Tag Archives: Council

How have the pandemic adaptations affected your Physical Security?

Well into the COVID19 pandemic, organizations, governments big and small have had to take measures and make changes to their environments to adapt to the needs of their staff, customers, their service delivery model, requirements of health science, government agency regulations and perhaps “new” industry best practices and of course the ever-changing virus.

These measures have evolved into many different things. We’re going to specifically focus on physical security devices.

Two of the pervasive items that have been introduced in many environments are plexiglass and signage.

Organizations have installed plexiglass barriers at intersection points of personnel as they have the potential to interact with other personnel, customers, vendors, etc.

Informative signage itemizing physical distancing rules, self assessment health protocols have been placed all around in both strategic and random locations within the environment to ensure every opportunity for personnel and visitors to be informed.

Funny thing about all of this plexiglass barriers and signage.

In some cases, not all, we have inadvertently defeated some or many of the installed security devices functionality and purpose. That is, their ability to monitor, detect and alert (alarm).

  • Motion detectors blocked, unable to provide proper coverage
  • Cameras experiencing sun flare reflection off plexiglass
  • Nuisance alarms due to swinging signage on the increase
  • And other unforeseen affects

There are incidents where this is enough of this added material, that areas, although devices are active and functioning as per specifications, are unable to detect properly – leaving areas with no security detection or proper monitoring.

We have the answers.

Let’s go for a (physically distanced) walk and have a conversation.

Your security risk plans are more than just a motion detector or even a strategic camera placement.

We can Help.

Plan the Work. Work the Plan.

Should your Municipality need assistance, contact Michael White Group today, and we will be happy to answer your questions or provide quotations.

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Canada Healthy Communities Initiative Webinar

Canada Healthy Communities Initiative Webinar – March 5

The Government of Canada has announced that the Community Foundations of Canada, along with the Canadian Urban Institute, are now accepting proposals for access to $31 million under the Healthy Communities Initiative. Please join us on Friday, March 5th at 1 p.m. EST for a hands-on webinar as we walk through how to apply and share ideas from communities that use Penelope software to assist those most affected by COVID-19.

Mar 5, 2021 01:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Learn more by viewing our recent article.

Register here

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Customer Service Excellence – Maximizing Efficiency and Improving Customer Service  

Customer Service Excellence – Maximizing Efficiency and Improving Customer Service

AccessE11 Citizen Issue Management – Municipal 311 Software Designed for Local Government

Is your municipality looking for ways to improve your complaint and service request management? Do you want to better understand the issues citizens are bringing to your municipality? Would you like valuable reports for your department heads and council? How about collaborating with staff on the issues they are managing? Want to streamline services requests and effectively manage them?

AccessE11 is a cloud-based, easy-to-use software solution to assist municipalities in better managing, tracking and reporting citizen inquiries, issues and complaints impacting your community.

Register for our February Webinar to learn about all of this and more!

Presented in Partnership with The Ontario Municipal Leadership Institute

         

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Responding to Complex Social Issues: Municipal Roles and Promising Solutions to Homelessness, Addictions, and Social Disorder

CAMA’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SERIES – FREE WEBINARS

As part of our ongoing commitment to our members we are pleased to introduce the CAMA 50th Anniversary Professional Development Series for 2021. This new program will be comprised of various webinars that are coordinated for the CAO/City Manager, senior managers and their employees.   Along with our own webinar series, CAMA Partner companies will be providing educational and informative learning opportunities that showcase innovative services and products relevant to municipal management.  

Free of charge to all CAMA members this will be a wonderful way to provide an eclectic selection of resources to all your employees. Please forward to your staff members.

