Welcoming 2021

January 6, 2021

I hope you and your families enjoyed a safe and healthy holiday season. Last year was a very productive year considering the extraordinarily difficult circumstances that 2020 brought our way. We accomplished a great deal by working together and adapting to our ever-changing operating environment. I greatly appreciated the guidance from SLT to make a positive difference for our staff and the public. While it has been hard work, through our shared efforts we have made some very positive and lasting changes for our organization, our partners, and the communities we serve.

As we prepare for the opportunities ahead for 2021, our SLT has reaffirmed our commitment to achieving the organizational priorities outlined in our Five-Year Update to the Strategic Plan. As part of this, SLT and SMT members have developed 2021 divisional priorities to support staff in your Performance Development Program objective setting process.

Over the next few weeks, your SLT member will be speaking with divisional staff to ensure that over-arching divisional goals and objectives are clearly defined, measurable, and aligned to workplace and staff objectives. These discussions will be the pathway to cascading organizational priorities and divisional objectives to support the Performance Development Program objective setting process and will ensure that all staff are working on key strategic and operating priorities that are identified as critical for organizational success. New this year, SLT developed three organizational wide themes: People Focus, Financial Focus, and Customer Service and Excellence. These three themes will be incorporated into all divisional priorities so that every single employee can connect to these three themes in your daily work.

Regarding changes to the Conservation Authorities Act (CA Act) and the forthcoming draft regulations, SLT members have been tentatively selected to participate in the Province’s Working Group on draft CA Act regulations, which is expected to provide advice to the Minister over the next few months.

Last year we made meaningful progress on our employee engagement journey that was set in place in the spring of 2020 and I, along with SLT and SMT, remain committed to see how we can continue to improve our organization through our shared efforts. I encourage all of you to visit our dedicated Employee Engagement Staff Hub page for regular updates and to participate in future VTH’s, team exercises, lunch and learns, etc. centering around employee engagement. As I had indicated at the commencement of our employee engagement journey, our pursuit for increased employee engagement is a journey that is lived-in real-time and will continuously grow with our daily actions and behaviours.

Once again as part of our ongoing commitment to maintain a service-oriented culture at TRCA, I would like to remind staff to read, understand, and incorporate TRCA’s Core Values into your daily work, as well as to refresh yourselves on TRCA’s Customer Service Standards, which guide interactions with stakeholders and customers, both externally and internally. SLT has also been working on an updated Code of Conduct to reflect best practices from other public sector organizations, our observations and insights from situations we have come across at TRCA, and valuable input received from staff and stakeholders. Our updated Code of Conduct will be released to all employees over the coming days and will be the roadmap to help us ensure that at all times we are true to our Mission, Vision and to our Core Values.

I look forward to continuing to work with you all to execute on our strategic priorities to make 2021 another memorable and successful year.

Sincerely,

John MacKenzie, M.Sc.(Pl) MCIP, RPP
Chief Executive Officer
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA)