The fraying of organizational systems can have a significant negative effect over the health of your District. These days we must be efficient in all we do, and minding our organization is no exception.

There are some key areas we recommend that you pay close attention to during these times. While tuning up the organization may take some work now, this will pay off later in making things more efficient and avoiding troublesome issues arising.

* Employee Communication – Taking a hard look at how you communicate with your employee base is important in cutting down needless rumors or discontent under the surface. Assure that employees get the information they need, factual information. There should also be access to communicate with the management about concerns or ideas. This open door communications policy can work wonders.

* Performance Evaluations – These systems can often be overlooked as a tool for productivity and efficiency. Yet they are the source of all sorts of trouble for both employees and their evaluating supervisors. Simple fixes can make a big difference in these systems. Updating the way you evaluate employee performance that involves the employee base can work miracles.

* Training your First-line Supervisors – First-line supervisors hold the key to organizational health in our organization. Assuring that they have a good handle on their responsibilities in this area and that they have the tools necessary to do this part of their job is as important as any tool they have in their toolbox.

* Hiring Right – Improvements to your hiring system can make a huge difference in the quality of our “most important asset”. If you look into your five year future, you most likely will see that this is an area that should be optimized. Assure that you processes are streamlined to sort candidates with a clear and deliberate profile in mind and your interviewers are properly prepared to find the right match.

* Planning – Doing this as a Board/Management team yields significant benefits to the District. Good planning can clarify what work is priority avoiding the need for a crystal ball for either the manager or the Board. Planning should put Board and Management together to determine those priority projects that best support the Mission/Vision of the District.

Summer can be a great time to take a serious look at your organization to make sure that it is tuned-up for efficiency.

Sincerely,

Brent H. Ives

Include organizational needs while putting together next year’s budget! As we are all into the process of establishing the final touches on the FY10/11 budget, don’t forget your organization. This means overall organizational health considerations from top to bottom, including the Board, planning and your staff.

We ofter get calls from Districts as needs arise only to find out that the services they really need were not adequately supported in the annual budgeting process resulting in the need to establish additional allocations. This year, as you proceed with assembling your budget, think through the following list of projects that may need help next year. Consider ‘putting them in there’ and avoid having to endure another budget adjusting process when the need arises. Common organizational health projects:

* Assessing organizational performance

* Strategic plan

* Board planning workshop

* Succession Planning

* Supervisory training

* Teambuilding

* Establishing Comprehensive Training Plans

* Mission/Vision workshop for the Board

* Governance workshop

* General Manager Evaluation Process

* Updating your Board Policy Manual

* Updating your Job Descriptions

* Communications Plan

* Compensation Study

These are just a few of the types of projects that help keep our organizations running smoothly. Hopefully this list stimulates your thinking toward your organizational needs for FY10/11. BHI Management Consulting assists Special Districts across the state with these and many other services and would be happy to discuss any questions you may have as you prepare your budgets.

Sincerely,

Brent H. Ives

Many agencies today rely too much on the big firm to provide them with the services they need when they are adding a critical member of their top team. There are a number of mistakes that should be avoided when looking for the right team member.

These areas are where the big recruiting firms are letting Special Districts down. Attend our free 1 hr. webinar on March 16th at 10am to hear from me on what to look for in a recruiter and critical areas where professional assistance is needed when picking your next critical team member.

Sincerely,

Brent Ives

Several of you have mentioned as a follow-up to our article on Smart Management last year, your questions about how to go about ‘Selecting Well’ as the first step to Smart Management. Finding the right match for your organization’s management positions can be a challenge. It requires in-depth knowledge of the organization and a strong sense of the qualities required to ¬find the best match out there.

Some key steps to keep in mind for the recruiting process include the following:

1. Recognize the Importance of the Decision – Take this responsibility seriously yet enter into it as an opportunity. You have the chance to bring new life or a new era of effectiveness to your District with new ideas, solutions, experience and direction to improve the overall District.
2. Revisit the Vision – Before you send out an ad for candidates or post the job in a service of some kind, the Board should spend some time together looking toward the future. Maybe you don’t have to perform a comprehensive re-write of your District’s vision or mission, but you should take this opportunity to either re-visit an existing vision statement or create a new one in light of this current transition.
3. Analyze the Job – The freshly polished vision for your organization should help you outline the specifics of what, who and how the right person will be defined and define what type of critical skills, experience and attributes will be needed to implement this new vision successfully.
4. Candidate Outreach – This phase of the search process is where the time spent in preparation is critical and pays off in the number and quality of candidate pool. Ads or outreach materials should be developed with specific guidance from the Board including a vision statement, an accurate job description and specific job related factors that are important to the Board. A candidate packet should be developed which outlines the job well, the background of the District, the structure, operational aspects, coverage area, general budget info., distinct and compelling attributes about the District including the surrounding area, local schools, culture and more.
5. Narrow the Field – If the advertising and professional search worked as it should, you will need to narrow the group of candidates. The earlier set of pre-requisites now serves as screening measures to those specifically qualified for the second round. The second round can employ a number of methods to get to the final interview set. At this point, a group of objective subject matter experts may be caucused to conduct interviews and assessments to gauge technical capability, background, education and applicable experience.
6. Prepare for the Interview – Final interviews should be conducted with the entire Board. In preparation for the interviewing, Board members should be The Board should also be prepared for the actual interview sessions with assistance with interview questions, who will ask what, and, if a scoring method is employed, how to use the scoring instrument properly.
7. Make the Decision – Once interviews are conducted it may be either very obvious or very difficult to choose between candidates. A scoring instrument may be a valuable guide and an excellent means of sorting candidates at this phase. If the instrument is designed by scoring candidate responses to specific position related questions, and the questions were derived directly from the job analysis and description, you now have a legal and efficient means of guiding your decision.
8. Make the Offer – Remember these key things as you consider making the offer to the final candidate:

• The top candidate may not reach agreement with your District, so do not dismiss the other candidates until formal signed agreement is reached.
• You get what you pay for, but a phased approach for salary growth and/or deferred compensation over a set period of time is a good way to assure both yourselves and the candidate that future performance is important.
• Discuss up-front, before the interviews what your absolute top level constraints are so that you refer to that decision when the time arrives.

While these steps may seem difficult, tricky or labor intensive, a poor hiring decision will cost your District in numerous ways. If you are considering hiring a consultant to lead you through this process, BHI Management Consulting specializes in leading public bodies through integrated employee recruiting, selection, and promotion.

BHI is a leader in recruiting services for special districts because we take the time to understand your big picture before helping you to fill in a gap. Maintaining an excellent staff is not a small commitment. BHI’s years of experience are at your service to help you recruit and retain top talent.

View the full article or my blog on the subject on my website at www.bhiconsulting.com.