City of Port Moody, BC

Port Moody’s secret to 100% employee engagement in the strategic plan

For many years, a steadfast commitment to strategic planning has kept the City Council, management and staff focused on delivering service excellence to their community. In 2019, Port Moody achieved yet higher levels of transparency and accountability, setting up their 2019-2022 Council Strategic Plan for resounding success.

City management deployed Envisio to manage the implementation of Council’s strategic plan and achieved 100% employee participation in implementation. How did they get positively all general managers and supervisors engaged?

Spreadsheets are hardly engaging

Port Moody is not new to strategic planning. The City Manager’s office has maintained a strategic approach to delivering service excellence, but engaging staff in executing strategic plans has not always been so successful.

“General managers experienced difficulty managing prior plans, because all their tasks and projects were tracked in Excel. The process was overly complicated, cumbersome and time-consuming,” explained Ian Smedley, who joined as the City of Port Moody’s new Corporate Planning Advisor earlier in the year.

“People were finding it incredibly difficult to provide updates in spreadsheets. They really felt it took more time to provide the updates than it took to do the work. So, there was not a lot of success in engaging general managers with previous plans.”

In 2019, city leadership sought to build greater strategic momentum. In May, City Council and management identified five strategic priorities in a facilitated workshop: (1) exceptional service, (2) environmental leadership, (3) healthy city, (4) economic prosperity and (5) community evolution. These strategic priorities were presented to general managers and supervisors, who then identified the key projects to operationalize the plan.

With this new 2019-2022 Council Strategic Plan in hand, “city managers were interested in doing something different,” said Ian. They knew spreadsheets were a limiting factor. “That’s why we engaged Envisio.”

How Port Moody achieved 100% employee engagement

In June, the world-class customer success team at Envisio facilitated an action planning workshop with city management and general managers. By August, the new 2019-2022 Council Strategic Plan found its home in Envisio. Ian described their newfound success in executing the strategic plan.

“City managers and staff received training on how to use Envisio in September. On October 4th, we scheduled our first Strategic Plan update. We had 100% of our employees provide their updates! We were really excited about that! I think it showcased how engaged and enthused the staff are in our new process.”

While most organizations still struggle with employee engagement, Port Moody is defying all the trends. According to the latest Gallup research, only 34% of workers are engaged at work. Gallup reports that 13% are “actively disengaged workers who have miserable work experiences.” And, “the remaining 53% of workers are in the “not engaged” category. They may be generally satisfied but are not cognitively and emotionally connected to their work and workplace; they will usually show up to work and do the minimum required.” Not ideal.

How did Port Moody break the norm? Let’s explore Port Moody’s secret to 100% employee engagement and Ian Smedley’s four key success factors.

Key success factor #1: Leadership participation

It turns out that city managers hold the key to employee engagement. In 2019, Gallup research confirmed that “70% of the variance in a team’s engagement is related to their management. Managers create the conditions that promote the behaviors of engaged employees.” Ian absolutely agrees:

“There are several reasons we were so successful in getting 100% employee engagement on this strategic plan. The first, and I think one of the most important factors, is our leadership participation and buy-in for the projects and the strategic plan.”

“City leaders had experienced challenges with previous plans,” reiterated Ian. “So, they were really invested in ensuring that this strategic plan saw success. Not only were they leading and championing the new process, they were actively participating in the success of the strategic plan, the projects and the updates in Envisio. That really made a big difference.” With the full weight of management behind him, Ian readily engaged with managers on the strategic plan. The tone at the top made an impact.

Key success factor #2: Narrow, focused scope

It’s important to target efforts on what matters most. “Previous attempts to track progress on the strategic plan had focused on far too many projects,” explained Ian.

“Today, we’re focusing on the 30% of the work that the city does that’s related to the strategic plan – it includes 97 projects. Staff are doing lots of other operational work, but we’re really focusing on ensuring that we’re successful in tracking and measuring the strategic plan projects. These projects are the most important. This narrow, focused scope has been really critical in ensuring we achieve success.”

The new 2019-2022 Council Strategic Plan brings focus to the five strategic priorities identified by City Council. All of the projects defined by the city’s general managers are aligned to achieve these priorities.

With everything centralized in Envisio, general managers understand the impact of their contributions to achieving strategic priorities. They can also connect with colleagues contributing to the same priorities. “We’re starting to get a lot of cross-pollination between departments. For example, the Fire Chief found other projects under the same objective where he could add value. Now he’s contributing to the work of other departments,” said Ian. “So, the cascade has really helped break down those barriers between departments—that’s great.”

Key success factor #3: Staff ownership + recognition

In September of 2019, Gallup issued a timely report, “What Engaged Employees Do Differently,” which described the traits unique to engaged employees. According to Gallup, “they are intentional about their engagement” and “they take accountability for their performance.” By empowering city managers and supervisors to report regularly on their projects, Envisio provides a mechanism for accountability, transparency and engagement.

“We have 38 staff participating, with 29 general managers and supervisors who own at least one project. What was important here is that it was the employees who operationalized the strategic plan,” explained Ian. 

“It’s their responsibility to provide project updates in Envisio. That ownership really goes a long way to ensuring they feel buy-in. They know that they’re responsible. And, they know that other people, like City Council members, know they’re responsible. That recognition makes a big difference.”

City staff use personal dashboards in Envisio and receive email reminders to stay on top of their projects. When they update their progress in Envisio, they feel good about their contributions. Those updates then automagically roll-up into live reports for management and City Council. This leads to Ian’s next secret to 100% employee engagement.

Key success factor #4: Improved communication

One of the challenges city management was hoping to address by adopting Envisio was communication. To ensure the success of the 2019-2022 Council Strategic Plan, better communication was needed between departments leaders, staff, city management and the Port Moody City Council. “Staff really wanted to ensure that their work was being properly recognized, and that their work received the support they felt it deserved,” explained Ian.

“This process with Envisio has enabled them to better communicate and share their work, challenges and successes with city management and upwards to City Council. So, one of the reasons that we were so successful and achieved 100% buy-in is that staff could really see how providing their updates made a difference in the work that they’re doing.”

City management worked with Envisio to customize a robust reporting framework for the City of Port Moody, with a variety of automated reports tailored for various audiences.

The Monthly Department Report by Project, for example, helps department managers stay on track with their teams. It includes consistent, templated updates for each project, featuring: highlights, successes, risks and funding status. “This report is really useful in communicating what’s going on with each project—including disruptions-without having to chase specific project owners,” said Ian. “The successes provide a great update on what’s happening with project milestones. People are able to share how their projects are going well.”

Among higher-level reports, the Quarterly Strategic & Objective Reporthelps facilitate discussions between city management and City Council about overall strategic plan progress. And the Monthly Public Report by Project provides transparency for the community. “We’re able to provide as much transparency as we want. People can see what city staff are working on and how far along we are on the strategic plan towards achieving our community vision.”

Inspiring 100% employee engagement

While many may have believed that 100% employee engagement in executing and reporting on their strategic plan is ‘too good to be true,’ the City of Port Moody has proven otherwise by working with Envisio.

We’d like to thank Ian for sharing his four key success factors: (1) leadership participation; (2) a narrow, focused scope; (3) staff ownership and recognition; and (4) improved communication. Congratulations Ian and Raman on your outstanding achievements and thank you for inspiring us all to engage every single employee.