The Town of St. Paul received its long awaited 19-book set of operating manuals, courtesy of Roxanne Laslo of Interactions HR Solutions, at its meeting on Nov. 14.
The manuals are not just written policies, but “a complete system based on accountability,” Laslo told council. The manuals cover key process steps, safe work procedures and hazard identification controls.
The manuals cover the Town’s departments and policy for governance, legal services, protective services, public works and utilities, recreation and parks, FCSS and health and safety.
Town staff worked with Laslo through the two and a half year process, spending many hours explaining the Town’s operations and departments. Calling it “an amazing process,” Laslo spent up to four “marathon” days with staff members at a time, which would provide material to work with for five to six weeks, she said.
“This is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to define our goals and responsibilities and accountability,” said Mayor Glenn Andersen.
Council plans to review the documents and provide feedback to Laslo.
“You have to have manuals to have a place where people can go and look up policies, regulations or how to do things,” said CAO Ron Boisvert, after the meeting.
Interactions partnered with the Alberta Seniors Citizens’ Housing Association and has provided a Toolkit for victim service units. Council heard about the project through sitting on the housing association board and contacted Laslo. While creating the Toolkit for one organization at a time is not in the scope of Interactions operations, the company agreed to partner on developing the systems for broader use. Interactions aims to market the product to other municipalities.
“The idea was to not only make sure St. Paul has what they needed, but from our company’s perspective, we wanted to create a standard version where other towns could take all this great work and review it and customize it specific to their operations.”
St. Paul was the main partner in the development of the Toolkit, which can be modified by client municipalities. Partners include the towns of Sundre, Viking and Coronation, which reviewed the materials, but St. Paul lead the way on the participating in the creation of the Toolkit for towns.
The Village of Clive joined the Organizational Enhancement Toolkit four years ago, resulting in a set of manuals for the village. St. Paul benefited from the pre-work done with Clive, but the operations of a village are very different than a town, explained Laslo, after the meeting.
Interactions bore the bulk of the development cost. The Town of St. Paul paid $23,000 over two and a half years. According to Laslo, the value of the final product is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The manuals include a section on computer use, which received modifications after a political email from CAO Ron Boisvert during the PC leadership campaign garnered provincial headlines. While declining to comment on the circumstances of the personnel issue, Laslo said the Toolkit’s focus on accountability, policies and procedures gives the “foundation on which to build.”
“Equipment is not to be used for personal use,” emphasized Laslo.
The policy prohibits political partisanship or advocacy and personal enterprise, cell phone use, text messaging or social networking (like Facebook).
“The only thing that should ever happen on that equipment is the job duties that is associated with their work,” Laslo said.
One of the steps in the Toolkit indicates personnel should refer to applicable legislation.
The policy permits use of personal devices like cell phones or tablets only during scheduled breaks in a designated area. Regarding communications devices in vehicles, provincial legislation prohibits cell phone use or text messaging, she added.
Laslo says a lot of workplaces are struggling with computer usage and that it looks very different today than five years ago.
“I think that the operations manuals gives them that foundation to make sure they have a good solid base and understanding of what the expectations are.”
