By Pepper Parr

July 23rd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

This is a seven part series on transit and how Burlington plans to get to the point where the public will take public transit to get to where they want to go in the city because it is cheaper, faster, more convenient and seen as the smart thing to do.

The world of municipalities is all about planning; trying to determine today what will have to be in place in two years, five years, perhaps as much as a decade away.

While the bureaucrats plan – the ground underneath them shifts.

Burlington is being pulled – kicking and screaming – into a world where they are not going to be able to get around all that well if they rely on their cars – the roads will be plugged – grid lock will be come as relevant as climate change.

Get used to using public transit.

The city is going to have to get itself to the point where it can offer public transit that people will want to take because it is convenient, reliable, reasonably priced and not something a large part of the city’s residents turn their nose up at.

But transit is going to have to meet the challenge if people expect to be able to get around the city.

The 2024 target identified for Burlington represents a significant rate of growth over past
performance and above what Burlington Transit’s peers have achieved over the past five years. This will be difficult to achieve in a short period of time without significant investment in transit, a focus on customer service and culture change, including a change in how transit services are delivered.

A summary of the Transit Five-Year Business Plan peer review, vision and growth plan initiatives was presented to city council recently.

In the past, the quality of the leadership at Transit was a bit of a joke. The planning that was done could only be described as pathetic.

When the city went looking for new transit leadership they got lucky – Sue Connor who earned a stellar reputation for the changes she made at the Brampton Transit operation took the job offer Burlington made.

Ms Connor had to fight for every dollar the 2014-18 city council grudgingly gave her – but she persevered and prevailed.

Now she has gotten her teeth into what has to be done in Burlington to meet the change that is coming our way.

The Business Plan document will be based on data collected with a focus on the implementation of the growth plan initiatives, including their phasing and financial impacts.

Dillon Consulting, the people who did the background work has asked that Burlington Council provide feedback on these sections, so that any changes may be incorporated into the final Business Plan.

The 2020 – 2024 Burlington Transit Business Plan will guide the implementation of transit service improvements over the next five years. The Business Plan starts with a policy framework that defines a clear direction for Burlington Transit, and clear steps on how to get there.

It is important to note that a Business Plan does not provide details of service or operational planning. The primary purpose of the plan is to ensure individual strategies, projects and activities are aligned and
contributing to the Burlington Transit’s vision and policy objectives. This includes prioritizing and staging key decisions to fit within the City’s financial guidelines.

The Business Plan is also an important communication tool for Burlington Transit that will clearly set out steps required to move towards the long-term direction of the City. Over the next five-years, the Business Plan will form the guiding document in which all other operational decisions and financial budgets should be built around.

A key focus of the business plan is to identify the strategies and resources required to meet transit ridership growth targets. Ridership growth objectives for Burlington were identified in the 2011 Halton Region Transportation Master Plan, which targets a morning peak period internal transit mode share of 13.4 percent within the City of Burlington by 2031.

This represents a significant growth from the 4.6 percent transit mode share that is forecasted to be achieved by the end of 2019 (a 216 % increase in ridership, from 3,209,091 annual rides in 2019 to 10,763,637 annual rides in 2031).

That is an astounding number, there is no sense as to how it can be reached – Connor has set it out as what will be needed if objectives are to be met.

Over the five year life of this business plan, transit mode share is targeted to reach 8.3 percent by 2024, translating to 6,356,818 annual rides (a 98 percent growth in ridership from 2019; or 19.6 percent per year).

To put this into context, over the past five years, Burlington Transit’s ridership growth averaged
1.9 percent per year, while other systems in Burlington Transit’s peer group averaged 4.3 percent per year.

The 2024 target identified for Burlington represents a significant rate of growth over past performance and above what Burlington Transit’s peers have achieved over the past five years.

This will be difficult to achieve in a short period of time without significant investment in transit, a focus on customer service and culture change, including a change in how transit services are delivered.

