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2022/09/14 - Walter's Blog: Master Plan Implementation

Democracy on the Front Lines 
City Administrator’s Blog 
Walter Denton 
 

At the August 29 Committee of the Whole meeting, staff made a presentation to the City Council about our efforts to implement the 2040 Master Plan. The Master Plan was approved in February as a road map for the next 20 years to build O’Fallon as a safe, culturally diverse, and family-friendly community. Goals were organized around five overarching themes: Community Identity, Safe and Health Community, Built Environment, Natural Environment, and Resilient Economy. 

To accomplish the 2040 Master Plan, we created a Strategic Plan to help manage goals and tasks in a shorter timeframe (3-5 years). The 2022-23 Annual Budget includes projects listed in the Strategic Plan, but we also have tools to track Strategic Plan projects over time and to measure operational performance.  

The Strategic Plan and Performance Measures are tracked using our new public “OnStrategy” portal that is available real-time on the City’s website. Key Performance Indicators are displayed on the portal for each department and service area. One of the challenges in local government is, "How do we know how we are doing?" and the OnStrategy portal will help us measure success. 

In addition to performance measurement, the other key to high performance is a strong organizational culture. Traditional city government is often laser-focused on service delivery and at times we fail to focus on those delivering the service. High performing organizations focus on both people and production. National research has shown that employees who feel their employer cares about their wellbeing are: 

  • 13% more productive. 
  • 69% less likely to be searching for a job. 
  • 71% less likely to report experiencing burnout. 
  • 5x more likely to strongly advocate for their company as a good place to work. 
  • 5x more likely to trust the leadership of their organization. 
  • 3x more likely to be engaged at work. 
  • 36% more likely to be thriving in their overall lives. 
  • Achieve higher customer engagement and productivity 
  • Have lower turnover and fewer safety incidents. 

A strong organizational culture is essential for implementing the Master Plan, and we have pursued this with an Employee Engagement Survey, Leadership Training, and the development of a Values and Vision Statement. We also created a recruitment video to promote our organizational culture to prospective new employees. 

We believe a balanced focus on people and production will transform O’Fallon to be more high performing, innovative, and productive. A high performing organization will provide high quality services to our residents and will move our community toward achieving the goals in our Master Plan.