

  • Assessments. According to Harvard Business Review, 76 percent of organizations with more than 100 employees rely on assessment tools. These tools, like our Emergenetics Selection Program (ESP), test for a variety of workplace tendencies. Some of the most common are cognitive ability, work ethic, motivation and personality.
  • Video interviewing. Between 40 – 60 percent of companies use live or recorded video interviewing for hiring, which can improve the candidate experience by making it easier to interview. When candidates record interviews, it can save the hiring teams’ time by allowing them to review on their schedules, and it can save money, particularly if the company pays for candidate travel expenses.
  • Applicant tracking systems. There has been significant growth in applicant tracking systems with 26 percent of companies using them to assess hiring metrics and manage candidate recruiting, hiring and onboarding.
  • Social recruiting. Social media allows employers to showcase their brand and help HR teams find talent. Nearly 60 percent of employers have used social media to successfully hire candidates.
  • Resume screening technology. This technology reviews resumes for keywords deemed relevant to an open position. When a company receives a large number of applicants, resume screening can make a recruiter’s life much easier.
  • Mobile recruiting. 70 percent of people use their cell phones to look for jobs, so mobile job boards and applications are extremely important.

This list may cause an HR professional’s head to spin, especially when you consider that there are hundreds of providers for these technologies – and the list is growing.

Still, when incorporated properly, hiring technology can streamline and standardize the hiring process, reduce reliance on “gut” instincts, provide relevant statistics to demonstrate success and help hire the right people.

Technology isn’t going away, so the best thing to do is embrace it. The question is: How do you prioritize an ever-growing list of technologies?

These are our tips for recruiters and HR professionals:

1. Have a clear understanding of your goals and measurements.
To choose the right technologies for your needs, start by identifying objectives as an HR team and as a company. Once a team is clear on what they want to accomplish and how to evaluate success, they can determine which technologies will get them there – and identify a list of relevant requirements to assess the tools against.

2. Determine where you have hiring process breakdowns.
Figuring out where to begin can be difficult. Start by assessing issues in the existing hiring process. Does the difficulty lie in finding qualified candidates or in the application? Social recruiting could help in finding qualified candidates while a streamlined applicant tracking system may make sense in smoothing out the application process. Or, is the challenge in resume reviews or assessing soft skills? Resume screening can help tackle the candidate resume review process and a hiring tool like ESP can help in streamlining the review process and assessing soft skills.

Once problem areas are identified, it is easier for teams to prioritize technologies that address these concerns.

3. Learn what technologies can do.
How many of us have purchased a tool and used it for one thing – only to realize two years later that they have features that would have accomplish other goals as well? As an example, some of our clients think specifically about ESP as a hiring tool when in fact it can be used to support career pathing and onboarding in addition to assessing motivations, aptitudes and work ethic. Take the time to truly understand the tool, and stay current on its features and those of its competitors

4. Don’t forget the human element.
Remember that technology is part of the hiring process – not the whole process. Sometimes, when we meet with managers who are interested in our hiring assessment, they ask if ESP will give them a yes/no answer on a hiring decision. This is something we don’t offer, as we believe you need to be wary of using technology for a yes/no decision.

If you have a candidate with a 90 percent job fit versus one with 79 percent, you should interview both applicants to understand the differences between them. It may be that the 10 percent misalignment of your 90 percent job fit candidate relates to factors that would significantly impact the candidate’s success, while the 21 percent of misalignment for the other applicant is due to less problematic factors.

Tools like ESP can help you combine the benefits of technology with the human element. ESP highlights the areas of misalignment from candidates, so talent acquisition teams can pay particular attention to potential challenges for the new hire, tailoring interview questions and digging into the results of the assessment. Rather than make a yes/no decision based solely on ESP results, the results can be used to determine if these issues would have a material impact on job fit.

Always remember that technology is not a substitute for human interaction in the hiring process. It should be used to support human interaction.

When you consider these four factors, you will be well on your way to finding the right technologies to support your organization’s needs and integrating these programs so that your recruiting process runs smoothly, attracts the right candidates and helps you successfully hire them.

If, in the process of following steps 1 – 4, you have any questions about how ESP could support your company’s needs, please contact me at [email protected].

Kelly Fullerton
Director of ESP
Emergenetics International

 

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Announcing New CAMA/muniSERV Partnership!

This is an exciting new partnership for both muniSERV’s professional and municipal members!

Our professional members immediately get more exposure for their professional profile and for their ads on muniSERV – and our municipal members who are CAMA members get access to more resources and discounts off muniSERV’s paid services. 

