TRCA Policies and Procedures

July 15, 2019

Good Afternoon TRCA Staff,

On behalf of TRCA’s Policy Committee, I am excited to make the following announcements:

Effective immediately, I invite you to visit the new one-stop SharePoint site which makes all TRCA Corporate Policies and Procedures available in one easily accessible location. I encourage you to please bookmark the site in your browser of choice for ease of access, and as a friendly reminder, there is also a link to the site displayed prominently on the Staff Hub “Quick Links”. The site contains all active policies that were previously found in Laserfiche or in the Lotus Notes Personnel and Safety Manuals, all three of which have now been deactivated.

The Policy Committee has been busy reviewing our current set of policies, and we have found a number that are outdated, long overdue for update, and include incorrect contact names or inaccurate procedures. We are including these outdated policies in the new SharePoint site, and in so doing, we recognize their shortcomings and ask for your patience while they are updated, both in terms of content and form.

In the coming months, the Policy Committee will continue to update existing policies and develop new policies to ensure that the organization’s expectations are presented in a transparent manner. As you are aware, clear and updated policies are extremely important for achieving excellence in governance, and they align with our core value of Accountability: “We are responsible for our actions, behaviors and results“.

With changes to the Employment Standards Act going into effect earlier this year, TRCA’s Leave policies have been formally updated to reflect the updated legislation.

Additionally, changes have been made to TRCA’s Long Service Recognition policy (now titled Service Recognition Awards). Our staff are TRCA’s most important assets and as such we are introducing an annual event for staff celebrating their five-year intervals up to 30 years with the organization, to say THANK YOU!

As part of the move to the SharePoint site, all policies can now be found in chapters as follows:

• Chapter 1: Corporate Governance
• Chapter 2: Human Resources
• Chapter 3: Corporate Services
• Chapter 4: Division Specific Procedures
• Chapter 5: Site Specific Standard Operating Procedures

You will notice that older active policies have not been edited or altered, while new policies have been assigned a unique Statement of Policy and Procedure (SPP) number and an updated header and format to make them easier to find, read, track and review. We ask for your understanding regarding this variation in appearance, as it will take us some time to update the old policies and move them into the new template. Regardless of appearance, if a policy is on the SharePoint site, it is considered active.

The Policy Committee is meeting regularly and will forward several updated and new policies to Senior Leadership Team for review and approval each month. As a result, more policies will continue to be announced in the coming months.

Should you have a question regarding the interpretation of any existing policy, please contact the relevant department for clarification (e.g., Finance, Human Resources). For any other policy-related questions, please reach out to Andrew Farnsworth, Clerk and Manager, Policy.

Thank you for your attention on these matters.

Regards,

Michael Tolensky
Chief Financial and Operating Officer
Corporate Services