Public Agencies

Strategic PlanningStrategic planning is the often-overlooked work of setting direction for your organization. It’s here that the leaders of a public agency put wheels on the vision. Our methods of getting your strategy on paper and putting a corresponding yearly work plan into place provide a practical basis for driving your agency forward. This process also establishes the unity of purpose that your constituents expect from your agency. Providing a deliberate plan for all stakeholders to “see” is vital to your credibility as a public entity.Benefits of BHI ‘s Strategic Planning Service
 

 

  • Provides a clear, comprehensive 5-year plan
  • Outlines the plan for all interested parties
  • Allows the Board to set clear direction for staff
  • Prepares plans for mitigation of vulnerabilities that may threaten the District
  • Provides clear linkage of work plans from Mission to Strategy to Goals

Deliverables

  • 5 – year roadmap for the agency
  1. Tabular strategic overview for clarity
  2. Input opportunities for employees, public, partner agencies and other stakeholders
  3. Executive summary
  4. Board workshop
  5. Staff populated strategy
  • Self-maintenance plan to keep the five-year plan rolling and up to date
  • Deliberate and explicit linkage to the Mission of the Agency
Executive RecruitmentHiring your next executive or senior staff member is often a very difficult time for your agency. The task, however, offers an opportunity to move the agency forward. Our method for assisting with an executive search is different in several ways from the approach taken by other consultant firms. We insist on assessing the Board’s or Manager’s position on where the agency is going (your mission and vision) prior to the start of the search because you can only find the right person to take you forward or compliment your team when you really know where you are going. Our process is also exclusive with you: we do not recruit for other agencies for an equivalent position while we are finding a leader or staff member for you. We insist on spending time with you to ensure that you are well prepared with selection methods that will evaluate candidates fairly and objectively and with purpose that clearly relates to your mission and vision. We conduct searches throughout the nation to find that crucial best fit for your organization. And you’ll be glad to know that we are consistently lower in cost because we are highly efficient and exercise control over expenses in our own organization.
 

 
Organizational Health AssessmentsAn Organizational Health Assessment examines several areas of your organization and performs gap analyses to reveal where you can benefit from clarifying, training, defining, tightening systems or setting direction/planning. While our assessment routinely looks at standard aspects of any business, we put you in the driver’s seat to identify what the full scope of the assessment to ensure a proper coverage and fit between our services and your needs.We review foundational documents such as your mission statement, vision, and core values to establish clear connections between your foundational elements and the annual business plan, capital improvement plan, policies and procedures. We look for strong supervisory direction and performance to ensure employee satisfaction. We conduct employee group surveys or focus groups with survey instruments that you help design and endorse.
We also assess your job descriptions, performance appraisal system and employee handbook against any previously set standards or internal policy and practice. In addition, we review your organizational chart and determine if organizational line stacking and hierarchy are optimized for efficiency.

We provide you with a complete organizational assessment that includes findings and recommendations. This report most usually finds loose ends within the agency that must be tightened to mitigate organizational vulnerabilities that could eventually lead to trouble and costly overhaul-level changes and save cost and time for your agency in a number of ways.
Board WorkshopsBHI offers a wide variety of workshops, retreats and study sessions facilitated by our Principal, Brent Ives, the founder of BHI , shares his expertise to help find common ground around common objectives. He applies BHI ‘s outcome-oriented principles to your needs.Brent Ives has a broad range of experience in facilitating and moderating groups including district boards, nonprofit boards, county boards of supervisors, and city councils. He works with elected Boards, Commissions and/or Councils nearly every week. Workshops he has presented include strategic planning, public survey and information gathering, employee input groups, mission and vision seminars, and board unity-of-purpose workshops.
His expertise, skillful preparation, on-the-ground-experience, practical style, clear objectives and collaboration with you, our client, are keys to achieving the excellent results BHI has brought to client after client. Graphical means of representing your results can be adapted to your purposes.

 
Employee SurveysWe collect opinions, situational information, and other organizational data for you through surveys and employee focus groups. This service allows you to gather information in an objective manner, removing bias. Results of opinion gathering can be expressed back to you in numerous ways to allow for clear understanding of what your employees are thinking. We then provide recommendations on how to maintain, improve, act on, or change their perceptions.
 

 
Succession PlanningMany smaller public agencies can find themselves without critical staffing when someone quits, retires, or is out due to illness or other unplanned reasons. An agency unprepared for such unexpected absences is left with very few options. BHI offers an analysis methodology that allows your staff to recognize this vulnerability and to identify those key positions. From there, we guide you in preparing your agency or business to make sure that the organization is ready to back-fill with critical skills and knowledge when needed. This wakeup call allows for everyone to see the dangers of ignoring what can become a crippling period of inefficiency for your business or agency.
 

 
Job Description Revision/Update

A well-written job description creates the basis for employee selection, hiring, termination, performance management and discipline. It is a critical document when your agency is called upon to legally defend hiring or termination actions. Unfortunately, the job description is often overlooked, neglected or allowed to become obsolete in the ongoing grind and pace of the workplace. After discussions with agency leadership, we work with your supervisors to clarify the positions and functions and to ensure that job descriptions are accurate, function-specific and useful. The key to our approach is making sure that once we are gone, your supervisors will have clear knowledge and understanding of each of the positions that they manage. Everyone benefits when the agency, supervisor and employee have clarity about the jobs to be done.
 

 
Supervisory Training

BHI offers a variety of training opportunities for your supervisor’s group. (see Workshops page link here) We firmly believe that the key to optimized employee relations, and ultimately productivity, is the relationship employees have with their supervisor. We pride ourselves on bringing real-life perspective to the task of supervision. We have years of practical experience in the field and will work with you to customize training to your workplace. Our methods focus on the particular challenges and opportunities that your supervisors encounter every day.