Webinar: Responding to Complex Social Issues: Municipal Roles and Promising Solutions to Homelessness, Addictions, and Social Disorder

Hosted by: Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators (CAMA)
Date:  Thursday, February 11th, 2021
Time:  2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST
Virtual Zoom Platform

Speakers:
Dr. Alina Turner, HelpSeeker/Turner Strategies
Dena Kae Beno, Housing and Homelessness Coordinator, City of Abbotsford, BC

Who Can Attend this Webinar?: CAMA Members and Their Employees. Non-Members are also welcome to attend.
Who Will Benefit from this Webinar: CAOs and Senior Management

Registration Cost: FREE but registration is required 
Registration Link
Click here for more details about the session

Municipalities of varying sizes across Canada are struggling to respond to the increasing visibility and velocity of complex social challenges. The visibility of the drug crisis, compounded by housing affordability challenges, and convoluted health and social response systems have highlighted the need for new ways of approaching these issues.

What are promising approaches within the municipal purview and sphere of influences? This session will provide a practical overview of the national landscape to ground emerging promising approaches and learnings from diverse communities. Rather than a silver bullet, the focus will be on untangling the current complexity involved in social challenges into actionable, systems responses that balance diverse community needs. 

Contact Jennifer Goodine, CAMA Executive Director at [email protected] if you have any questions about this opportunity.
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Customer Service Excellence – Maximizing Efficiency and Improving Customer Service

AccessE11 Citizen Issue Management – Municipal 311 Software Designed for Local Government

Is your municipality looking for ways to improve your complaint and service request management? Do you want to better understand the issues citizens are bringing to your municipality? Would you like valuable reports for your department heads and council? How about collaborating with staff on the issues they are managing? Want to streamline services requests and effectively manage them?

AccessE11 is a cloud-based, easy-to-use software solution to assist municipalities in better managing, tracking and reporting citizen inquiries, issues and complaints impacting your community.

Register for our January Webinar to learn about all of this and more!

January 19th 12pm – 1pm EST

Presented in Partnership with The Ontario Municipal Leadership Institute

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Code Enforcement with AccessE11

The mandate of municipal government is to provide access to civic amenities and to ensure that residents follow the local laws and ordinances adopted by City Council.

In general, there are operating processes in place to monitor and enforce these municipal codes. However, it is often the residents themselves that witness and report code violations, at which point the municipality’s responsibility is to initiate an investigation and resolve the situation. When this occurs, there are additional complexities involved, with many municipalities struggling to track and meet their service targets to address citizen-initiated complaints. Any departments responsible for code enforcement must triage citizen complaints across a diverse range of property maintenance, parking, noise, nuisance and other issues. Then, activities must be coordinated with officers in the field, all actions tracked, and any documents consolidated until compliance is reached.

Using the AccessE11 service request management platform, multiple municipalities have streamlined and automated their code enforcement approach, making it effortless for staff to capture citizen complaints, assign the right team, resolve the underlying issues, institute centralized tracking and record keeping, and easily report on issues individually or on an aggregated basis.

Capturing Code Issues

Increasingly, residents expect to be able to interact with their municipality in the same way they do private-sector organizations via multiple channels, and this applies equally to code enforcement.

In light of this, AccessE11 has created a platform that allows citizens to report their concerns online, by email, and using integrated mobile apps. Categorization of each violation by category (permit issue, graffiti, trash & debris, noise etc.) is completely flexible, and geolocation of the issue and inclusion of pictures/other details is simple.

Once reported, the software automatically creates a case to track the issue, acknowledges receipt to the citizen, sets follow-up and due dates, and routes the case to a specific staff member. Moreover, it immediately makes the information available in configurable dashboards, embedded maps and reports to provide a centralized, cohesive view of all past and ongoing code enforcement activities.

Processing Citizen Issues

Inspections are an integral part of the resolution process and, to that end, code enforcement officers are provided with an up to date and prioritized view of the complaints they need to follow-up with the AccessE11 mobile app for staff. Depending on whether or not a violation is observed, an officer on location can close the case immediately, or further document it with corrective actions and a date for a follow-up inspection if required.

Some municipalities also use code sweeps within delimited geographical areas as a proactive means of enhancing the safety, cleanliness and conditions of a neighbourhood. In this scenario, officers can create cases for tracking purposes directly using the mobile app. All relevant information is seamlessly and centrally logged with no need for the officer to visit the municipal office simply to enter data.

