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New town manager charged with improving and measuring customer service

CAO Fareed Amin said town should be 'responsive' and 'predictable' when it comes to customer service
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Collingwood's new executive director of customer and corporate service Sonya Skinner with Chief Administrative Officer Fareed Amin. Erika Engel/CollingwoodToday

Residents of Collingwood may notice an improvement in the town's customer service and more options for town services in the near future.

Collingwood’s newest senior staff person is focussed on customer service and has been charged with improving access to and quality of the town’s services.

Sonya Skinner is the town’s first executive director of customer and corporate service, a new position recommended by staff and approved by council during the 2019 budget deliberations.

Skinner will oversee the communications, IT services, human resources, and fleet and facilities divisions. She will also be looking for ways to “enhance and measure enterprise-wide customer services,” according to a statement released by the town.

Skinner said she’ll be asking both herself and her staff questions such as “how can we make people feel like they’re a part of their government?”

“Governments … for many things … we’re a monopoly. People can’t go anywhere else for these services,” said Skinner. “So how do we make people feel like they’re driving the services and they’re deciding what services they want, and they’re telling the government what they’d like to see from the service?”

That challenge intrigued Skinner, who comes from a job as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority.

“I thought this was a chance to make a difference and a really good fit,” said Skinner, who lives in The Blue Mountains.

She said her initial work will include relationship building and making sure the departments that report to her are working well.

She also plans to work on ways to measure and collect data on the performance and customer service side of the town’s business.

“Customer service needs to be driven by unbiased insights and providing people with those unbiased insights so they can understand why municipal staff are making recommendations to council … so people know where we’re coming from and it’s not a mystery later,” she said. “What I’d like to see is ... people feeling like they’re having a two-way dialogue with the municipality.”

Another part of Skinner’s job includes building on the town’s corporate-wide environmental initiatives.

Town staff have recently undertaken initiatives to make town-run buildings more green with more options for composting and recycling on site.

Council also approved a ban on single-use plastics in town-owned facilities.

Skinner said she sees three components to the town’s environmental initiatives: first the staff effort to be more environmentally aware, second the town’s emissions, and third the broader green initiatives that include the full municipality.

“I’m going to ask how we can be leaders in the community, and how can we showcase these projects,” said Skinner.

Skinner’s position was the result of a town-wide reorganization that included creating her senior management position as well as some entry-level customer service ambassador roles.

Collingwood’s Chief Administrative Officer, Fareed Amin, brought forward the restructuring proposal.

“When this reorganization was proposed to council, it was to strengthen the organization and take it to the next level,” said Amin. “What we’re trying to create here is one Collingwood … We’ve got to try to deploy a more enterprise-wide, one Collingwood type of thinking.”

While Amin said the town is equipped to handle the challenges facing the town today, he’s looking forward to challenges the town will face over the next ten to twenty years.

“We’ll need a more robust, high-performing, 21st-century organization,” he said. “My concern is how we are preparing for the growth onslaught that will come our way.”

Part of the preparations, according to Amin, include balancing the residential and commercial/industrial tax base.

Currently, Collingwood is more heavily dependent on residential taxes and development charges.

“I’m glad we’re attracting people who like to live, work, and play in Collingwood, but I think, if we’re going to be more financially stable in the future, we need to look at how we might be able to attract businesses and investment in Collingwood.”

Specifically, Amin is referring to the knowledge-based economy and those industries that would benefit from the “intellectual and physical” capital in Collingwood over heavy manufacturing industry that relies on the 400 series highway.

For Amin, consistency is key when it comes to customer service. He’d like to see more predictability in customer service levels, and he wants the town to start publishing those customer service standards in 2020.

He said options, like paying taxes online or registering for a swim class at any town office, would go a long way in providing consistent and useful service to residents.

“I think that’s what people expect,” said Amin. “The one thing people want is predictability and they want a variety of channels to access services … We should be applying customer service standards to demonstrate to them that it is our privilege to provide service to them. We should be responsive, we should be predictable, we should treat people as if we like serving people.”

Part of the restructuring to create Skinner’s position included moving four departments from within other senior management portfolios to Skinners.

The communications department formerly reported to the clerk’s office, fleet and facilities reported to public works, IT services reported to the treasurer, and human resources to the CAO.

“There was no common denominator for what I would call corporate services,” said Amin. “I wanted to emphasize and drive a customer service agenda and have one senior staff in charge of that. You want someone to get up every morning and think about how we strengthen customer service.”

Amin was part of the team that hired Skinner for the executive director role.

He said the town received applications from several good candidates, and from those who applied, Amin was looking for someone with experience, public service exposure, and someone who had strong collaborative leadership skills.

Skinner started her work at town hall on Aug. 6. Along with her work at the conservation authority, she’s worked for the province in the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of the Environment. She’s a professional engineer with a master’s degree in civil engineering. Her job as executive director of customer and corporate service will land her on the sunshine list as the salary is over $100,000 a year.

She’ll be spending her early days in the job familiarizing herself with town services, and working on public engagement to get an idea of how residents feel about those services.

“We do want to hear from people,” said Skinner. “If people have opinions on services, we want to hear from them.”

To provide feedback on the town’s services, email [email protected].


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Erika Engel

About the Author: Erika Engel

Erika regularly covers all things news in Collingwood as a reporter and editor. She has 15 years of experience as a local journalist
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