As illustrated in Table 1, the ridership growth target will move Burlington Transit ahead of many of its peers and in line with peer systems that have U-Pass agreements with post-secondary institutions (e.g. Kingston Transit, Guelph Transit and St. Catharines Transit). This suggests that the growth strategy should not only focus on supply-based solutions (e.g. increasing service levels), but also on solutions that influence demand.

While population growth will also help grow ridership, Burlington’s population is only projected to grow by 3.7 percent by 20311.

Between 2019 and 2024, the population is projected to grow by 3,259 people (from 185,911 in 2019 to 189,170 in 2024). If the existing trip rate (boardings per capita) is applied to new residents over this period, this would only result in 56,255 new rides (1.8 percent of the ridership growth target) being attributed to new residents.

This means that to achieve this ridership target, existing and new residents will need to ride transit much more, creating a greater culture of transit use in the city.

Service Hour and Fleet Investment (2020 – 2024)
To accommodate the planned growth in ridership, Burlington will need to invest in the level of service provided to accommodate both an increased demand for service and to change travel behaviour. This will require an increase in the amount of service and the fleet required to deliver the service.

The City of Burlington Development Charges Transit Background Study (2019) identifies that Burlington Transit’s fleet will need to grow by 38 vehicles between 2019 and 2028 to meet transit mode share target. Phased in over the five-year life of this business plan, this represents a growth in 19 vehicles by 2024 (from 60 to 79).

Service hours will also need to grow to reach the mode share target. Work by Burlington Transit to support the Development Charges Study estimated that an investment in 100,800 annual revenue service hours is required over the next five years. This represents a 56 percent growth in service levels, which is a little lower than the 66 percent ridership growth, recognizing that ridership growth can lag behind investment by two to three years. The projected fleet, service hour and utilization growth is detailed in Table 2. Ridership numbers were calculated based on achieving Burlington Transit’s 13.37 percent mode share target in 2031, based on the ridership figures used in the Development Charges Study. These targets were used as a guide to determine the growth strategy for transit.

One of the primary purposes of a business plan is to focus actions taken by an organization so they are aligned with the vision, goals and strategies directions of a system. Burlington Transit has a mandate to significantly expand ridership in line with the mode share targets identified in the 2011 Halton Transportation Master Plan.

Forecast ridership is targeted to increase from 3,209,091 trips in 2019 to 6,356,818 trips by 2024. To achieve this growth target, Burlington Transit must provide mobility to residents, employees and visitors of the city. In doing so, Burlington Transit must:

• be Customer-Focused in every aspect of how service is delivered
• be Forward-Thinking in how services are planned and delivered
• be Business-Minded and aligned with municipal directions

This has become a litany for the people over at the transit offices where staff are pumped, engaged and know they have a leader who is going to move mountains if that’s what it takes to make transit work.

What a welcome change.

 

By Pepper Parr

July 19th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

Human Resources is responsible for attracting and retaining City employees; staff/labour relations; employee benefits; health and safety; pay research and staff training and development.

This just might hurt a little – it is about what Director of Human Resources Laura Boyd called Enterprise risk – labour market, in a report to Council.  We are not paying staff the going rate, a lot of people are quitting and some critical people are retiring.  It got a Receive and File Recommendation from Council.

Boyd points out that with the focus on “the implementation of many strategic initiatives by the Burlington Leadership Team (BLT) through the development of performance measures and completion by dates, thought has to be given to the successful execution of the plan with its goals, resources, and budgets, and we also must consider the staff team who will execute the strategy.”

Management consultant Peter Drucker put the challenge that faces every organization very well when he said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

What this means is that while targets and performance measurements have been identified, it is workplace culture and focused leadership that will drive the execution of strategy. Culture will either strengthen or undermine our ability to attract and retain quality employees to execute this strategy.

Burlington is now on its fourth City Manager in as many years. The city now has a decidedly different city council that doesn’t subscribe to the approach taken by the Goldring councils.

The retention of employees and what we pay the employees working at city hall is an issue that needs attention.

The purpose of the report Boyd put before council was to review ”those attributes which make up a healthy workplace culture; identify risks to our own culture; and map out the steps required to move forward.”