From the time an issue is reported through to closure, departmental managers, assigned staff and, to an appropriate extent, the reporting citizen are kept informed with automated, real-time notifications. Code enforcement teams are able to work seamlessly and avoid crossed wires. The reporting citizen can also get updates on their concern at any time by visiting AccessE11’s citizen-facing portal.

Operational Effectiveness

Citizens demand services from municipalities, but they also expect them to use tax dollars wisely. Authorities have a duty to avoid waste wherever possible and act in the public interest.

To that end, they need systems that allow them to make informed decisions and measure the success of their activities. AccessE11’s platform allows code enforcement departments to visualize and report on valuable data, letting them make evidence-based decisions. Managers can prioritize tasks, collect data on current and historic trends, measure against service targets, and gauge the effectiveness of the municipality’s response to issues. This data-driven approach enables managers to get a better handle on the overall efficacy of their teams, as well as the productivity of individual members.

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Ontario State of Emergency Returns – What You Need to Know

Municipal Employer Update – State of Emergency Returns

Further to Premier Ford’s announcement January 12th, the Province is returning to a State of Emergency, effective Thursday, January 14th. Though public health measures and restrictions have been in place throughout the pandemic, Ontario has not been in a State of Emergency since July 24, 2020.

 

We note below only the changes that will come into place Thursday (all current Grey Zone lockdown measures remain in effect as now).  These measures will continue until at least February 11, 2021: 

  1. Employers must ensure that employees who can complete their work from home do so.  Employees are not to attend work unless the nature of their work requires them to be on-site at the workplace (for example manufacturers, retailers offering curbside pick-up etc.)
  2. For employees that must attend work, face masks are mandatory in all workplaces even in instances where physical distancing can be maintained.  Masks must be worn outdoors if the workplace does not allow for 2m (6’) of distancing.
  3. Outdoor gatherings are reduced from a maximum of 10 people to 5 people.
  4. Schools will remain closed until February 10 in Windsor, Toronto, Peel, York and Hamilton regions.
  5. Previously announced school re-openings remain as scheduled until further notice.
  6. Daycares remain open to non-school age children.
  7. Retailer and restaurants may provide services as they do now but may only remain open from 7am to 8pm (liquor, beer stores, 9am to 8pm).  Reduced capacity restrictions are being applied to big box stores.
  8. The 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. restriction does not apply to grocery stores, pharmacies and health care facilities.
  9. Car dealers may remain open by appointment only (as now) but only between 7am and 8pm.
  10. Non-essential construction is restricted, including below-grade construction, except for surveying.

Importantly, Ontario has not imposed a general curfew on citizens (as Quebec elected to do by forbidding citizens from being outside their home after 8pm without an essential reason).



As always, if you have questions or need assistance, please contact our offices anytime (while we are working virtually, emails and phones are being monitored at all times).  New developments are expected and we will continue to keep you updated.



SHRP LIMITED

925-550 Skyway Drive (Airport Road)

Peterborough,  Ontario  K9J 0E7

705-400-714 | [email protected]

www.savinohrp.ca | www.hrlive.ca

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Covid-19 Increases HungerCount

 

The Covid-19 economy has reduced quality of life for many impacted by the pandemic. Individuals struggling with food security and mental health will increase. Innovative digital solutions can help collect data and apply data science to provide guidance on how best to manage the crisis with the resources in your community using proactive strategies that cost less and deliver better outcomes.

The Institute for Smarter Government can show you how.

Food Banks Canada monitors hunger across Canada each year with data collected from 4,934 organizations. There were over 1 million visits to Canadian foodbanks in 2019 delivering over 5.5 million meals. This was an increase of 47% over 2018. The pandemic will accelerate visits to the foodbank in 2020 and 2021 with an increase in mental health concerns at the same time.

In 2019, 57% of those requiring help with food were on social assistance, 48% came from a single adult household. One in eight were unemployed.

