Setting our people up for success

We have good people working for this city. Too often the system gets in their way.

The front line sees more than it gets credit for. They often notice problems that sit outside their own department. Without a clear channel to communicate that, they continue to see issues go unfixed, and it gets harder for them to stay motivated and do their job.

That knowledge does not always travel. It reaches the edge of a department and stops, and the people who could act on it never hear it. The cost of that lands on residents, and on the budget.

Two cycles, geared together

Continuous improvement is four steps and they run in a loop. Plan what to change, and say what you expect it to do. Do it. Check what actually happened, including the parts nobody predicted. Act on what you found, then start again. That is how a council should work.

There is a second loop, and it runs out in the ward. People engage with something new. They get the support to succeed at it. They share that success. That encourages the next person to engage.

Neither one turns well on its own. A council that plans and does but never checks is guessing. A community that engages and succeeds but is never heard stops sharing.

The feedback is already out there. It sits with community volunteers, with citizens, with businesses, and with the workers who deliver the service. We are not short of it. We are short of a way to harness it.

Checking is where council needs to improve. We need to build better feedback systems so council gets the on-the-ground information to update the plan, so management and staff can improve the system.

Sharing success and encouraging more is where we need to improve as a community. Our citizens and businesses are innovating all the time. We need to do our part as council to make sure the community sees those successes.

Building community happens when people have the tools to succeed

A front line worker shares where a city process or tool isn't performing the way the work actually gets done. We review that ask combined with related asks to help deliver success. That success gets shared with the community. Other workers see that their work is valued and that it makes a real impact, improving productivity, the community's experience and worker satisfaction.

A volunteer-run community garden grows into a community project. The community joins it, getting the benefit of the garden and building neighbourhood relationships. That encourages not only more gardens but the idea that you live in a community that works together, and lets the next person see a path from their idea, for a better park or a volunteer group, to improving our quality of life.

A business is greeted with open arms by the city and is given a clear path to get on with doing what it does best. The owner shares that experience with other entrepreneurs locally and beyond. This helps change the perception that Sudbury is a hard place to do business, and encourages both new and existing businesses to grow locally.

Getting it right saves long term, and keeps us healthy

Paramedics are a clear case.

• 116Paramedics hired, 2020 to 2025
• 0Net change in the size of the service, 169 people then and now
• 12Fewer advanced care paramedics than in 2020

What the city's own report shows

• Advanced care departures have outrun new hires every year since 2020
• Nine advanced care paramedics left last year. One was hired.
• 112 primary care paramedics: about half have under five years of service, roughly a fifth a year or less
• At times, one supervisor for every fifty staff

Not all of this is ours to control. The province's air ambulance service expanded its base here and pays more. Council has acted too: a permanent wellness coordinator, tuition reimbursement with eleven staff enrolled, and a higher starting step for new hires.

What is ours to control is the timing. Six years of that trend before a report said so. The question is not whether the work now underway is worth doing. It is what else is running unexamined, because nobody is being asked.

Training a replacement costs far more than giving the person already doing the job the tools they need. Someone who stays upskills across a career, and that is what gives this community better care. Encouraging people to stay, and to bring forward their ideas, is not a soft benefit. It is the cheaper option.

I'm running to make sure voices are heard where and when it matters. That includes our staff, our volunteers and our community members.

When people are heard and treated with respect, that's when a community thrives.