Staff turnover is high in small municipalities. Being new, I started to create my own 'how-to' reference book to help me (and the next person) know how to deal with random issues. How does your municipality retain all those tiny details and information when a person leaves?
Knowledge Retention
Hi Shara - I'm also working for a small municipality and have noticed that staff often move on, taking information with them. Most junior positions here have binders full of notes that are unwieldy and often not up-to-date, so in my last position I started a Microsoft OneNote notebook labelled for the position and stored on our server with open access. If you're unfamiliar with OneNote, it is basically a virtual binder, that you can add tabs to and it has a great search function, so it doesn't matter too much how it's organized. You can also password protect tabs or sheets, which is useful for passwords and account numbers within our department. My replacement still uses the notebook for her position (she'll ask me something and I usually add it to the notebook if it's not already there. You can forward emails and print directly to OneNote, paste in links and screen clips very easily.
I've started a notebook for the position that I'm in now, with a lot of links to legislation and FilePro documents. I'm hoping that I can 'convert' more people to this manner of keeping relevant information - I sure would have loved something like this when I first started :)!
This is great information, thank you!
I've never tried One-Note and it sounds like a great solution to keeping all those bits of info in a storage system that isn't time-consuming and easy to use because of the search features and others options.
Will definitely look into this!
A number of staff keep position specific manuals, but they are time-consuming and they often change. We do a lot of cross-training and in-house promotion, which is very helpful and great for staff. Our staff tend to stay with us for a long time (which is really, really great!), only that means they become very well-versed in the work as it happens and changes ... so manuals are sometimes forgotten.
The suggestion provided by Leonora is great as it allows people to create and build on these information notes, and even better ... find them again easily!
I learned something today because of your inquiry. Thank you.
Right now, I have a binder plus an electronic folder on my computer where I save all those endless webinars/presentations. This summer I'm planning on doing a total overhaul of the office to locate (and inventory) all the training information into one place. I'll have to look into OneNote. Thanks.
Hi Shara, We actually do the same thing. In a Township the Clerk is elected and Deputy appointed so if you don't win your election every 4 years the department is new again. We started by putting a book together on the little things that the clerk does that we never thought we would be handling. Most of the Cemetery, Peddler, Ordinance, Resolutions, Payroll and Qualified Voter File (QVF) Election issues are in that book. So that does help the next person coming in and the township ressidents won't suffer.
Sumner puts a great deal of effort into succession planning. We have and are still growing our mid-level managers to eventually take on directors' positions that become vacant due to retirement or other reasons. I am not sure there is a way to retain all of the knowledge that runs through an organization. However, having folks at the top recognize the value of succession planning and training is key.
Our chamber offers an annual leadership academy and we generally send 5-6 of our mid-levels managers and even some who aspire to management that hold lower level positions. It offers an array of training topics for managers as well as a large group project that weighs heavily on the skills they learn during this academy.
We also belong to a County-wide training consortium that we can tap into for free and reduced cost training for all our staff on a variety of topics. We can also bring in instructors from the consortium to provide training to a large group of our staff on topics that impact us all (i.e. public records requests, records management, sexual harrassment, etc.). This is a great tool for us.
Some departments/divisions also put much effort into cross training and with that have developed "desk manuals" that are used for reference by others when any one staff person is out for whatever reason. Unfortunately, not all positions have such a manual and for some, to develop such a manual would be an enormous undertaking.
My office backup has the title HR Coordinator but for the last three years, since she is my back up when I am away, I chose to use part of my training budget to send her to the NW Municipal Clerks Professional Development Academy. These are week long sessions of some of the best training a Clerk could ever receive. Some of the sessions offer HR topics as a some Clerks in some municipalities handle some or all of those duties as well. In my case, this works out particularly well since she supports HR and the City Clerk.
As a City Clerk, we have a network of professionals like no other I have ever seen. We support one another, work diligently to answer questions and mentor new clerks, we offer and share numerous training opportunities, you name it. It is extremely rare any Clerk would run into an issue or need that hasn't been addressed by another Clerk in another jurisdition. It is a security blanket I have relied on for many years now. None of us knows it all but together we can certainly find the answers. I can't say it enough...City Clerks rock! Ain't no ifs, ands or buts about it!!
We have several process sheets for all types of projects and systems. They are kept on a common drive where all staff can access and printed on paper/kept in their appropriate file. I believe in keeping it simple.