The corporate culture is an issue. In her report Boyd described culture as:

• The critical organizational element that will attract talent, drive engagement, impact satisfaction and affect performance
• The personality of the business;
• The City’s employment brand;
• The sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviour and attitudes;

“Simply put – culture is the difference between having a performance driven, highly engaged organization which executes ongoing strategy and an organization where goals are set, targets are generally met, and staff are performing satisfactorily overall.”

Is Burlington meeting the standard? Not if the number of people who have quit is any indicator.

The following seven attributes define those areas that influence a workplace culture.

The following data was provided to Council to assess current workforce strengths and risks with regards to the ability to deliver Council’s priorities.

In 2016 the City conducted its first Culture Survey. While the results are now three years old, the following were the high and low scores at that moment in time:

High scores:
• Planning the work is ongoing and involves everyone in the process to some degree;
• There is an ethical code of conduct that guides our behaviour and tells us right from wrong;
• Teamwork is used to get work done, rather than relying on orders from management
• There is continuous investment in the skills of employees
• Public input directly influences our decisions.

Low scores:
• Leadership has clearly communicated objectives we are trying to accomplish;
• There is a clear and consistent management style, so employees know what to expect;
• There is a clear and consistent culture;
• We continuously track our progress against our stated goals;
• Our people are viewed as an important source of our competitive advantage.

“When the results were further analyzed, it became apparent that communication within the organization diminishes between hierarchical levels.

Specifically, between the Burlington Leadership Team and the Supervisors/Manager level and then between the Supervisors/Managers level and their direct reports.”

If that is Burlington’s situation – no wonder there is trouble in paradise.

In response to the 2016 survey four employee teams were set up to identify and execute projects/programs to improve our results. Specifically, the teams organized themselves around the following themes and have been developing and implementing programs to address our survey results and improve our culture:

• Innovation
• Staff Investment
• Organization Values
• Communication

“Turnover is a simple retention measure.”  Would that it were so and that simple.

Boyd’s report said: Over the past decade voluntary turnover at city hall has remained consistent between 4.2% to 5.7%. Voluntary turnover includes those staff who have quit or retired to date.

From the results below, Boyd reports that “we are trending to a much higher voluntary turnover in 2019 – closer to 10%.

Boyd makes the critical point: “It is important to know why we are experiencing higher turnover. When voluntary turnover for the past two and a half years was reviewed, compensation came out clearly as the most significant factor.”

Number of quits mentioning compensation as a reason for leaving % of total employee quits

Examples of other reasons provided for employees leaving varied and include promotions, job closer to home, position not the right fit and supervision to name a few.

Burlington has found that there are position difficult to fill.

A review was completed of the positions which were advertised externally in the marketplace from the perspective of how difficult it was to fill these roles.

Difficult to fill positions can occur for several reasons including compensation, not attracting qualified candidates, and being turned down by first candidates and having to offer to second or third choices.

As an example Boyd pointed to the Legal Department, the position of Solicitor was advertised, our offer was turned down, even after considerable negotiation, and we have now employed an outside agency to assist in sourcing appropriate candidates.

A forecasting report has been obtained from OMERS to assist the city in identifying who can retire with an unreduced pension up to 2023. Currently there are 185 employees who can retire with an unreduced pension by 2023. This represents 20% of the city’s full-time workforce.

Of the 185 people who can retire,  36% are people leaders while 64% are individual contributors.

This comes close to gutting the leadership level which some people feel is the best thing that can happen to the city.

Following is a yearly breakdown of the retirement outlook:

“A non-union compensation analysis was conducted by Mercer – the results were made Confidential.

Most private companies align themselves with a market position of the 50th percentile – however in the highly competitive GTA, public sector employers align with the 60th to 75th percentile to compete for employee resources.

“The City’s current Council approved market position is the 65th percentile however our recently surveyed actual job rates are now aligned with the 50th percentile.

“To realign with the 65th percentile, job rates will have to be increased by approximately 3% to 8%.”

By rates Boyd mean salary rates and while the percentage may seem small it will have a huge impact on the budget.  And that 8% will drift up to 10% – maybe more.

