If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
The value of public input is well-documented for identifying short- and long-term goals. It provides insight into the complex—and often competing—interests, values, and priorities city leaders must juggle.
While this is an important stakeholder group to involve in the strategic planning process, it’s not the only one.
Department managers, committee and commission members, and your front-line workers have knowledge that can be instrumental to the success of your strategic plan. Despite their unique value, strategic planning processes frequently fail to capture their input.
Here’s where they can help.
Find the friction in public services
When you want to understand the outlook for your community, frontline workers—police, fire, dispatchers, public works employees, front desk staff, and building inspectors—have firsthand knowledge of what’s working in your city and where things are heading.
Because they spend the majority of their workdays interacting with the public, they’re frequently residents’ first point of contact with city government.
Residents can tell you what they’re frustrated about when it comes to paying bills or obtaining permits. Your employees, on the other hand, have insider information about policies, procedures, and internal politics that can help you pinpoint the source of the friction, and often, how to alleviate it.
Identify the organizational roadblocks
Your employees know the operational realities of city government: where staffing is short, where equipment is inadequate, or where technology is out-of-date.
Apart from operational roadblocks, city employees can also inform when there’s opposition, lack of support, or resistance to change. These are regular obstacles in any organization, city government included. They are not impossible to overcome, you must understand where these obstacles are and when they may arise. This can help you identify issues, such as siloed teams that should work cross-functionally, and prevent unintended consequences before they arise.
Detect emerging issues and trends
When I was a 911 dispatcher, I knew of community challenges long before the data showed issues. I noticed when affordable housing was lacking and could tell you when there weren’t enough community resources for people seeking to leave abusive relationships. But no one asked.
While anecdotal in nature, these experiences can foreshadow what may take weeks for data to show. Building inspectors may notice an increase in code violations in a particular neighborhood, while first responders may notice patterns in drug overdoses.
These anecdotes can inform how building inspections are prioritized or where and how much overdose medication, like Narcan, should be positioned.
Know your goal and how to achieve it
When your team doesn’t feel like they have a voice, it can be hard to ever get them on board. That’s why involving your staff throughout the process (and especially at the beginning) can build interest in the strategic planning project and encourage their support of the organizational goals and outcomes.
Surveys can be a great way to get information and build internal champions for your strategic plan. And unlike community surveys, we’ve found that internal stakeholders often are motivated to answer free text survey questions. These responses provide valuable qualitative data about your organization and community.
The success of any strategic plan depends on how it’s implemented. While goal setting is usually a top-down process, discussed and decided at the upper levels of management, achieving the best possible outcomes requires time, energy, and support from the entire organization. One of the first steps to involve employees in the strategic planning process is simply asking questions. Survey responses can help ensure your guiding documents are aligned with the needs of the community and the organization and that the course you chart is effective, sustainable, and achievable.