Here’s CAMA’s Official Release:

CAMA Announces New Partnership with muniSERV.ca

CP News Release – Released on: May 29, 2018

Municipal association partnership with muniSERV.ca will benefit members nationwide

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick, May 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators (CAMA) is pleased to announce a new partnership with muniSERV.ca – Canada’s leading online platform to connect municipalities and the businesses that serve them – that will benefit its members nationwide.

The partnership will allow CAMA members easily to find qualified consultants specializing in municipal matters, post a Request for Proposal, bid or tender, find a CAO, post a CAO job, see and submit events of interest to municipal administrators, and even sell surplus equipment.

The partnership also provides for some great discounts to other special services, including the following:

  • muniLEARN – an end-to-end collaborative learning management system platform with access to over 900 accredited digital courses for any size municipality and
  • muniJOBS – coming soon is the only online career and recruitment platform in Canada with a 100% municipal focus that provides candidates with both matching and searchable job postings.

Registration is free for CAMA members, and it takes less than a minute to join. Once a municipality is registered, any member of the team can also join and access the services available.

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Media Contacts:

CAMA: Stacey Murray, 506-261-3534, [email protected]

muniSERV: Susan Shannon, Founder & Principal, muniSERV.ca, 855.477.5095, [email protected]

About muniSERV.ca

muniSERV is Canada’s leading online solution for helping municipalities and professionals connect.  We help municipalities save time and money searching for the consultants & CAOs they need, while offering professionals the opportunity to showcase their profile and services to get found and grow their business. muniserv.ca

About CAMA

The Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators (CAMA) is a national, non-profit association open to all Chief Administrative Officers / City Managers and any person employed in a senior management position that reports directly to a CAO. With a membership of over 600 senior municipal employees from all parts of Canada, CAMA collectively represents more than 70% of the nation’s population. www.camacam.ca

 

 

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Train in Technology – Career Expo

Technology is meshed into every industry in some shape or form and the current and future economy will only thrive if talent is well matched to local employment opportunities. Technology drives innovation and business growth, and is critical to the future of the region’s economy.

The Barrie/Simcoe County region has experienced an influx of data centres, an emergence of global technology firms, significant growth in the number of high-tech start-ups, and an expansion of our advanced manufacturing sector. Opportunities like the Train in Technology Career Expo will build the local talent pool to ensure we have the future workforce our employers need.

muniSERV is excited to be attending the Train in Technology Career Expo.  We are also excited to be launching our new muniJOBS at this show!

muniJOBS is a new municipal career/job recruitment platform to help municipalities recruit tomorrow’s municipal leaders and for students/candidates to quickly and easily find municipal jobs.  Drop by our Booth at the Expo to find out more about this unique new website. 

We can’t wait to meet job seekers looking for municipal jobs!

This one day, not to miss, Expo is full of valuable sessions, technology industry networking and public career information.  #TrainInTech Career Expo – March 27th, 2018 from 3:00pm-7:00pm – Barrie Molson Centre. bit.ly/TrainInTech   

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Making a Case for the Digital Transformation of Municipal Learning & Development

The digital transformation of municipalities has morphed over time from simply being a trendy “buzz word”, to becoming a central component of a modern municipal business strategy. Fortunately, government leaders are really starting to leverage modern technology to implement and improve administrative best practices.

“Smart governments integrate modern technology into their day-to-day operations to enhance engagement with citizens and other stakeholders to drive better outcomes – And, better technology improves public administration.”[1]

Modern technology is revolutionizing and transforming all aspects of public administration – everything from the way you manage your public works and assist citizens, to the way you administer your learning and development programs.

An LMS is a software application that helps organizations manage the administration, documentation, tracking, training and reporting of their Learners. It reduces the time, effort and cost of training programs while offering deeper insight into your Learner’s experience, compliance and progress. The number of organizations that now use learning management systems (LMS), is higher than ever before and digital learning and training is becoming more widely accepted and used.

That’s why it’s hard to understand, with all the proven efficiencies and benefits of using LMS software and digital learning, why some learning and development professionals still consider expensive, face-to-face, instructor-led training preferable to digital learning?

So, here’s a case for going digital:

It Breaks Down Silos – Different departments often use different systems resulting in decentralization and “everybody doing their own thing” with training and development. Centralizing your learning and development programs by using an LMS, eliminates the decentralization that results in scattered data across multiple municipal departments and improves management analytics and reporting so more informed decisions can be made.

It Eliminates Spreadsheets – Spreadsheets and legacy systems are unwieldy processes that lead to increased errors and a limited ability to track and monitor training, which ultimately results in frustration.

Produces IT Savings – On-site software requires in-house IT resources and expensive IT ongoing maintenance. It needs to be updated continually – plus it’s difficult to access information across departments and away from the office.

Using cloud-based software and Software-as-a-service (SaaS), eliminates the time spent on installations and manual software updates, while at the same time providing a more cost-effective solution that saves time and provides online data centers with far greater computer power and storage capacity.