“Our market competitiveness varies across the salary grades and this is likely an indication of challenges with our job evaluation system, which was developed in the 1980’s, not being reflective of current workplace requirements and expectations.

There are processes and programs in the works.  Boyd reports that the ‘Following are examples of projects and initiatives that are either in process or that have been implemented which positively impact our culture:

Corporate Culture Area Examples of Completed and In-Progress Culture Activities
Leadership • Mohawk Future Ready Leadership Program.
• DeGroote Leadership Development Program
• Launch of Succession Management Program
• Review of the role and the function of BLT
• Introduction of Leadership Competencies

Management • Introduction of Mobile Workforce guidelines
• Discontinuation of performance appraisal form and the introduction of Coaching and People Leader Training for the setting and management of performance expectations

Workplace Practices • Introduction of BRAVOS Awards
• Realignment of Performance Excellence Program and Service Awards
• Development and launch of Organization Values.
• Restating the Dress Code policy to the more flexible “Dress for Your Day” guidelines.
• Staff BBQ and holiday gathering

Communication

• The development and communication of Council’s four-year work plan identifying action, projects and initiatives with measurements.

The report concludes with the following:

“The City of Burlington has been and will continue to be a great employer however, we are exposed to considerable human resource risks.”

It is self-serving statements like the above that frighten people. The truth is there are some very serious issues that need immediate attention. Boyd is correct when she says:

“To deliver council’s work plan and to build upon our employment brand, we need to put a conscious effort into strengthening our workplace culture. We are experiencing workforce pressures not previously felt, pressures which will require targeted action to be able to retain engaged and skilled staff and to compete in the marketplace for qualified staff.

“We need to deliver on Council’s priorities through strategic focus and execution. Our Enterprise Risk Registry has identified our workforce as the number one risk facing this organization and the data outlined above supports this position on the registry.

“We are now starting to feel significant attraction and retention pressures which will impact our culture and therefore our ability and internal capacity to deliver the work plan. To address these pressures the following next steps have been identified:

“Priorities and accountability for delivery of Council’s work plan have been clearly identified and assigned to members of BLT. A review of the corporate structure, one which will assist the City Manager to strategically transition the organization into a more flexible twenty-first century organization, will occur over the next few months.

“In addition, the City Manager, in keeping with the direction approved by Council during the 2019 budget, is completing the realignment of the City Manager’s Office to address the overall strategic management capability of the organization. The goal of this review is to ensure our structure is aligned to retain highly skilled staff and to attract new talent entering the workforce. In support of this goal, a review of the role of the Burlington Leadership Team is also underway.”

A second culture survey will be done in the Fall of 2019. A comparison of 2016 to 2019 results will assist us in determining where there are further gaps so that we can target additional efforts in those areas.

There is to be a Diversity and Inclusivity strategy and implementation plan for execution over Council’s term.

“Expanding the recruitment channels, ensuring the culture within the workplace is open, welcoming to all and is reflective of our community will strengthen the City as an employer now and well into the future.”

The problems with hiring is that the municipal world has a culture and a set of conditions that are hugely different from the private sector. Municipalities end up stealing each other’s staff.

Boyd adds that “ this report has provided some information about the city’s current competitiveness to the marketplace, a follow-up report with detailed compensation system recommendations and potential cost impacts will be brought to Council in the early fall. The following items will need to be considered and approved by council in this follow-up report:

• The City’s competitive market position;
• Appropriate municipal comparators; and
• Development and implementation of a new job evaluation system.

In the meantime, the leadership team will be considering where temporary market premiums are required to retain highly skilled or at-risk employees and implementing these premiums as appropriate.

Boyd concludes that: “It is important to appropriately align the City’s resources, both budgets and staff, to ensure the successful execution of Council’s work plan. This report outlines the human resource and workforce pressures we are currently experiencing which puts at risk our ability to successfully implement Council’s work plan.

Put colloquially – Burlington isn’t able to put a solid team on the field – and we are all paying the price for past in-actions.