When Food Banks Canada annual survey HungerCount 2019 asked agencies what their clients’ main reason was for accessing a food bank, clients shared that their social assistance or benefits were too low. They had low or delayed wages. Some had lost their job and were unemployed or did not have enough hours. These four areas of concern accounted for 80% of those individuals requiring assistance from a food bank.

That was in 2019. With Covid in 2020 and now 2021, the economy will hit those living on the edge the hardest. Many families and single adults have less household income. Unemployment and reduced hours with lower pay will greatly accelerate the number of single adults and families arriving at the food bank in 2020/2021.

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Foodbanks HungerCount 2019

There are over 1.1 million Canadians receiving welfare and over 2 million if you include those with disabilities and mental health issues. The Canada Community Health Survey shows food insecurity has a statistically significant relationship with mental health variables.

The connection between food insecurity and mental health is greater with single person households now accounting for 48% of all households served. One in three of the single adults lives in poverty. Since 2016, seniors over 65 mostly with fixed incomes requiring an expansive array of expensive medications have increased visits to the food bank by nearly 30%.

Close to one in five single adults experiences food insecurity and many of those need support from a food bank to make ends meet. Many within this group have mental health issues that are exacerbated by poverty and low income. Many have mental health issues that go untreated for lack of supports available to them, are stuck in a cycle of inadequate social assistance or disability-related supports, or have lost a job and have nowhere to turn for new training and education programs to re-enter the workforce.

When the rent and wage subsidies transition back to the pre-covid economy, the need for food bank support will increase. Mental health and a range of other human service issues will surge.

Food Banks Canada will conduct research March 2021, across the nation to collect data from each community. Short term solutions will help address the immediate need for food while longer term solutions will focus on policy and try to address the question why. #BellLetsTalk offers some great Covid 19 resources to help everyone get through this together.

Canada is now seeing over 8,000 new case of the coronavirus each day. This is four times the rate when the pandemic started in 2020. Vaccines will help reduce transmission. This will take time.

Each community needs to understand how best to serve their population with the resources at hand. Innovative digital solutions can help begin collecting data in a client centric manner that makes it easier to apply analytics and create prescriptive programs that deliver better outcomes for less.

The Canada Healthy Communities Initiative makes it possible for every community to apply for Infrastructure Canada funding starting January 2021.

Be smart and get ahead of the Covid crisis. #Buildbackbetter Find out how to submit your proposal for funding at February webinar. Details will be posted shortly.

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Our 2021 Wage Outlook

A Challenging Year Ahead

While Canadian and global stock markets reach new records week, after week (at least at the time of this writing!), employment, inflation and interest rates tell a very different story.

Employment insurance claims at of the end October were up 200% versus the same timeframe last year.  Interest rates are negligible, and the Consumer Price Index, while rising modestly in November (+1.0%) was a mere +0.7% in October — a reference point used in many collective agreements and other compensation plans as a benchmark for 2021 wage increases.

Despite overwhelming government stimulus, it appears that some employers will face cost pressures and may have difficulty maintaining their budgets as the economy slowly recovers. Downward revisions to pay increases in the coming months is expected.

In the last quarter, more than 36 per cent of Canadian organizations froze salaries for 2020, compared to a pre-COVID forecast of just 2% per cent, and this trend is likely to hold true for the coming year.  In fact, almost half of employers are uncertain about what to do in 2021 and 13% plan to continue salary freezes in 2021, while 6% of employers will be looking to reduce wages.

Not since the 2008 financial crisis have we seen average base salary increases drop below 2%.

Union workforces are being hit particularly hard. Negotiated wages for 2020 came in at 1.7 per cent, compared to 1.9 per cent in 2019. Looking to 2021, negotiated wage increases are expected to fall further to 1.6 per cent or lower.

Alberta, historically a region with the strongest wage growth, will also continue its slide below trendlines at 1.7 per cent, the lowest among Canadian provinces and territories.

