City staff are undergoing training meant to bring greater efficiency and effectiveness to city hall, from how the municipality organizes its projects, to how residents and community groups use city facilities, among other things.
In May, 12 city staff members began the "Lean" training process to attain a Green Belt certification; the goal is to streamline city operations and deliver services more effectively to the community.
“Lean initiatives can include optimizing workflows, improving efficiency, and piloting improvement initiatives to achieve the best results for our citizens in the context of quality, cost and delivery,” stated a city staff report.
Taught by the Leading Edge Group, the training includes five days of in-person training, an exam, and a project meant to improve operations at city hall, which were presented to city council at a special meeting last week.
“(We’re) pretty excited about this very important initiative, as it emphasizes our commitment to continuous improvement and excellence in our municipal operations,” said CAO Gayle Jackson. “These projects are vital learning experiences that will help (staff) ultimately identify opportunities for improvement within our organization.”
Running as a pilot program this year, the training process is set to conclude in November, with the city looking to expand the program in 2025, stated the staff report.
Twelve projects meant to apply Lean training were presented last week, although no decisions were made by council on whether or not to implement the projects at this time.
Marcia Russell, manager of recreation and youth services, is working on a project that aims to eliminate the AquaQueue at the Orillia Recreation Centre, which serves 1,500 to 2,000 visitors daily, or roughly “half a million per year,” she said.
With a capacity of 160 people for drop-in swimming, her project endeavours to “optimize the drop-in swimming process” and reduce wait times for swimmers, a process that could be applied to other fitness programs at the facility.
The Orillia Opera House provided 207 rentals and 108 programs last year, and director of business development, tourism, and modernization Michael Ladouceur aims to improve the rental process for customers.
“Right now it's a fairly non-standard approach, (with) information passed back and forth between staff, to other internal staff, to the client, back and forth,” he said. “We're looking to streamline the entire process to make the sort of delivery ride that much smoother and quicker.”
Other projects proposed reducing the red-tape for installing business signage, developing more efficient ways to catalogue the city’s capital projects, and more.
Members of council were pleased to hear Lean training could translate to a more efficient city hall.
“Let's be honest … city hall isn't exactly known for being super efficient and super fast with dealing with issues, and we care about that,” said Coun. David Campbell.
“Every one of these projects that you're dealing with are things that we've heard about (and) are going to address issues that we care about, so to me, that tells me that you're in tune with what's needed," said Campbell.
More may be read about the Lean training program, and the projects proposed by city staff, in last week’s special council agenda.
