Well our Council built it, not a Field of Dreams like in the
movie but a structure a bureaucracy comprised of a CAO
with three Directors under him with each one of those having a Manager reporting
to them. Seven high paid administrative positions to look after a workforce of
barely fifty people and run a town with a declining tax base and population.
Well just like the movie we built it and they came, we just
can not seem to keep them. Let’s go through the list:
June 2011 CAO Tully Clifford
leaves.
July 2011 Director of HR and legislative services Lynne Cox
leaves.
September 2011 Director of Community Services Cam Mertz
leaves.
April 2012 Fire Chief Ken Brands leaves.
June 2012 Manager of Operations Bob Schulz leaves.
July 2012 Manager of
Corporate Services Mariann Martens leaves.
This does not include the Manager of Operations that was
hired prior to Mr Schulz who was suppose to show up on a Monday and never did.
Sprinkle in there some expensive replacements from
Transitional Solutions, Councilor Saindon stated at the last town forum the
municipality had senior positions vacant for a period of 31 months combined.
It’s fine to propose “change” but is this what they were really talking about, large amounts of turn over in an organization usually
indicates that there are much bigger problems. If anybody wants to argue that
isn’t the case, then somebody sure made some poor choices when they hired these
people five of the people above were here for less than a year. Either way there is a problem.
Yes I realize that people come and go and sometimes for the
betterment of an organization changes must be made but this many in the span of
one year?
10 comments:
And we thought we had a revolving door situation with Irwin at the helm with his micro-managing. What accounts for this latest trend, I wonder?
Years back, I remember a hotel manager giving me advice he was given by his mentor when facing a situation of employees in his beer parlour always standing around bitching and complaining among themselves. He reduced the work force from 5 to 4. Guess what? They now found themselves too busy to find the time to do what they were doing before.
Maybe, management here have too much time on their hands with all the extra support staff they now have?
JP
My goodness it sounds like this place is being ran by Donald Trumps "Apprentice" every episode somebody gets "fired"
D.T.
Don't think they were fired. Funny.
I was just para phrasing Donald Trump. Why or how they left is really not relevant the fact that so many left in such a short span; is.
D.T.
No one with any self-respect will hang around. Unless they are a willing to be the Mayors and councils puppet they will be labeled as being “resistant to change” and be disposed of. Their resignation will read “leaving for personal reasons” I find it alarming that not one counsellor has enough self-respect to stand up to the Mayor or for the people that voted them in. I would like to know how much this revolving door has cost us.
Too bad all these people do not tell what was going on behind closed doors and why they really left. I would also like to know what we paid for their silence. Dean is there any way of seeing the severance packages that have been paid out and what agreements, new hires, have in place?
Do not think severance pay would be much of an issue. Most of these people only had a matter of months with the municipality.
The costly part of this equation will be the advertising for new people, interviewing process etc. Loss of productivity with not having the people in place.
Thinking about this if we can survive with out these additional administrators on what appears to be a regular basis. Could we not survive on a permanent basis?
Anon 10:55 I agree we could do without them. Council on the other hand just goes and hires a consultant to take over. Its a wonder they do not have consultants to cover for when employees take a vacation.
Have a great weekend.
Dean
Found this on the Canadian Taxpayers Site, makes sense to me and fits with the issues we are dealing with here.
Management
Virtually every municipality has too many supervisors and too many managers compared to the private sector. Business and public sector organizations are seeing a trend to fewer managers with those remaining being transformed from being the "boss" to being a coach or facilitator. Staff are placed in teams, and take more responsibility for planning their work. At the same time, the ratio of managers to staff is changing from one manager for every five or even ten staff, to one manager for every 50 to 100 staff.
Municipalities can reduce their costs substantially by moving to the team concept, which yields other benefits such as increased staff and management morale, enhanced productivity, and improved service levels. The City of Owen Sound, Ontario (population 20,000) recently eliminated one of three senior management positions in the Public Works department. Now, each crew selects a lead hand who directs the work at each site, and the town is saving more than $60,000 per year
Ken
In an abbreviated form, I think that is what I said above, Ken. :-) But thanks for the full-meal deal... we needed that.
Top-heavy in the office; bottom-heavy in the field, they say. Boy, oh Boy! There is going to be so much to undo and straighten out again after council’s so-called ‘experts’ and ‘professionals’ are done doing the damage they are doing.
Meanwhile, we continue to pay the piper while slowly seeing our once proud 'community spirit' being crushed… bit by bit.
JP
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