Not all employers are freezing salaries. Many sectors are experiencing strong demand, and recruitment in a number of job classifications remains competitive.  Among employers who are considering wage bumps, the average pay increase for non-unionized employees in Canada is projected to be 2.1 per cent next year, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

Other bright spots include those working in waste management and remediation services where projections are a rosy 3% cent increase while those in utilities will see a 2.4 per cent increase. Professionals in finance and insurance, scientific and technical services as well as wholesale trade can expect increases of 2.2 per cent.

By sector, salary projections for 2021 are highest among Crown corporations at 2.5 per cent.

The recovery will be uneven. Industries that lend themselves well to remote work, or that were shut down for only short periods, will recover quickly. Other sectors, such as recreation, accommodation and food services will recover much more slowly, with employment levels not returning to their pre-pandemic levels presumably until vaccine campaigns are more widely available in late 2021.

 

We Are Your HR Department

We look after your Policy Manual, Employment Agreements, government-mandated compliance training and more.  We have you covered – we are your HR Department.  SHRP provides full-service HR support including Job Evaluation and Pay Equity planning in addition to best-in-class Human Resources solutions on a project or ongoing basis with our exclusive HRLive platform.  Contact us today for a free demonstration and start the development of a results-oriented HR strategy for your municipality.

 

Matthew Savino, B.A. LL.B., C.H.R.E.

Managing Partner, SHRP Limited

925-550 Skyway Drive, Peterborough, ON K9J 0E7

[email protected] | www.hrlive.ca | 705-400-7145

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Sources:

-Statistics Canada

-Morneau Shepell “Salary Projection 2021” Survey

-Conference Board of Canada “Compensation Planning Outlook 2021”

-Canadian Payroll Association

-Willis Towers Watson

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Physical Security Risk: know how to assess it

 

Many small to medium sized business (and even large enterprise businesses)  and government, have limited budgets, let alone spending a lot on risk and security.

Before you do go and spend a lot of capital on risk and security mitigation measures (aka security cameras, access control, bars and locks, lighting, training, fencing, etc.), you need to know what you’re buying for.

That is, you need to know what risks you are addressing.

Risk dial

Having a Risk Assessment completed on your municipality narrows the focus of your spending and aligns your purchasing with the specific types of risk and security mitigation measures you need.

To get a little technical…Risk assessment is the overall process of risk identification, risk analysis and risk evaluation. It involves the process of identifying internal and external threats and vulnerabilities, identifying the probability and impact of an event arising from such threats or vulnerabilities, defining critical functions necessary to continue the organization’s operations, defining the controls in place necessary to reduce exposure and evaluating the cost of such controls.

That is a mouthful. Let us break this down a bit.

If you have a threat, but there is no vulnerability, then there is no risk.

If you have a vulnerability but no threat, no risk.

Perhaps something many can relate to, you went online and purchased some products, and they are set to be delivered to your home. And no, we are not going to discuss online security…a topic for another day perhaps.

The packages are delivered to your home. But because of your daily routine, errands, off to the office, or shop, you are not always home. The shiny object is the packages just delivered. The vulnerability or sometimes referred to as a gap, is you are not home, and the packages now sit on your front step unattended. The threat, someone will take those packages right from your front step.

So, going back to the assessment. The key is once you know what your largest threats are (and yes you need to be able to determine that), it is important that you take action (implement risk and security mitigation measures) to lower your vulnerability.

Why not eliminate the vulnerability?

Great question, thanks for asking.

Eliminating the vulnerability may not always be possible.

Some business sectors and industries simply have built-in threats. But, if we focus on lowering the vulnerability, we lower the risk of a loss.

The assessment is complete, and we have identified risks. The next important step is finding the risk and security measures that are going to be the most effective in mitigating the identified risk. These measures come in all different shapes and sizes, video surveillance, locks and safes, lighting, security focused training, etc.

Where in doubt, reach out to us or find your trusted Independent Risk and Security consultant.

Yes, we highlighted Independent. That is definitely a topic for another day.

It all starts with a conversation.

We can Help.

Plan the Work. Work the Plan.

Should your Municipality need assistance, contact Michael White Group today, and we will be happy to answer your questions or provide quotations.

 

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