You Can Do More with Less – Transforming your learning programs to digital learning simply allows you to deliver more training to more learners at less cost. It stretches training budgets because it reduces training costs (less travel, time away, travel expenses etc.)

Deliver consistent learning across your organization, anywhere, anytime – Maybe you need to deliver the same compliance course to various departments in your municipality at the same time? An LMS and digital learning makes this easy.

Adopting digital learning lets your team obtain certifications such as PMP, Change Management, Risk Management and more – right from their desktops – at a fraction of the cost of traditional classroom learning to acquire the same certifications.

Puts you ahead of the curve in your ability to entice younger workers – many of them are quite used to digital learning already.

It’s predicted that over the next 5 years, 51% of senior municipal staff members employees will be eligible to retire. Therefore keeping the current workforce engaged –millennials, generation Xers and baby boomers included – is essential to the success of each municipality. When you create a modern digital workplace and give employees tools to help them do their jobs it helps drive employee engagement, which keeps more young professionals in local government.

Establishes the right learning opportunities for tomorrow’s leaders – You can create Learning Paths and Learning Objectives within an LMS to ensure you are helping shape tomorrow’s leaders.

Improved control over the creation, deployment and management of your own training initiatives and staff development.

And More…………

As digital technology continues to evolve successful digital transformation will require careful collaboration, thoughtful planning and the inclusion of every department.

However, digital transformation isn’t only about technology, it’s about meshing the power of technology with a corporate culture that embraces the change technology can lead for the organization.

Any learning initiative needs employee buy-in and the support of upper management. And often organizations need assistance to help them create a strategic roadmap to guide them through their digital learning and development transformation.

We wanted to know why municipalities have been slow to adopt new technology to transform their learning and development programs so we conducted a survey in 2017. What we learned was, that while municipalities would like to have an LMS, purchasing their own LMS software is a huge capital outlay that is simply cost-prohibitive for many municipalities. In addition, we heard that those municipalities who already have their own LMS have a hard time sourcing quality, accredited training.

So, we developed muniLEARN – a collaborative learning management solution for municipalities that’s intended to be an end-to-end solution to help them as they navigate through their learning and development transformation and digital learning.

muniLEARN is a robust, secure, turn-key learning platform that lets you manage the deployment of your own learning and training initiatives – digitally, in a cost-effective manner.

If you’re considering transforming your learning and development program, Click here to try our free needs assessment tool to check your readiness to transform, or

Contact us at [email protected] for:

  • More information about muniLEARN and/or a free introductory demo for your team
  • How your municipality can participate in our free Pilot Program to test drive using an LMS and digital learning

Remember, Learning Isn’t Where You are, It’s What You Do!

By: Susan Shannon, Founder & Principal of muniSERV.ca.

[email protected] or at 855.477.5095

[1] The Digital Transformation of Public Administration – OpenGov

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What Can a Learning Management System do for my municipality?

Municipalities have reported two (2) main pain points when it comes to managing their learning and development programs:

  1. They are tired of tracking Learning & Development on a spreadsheet and they would you like to have an LMS but they are cost-prohibitive for their municipality,
  2. Sourcing training content to populate their LMS is difficult and time-consuming, not to mention expensive

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software application to help organizations manage the administration, documentation, tracking, training, reporting of their Learners. The main benefits of an LMS are to reduce the time, effort and cost of your training program while offering deeper insight into your Learner’s experience, compliance and progress.

With an LMS, you can assign training to your team to; a) grow the leaders of tomorrow (succession planning), b) for annual compliance training, c) for new hire onboarding or d) improve the job skills of employees in your organization. 

Not every municipality is the same so not everyone has the same needs when it comes to an LMS.  That’s why any LMS must offer a wide range of functionality to address individual municipal circumstances and the provider must be available to provide support and guidance along the way.

Learning Content

When organizations purchase their own LMS, the first step they need to do is upload training content into the LMS – and municipalities already know that it’s difficult and time consuming to source quality courses. But, then once they’ve found the training content they will need their IT or the LMS provider to upload it for them.  This increases costs and results in time delays in getting their training started.

A Learning Management Solution for Municipalities

muniLEARN is a collaborative learning management solution provided by muniSERV.ca, in partnership with Orion Learning. It saves municipalities money, improves  learning effectiveness, and helps them implement a safe, secure, collaborative learning solution across their municipality.

Here’s how:

muniLEARN has three components:

  • A state-of-the-art, robust, secure, subscription-based learning management system (LMS)
  • Access to a content marketplace of over 900 accredited, competency-based learning courses, programs and certification exams
  • Expertise to help you transform your learning and development program

 

 

Learning Management System – muniLEARN’s LMS comes with a full range of functionality already, but it is also customizable to suit individual needs.

