Empowering Westfield: Building a Stronger, More Efficient City Workforce
- Kendra Stoll
- Jan 19, 2024
- 3 min read
The Challenge: The City of Westfield, Indiana, recognized the need to optimize its workforce to ensure efficient operations and exceptional service delivery for its growing community. They sought a partner to provide a comprehensive analysis and strategic recommendations for enhancing their workforce design and capacity planning.
The Bridge Builder Strategies Solution: A Foundation for Efficiency and Growth
Bridge Builder Strategies partnered with the City of Westfield for a comprehensive 12–15-month project focused on building a resilient and high-performing workforce. Our collaborative, data-driven approach, powered by our unique 5i Engine Methodology (Infrastructure, Insights, Innovation, Inspiration, and Implementation), provided a clear roadmap for transformation.
Here's how Bridge Builder Strategies made a difference:
Clarity and Alignment: We didn't just look at job descriptions; we created detailed profiles for each position, clearly outlining responsibilities, required skills, and performance metrics. This foundational work ensured everyone understands their role and how it contributes to the city's goals. We then revised job descriptions to reflect these current realities, eliminating ambiguity and fostering alignment across departments.
Unlocking Hidden Capacity: By meticulously assessing the capacity of each job position, we provided actionable capacity scores, illuminating workload distribution and efficiency levels. This granular insight extended to the departmental level, allowing us to provide targeted recommendations to optimize performance and resource allocation – ensuring the right people are in the right roles with the right workload.
Strategic Foresight for Organizational Growth: Looking beyond individual roles and departments, Bridge Builder Strategies is analyzing the overall organizational capacity to identify strategic opportunities for improvement and future growth. Our upcoming recommendations will provide Westfield with a clear path to scale effectively and proactively meet the evolving needs of its community.
Investing in People: Competency and Development: Recognizing that a strong workforce is a skilled workforce, Bridge Builder Strategies is developing competency models for each position, pinpointing the key skills and behaviors essential for success. To empower employee growth, we are also creating a comprehensive assessment tool to measure performance and pinpoint development areas, complemented by a practical training catalogue and employee coaching guide.
Streamlining for Efficiency: Our in-depth analysis and data collection are already revealing opportunities to streamline operations through role consolidations and expansions, eliminating redundancies and ensuring resources are focused where they have the greatest impact.
Proactive Burnout Prevention: We understand that a sustainable workforce is a healthy workforce. Our analysis will identify positions with potential burnout risks, allowing us to recommend proactive measures like workload adjustments and enhanced support systems to protect valuable employees.
Expanding Capacity Through Community Engagement: Looking towards innovative solutions, we are exploring the potential of integrating volunteers into the workforce, providing strategic recommendations on how to effectively leverage community support to enhance city services.
Our Impact: A More Efficient, Engaged, and Future-Ready Westfield
The ongoing partnership between Bridge Builder Strategies and the City of Westfield is already demonstrating the transformative power of comprehensive capacity planning and workforce design. By providing data-driven insights and strategic recommendations, Bridge Builder Strategies is empowering Westfield to:
Enhance Operational Efficiency: Optimized job roles and departmental capacity directly translate to smoother workflows and more effective resource utilization.
Boost Employee Performance and Satisfaction: Clear expectations, defined career pathways, and targeted development opportunities contribute to a more engaged and productive workforce.
Build a Sustainable and Resilient Organization: Proactive identification of burnout risks and strategic workforce planning ensure the city is well-positioned for long-term success and growth.
Strengthen Community Impact: An efficient and engaged workforce ultimately leads to improved service delivery and a greater positive impact on the Westfield community.