Learning Content – With muniLEARN you have immediate access to our learning marketplace of over 900 accredited competency-based learning courses, programs and certification exams. We have sourced the best competency based learning courses from some of the world’s best content authors to provide you with an off-the-shelf content solution you can access directly or integrate it into your own learning programs. All of our courses are accredited by internationally recognized accreditation bodies including PMI, AXELOS, APMG International, ISSA, APM and ISTQB. We show you the accreditation agency on the accredited courses and your learners will receive certificates on successful completion of the exam.

Learning Transformation – muniLEARN has the expertise available to help guide municipalities through the transformation of their learning and development programs.

muniLEARN Pilot Program

If you’re not sure how muniLEARN will work for your municipality, we’ll give you a month to try it out!  Our muniLEARN Pilot program gives municipalities a test drive of the muniLEARN solution and the opportunity to experience using an LMS and digital learning.

Contact us today at [email protected] to learn more and discuss your learning and training needs!

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Content is Still King for Getting Attention for your Business

As you know, keeping your business top of mind with your ideal customer will help you be their first choice when they’re in the market for what you offer.

But cutting through the noise to reach your ideal customers and grabbing their attention is getting tougher than ever. The ways consumers find information have changed.

Enter the Power of Content

What type of content you produce and where you distribute it will be uniquely specific to your brand. You can’t just put a piece of content up on your website and hope people will find it.

Writing articles through the use of a blog is one of the most common and powerful types of content marketing – and having the ability to publish articles to a community blog focussed directly on your target audience is even better!

Doing so helps you build visibility with your customers and potential customers while at the same time engaging them and strengthening the reputability of your brand.

Your content gives you the power to become an influencer and the voice of authority in your field of expertise.

If you’re like me though, because the heavy traffic on the social media channels available for content marketing is constantly growing, I’m finding that my content posted on various social media sites, is like publishing into the abyss. You might get some “likes” and “comments” but it’s hard for most of us who are “technologically impaired” to determine if it actually reached our target audience.

To make content marketing work best, not only does it need to be good and relevant to your customers, you must also consider effective distribution of it and getting it in the right places.

“The most essential issue in Content Marketing, as cited by more than half of in-house respondents, is “Effective Distribution and Getting Content in the Right Places.” [1]

Getting Started

  • Identify your core audience (i.e. for our professional members, it’s the municipalities)
  • Determine their pain points and write custom content that helps – tell stories from your experience, provide information that prompts them to ask questions and contact you.
  • Then publish it where they will see it – “in the right places” (i.e – our “muniBLOG”)

Remember – one article alone won’t be the primary source of conversions so you’ll want to think creatively about what types of content you need to produce. Keep your articles closely related or neatly categorized so, as people start connecting with your content, they’re inclined to read more and more.

Content No-No’s:

  • Too much self-promotion – a bit is ok but your articles can’t be a sales pitch. Keep it mostly educational or informational and follow the 80/20 rule. (80% information/20% promotion)
  • Misspellings & Poor Grammar – if you’re not comfortable writing your own content consider getting someone to write your content for you
  • Not including a strong call to action – if someone is reading your blog, they need to be able to reach out to you – otherwise, what’s the point. Tell them what you want them to do next and provide your contact information.

Now here’s my 20% Rule in action.

Are you leveraging muniSERV’s Content Marketing potential?

According to the Incite Group’s 2017 Marketing Trends, “Personalization” is the next big thing.

muniSERV is ahead of its time and we already offer our members a component of personalization, in that we take your content and target it directly to municipalities for you.

As a muniSERV member, did you know your content on our blog has the potential to reach every Canadian municipality and it will be delivered directly to the inboxes of our 750 subscribed municipal decision-members?

So be sure you’re taking advantage of the power of publishing your content to our muniBLOG so you can leverage the strength of our subscribed municipal members. I cannot stress enough, the power in getting the right content to the right people at the right time.

Finally, if content writing is just not your thing and you need help – contact me. We can help you with that too.

By the way – we’re working hard on taking “personalization” to the next level for our members by developing personalization that will provide segmented targeting to help you reach exactly who you want to reach – so stay tuned!

Susan Shannon, Founder & Principal

muniSERV.ca

[email protected]

855.477.5095

[1] Incite Group – 2017 Digital Marketing Trends

 

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Tips to Getting Noticed and Winning More Municipal Business

By Susan Shannon, Principal, muniSERV.ca

Limited time offer – Register today for a new, annual muniSERV professional membership and get your 10% off discount code for a new bids&tenders subscription.  Enjoy a better way to connect with public sector clients to market your professional services and now, exclusive access to tender from 100’s of public sector organizations. Learn more.

*bids&tenders is a member of the muniSERV strategic partners network.

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