Danielle, McDonald,
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Anna Basile, Division Manager, Corporate
Services provided a verbal presentation as part of the second monthly Board update
regarding the Library’s response to COVID-19. (Held on file with the Chief
Executive Officer) Ms. McDonald said the information provided represents
the work of the OPL Senior Management Team, and many others since the last
meeting. The key highlights of the presentation are as follows:
·
Responding to Community Needs (Chromebooks and WiFi
Hotspots provided to community partners including the Youth
Services Bureau, Travelodge, and St. Mary’s);
·
Programming News (over 3000 children and parents have
attended online storytime and babytime, upcoming programs include virtual
Awesome Authors and summer reading for adults and children);
·
Performance Tracking (637 temporary cards since March 16, small
decrease in active cardholders in the last 12 months, 4811 total attendees of
30 online programs, and 40% increase in daily average of online total uses);
·
Employees
– Workforce Engagement Strategy (OPL’s commitment to provide engaging work
initiatives with community partners, and advance OPL priorities, process of
secondments, reassignments, and skills inventory to better match
strengths/competencies to opportunities);
·
Finances
(Revenue and expenditure profile, strategies employed to address budgetary
pressure, one-time surplus projection, 2021 City contribution anticipated to
be reduced);
·
Emergency Planning Approach (OPL operating in the “Sustain”
mode: ensuring OPL operations such as digital services continue, ensuring
that employees are fully engaged in meaningful work, developing and
responding to the increased needs of customers, monitoring finances, and
connecting regularly with the Chair and the Board);
·
Four
Task Force Teams focused on OPL COVID-19 (Mandate of each team);
·
Recovery Assumptions (Safety of employees,
phased-in plan for recovery, aligning with City partners wherever feasible,
and looking to others to inform OPL’s planning efforts); and,
·
Next steps (Developing an integrated plan for the recovery
of OPL services, support from Ad hoc Committee, and monitor Provincial
updates and information regarding resumption of services).
Chair Luloff thanked
staff for the presentation. As per the process discussed and for simplicity,
Members spoke in alphabetic order as called upon the Chair.
Trustee Brockington expressed
concern about whether existing employees are fully being utilized, or whether
they should be linked to the federal support network (laid off for the short-term,
or placed on declared emergency leave). Ms. McDonald said the workforce
engagement strategy is comprehensive and Senior Management is confident they
are maximizing the productivity of employees.
Although the hunger to
re-open is high, Trustee Brockington agreed with the assessment that the safety
of employees is key. He briefly commented that Ottawa Public Health’s
guidelines must be considered as such, and urged staff to have a broader
conversation with the Board on the recovery plans to ensure accountability.
He looks forward working with staff on the newly created COVID-19 Ad hoc
Committee. Ms. McDonald commented that staff have some concerns with respect
to the budget, however, Ms. Basile continues to identify residual numbers and
key strategies to address impacts. Staff indicated that due diligence will be
undertaken throughout the process.
In response to what can be
gained from the skills inventory that employees have to complete and what
that inventory entails, Ms. Basile said the skills inventory is a standard
human resources tool and involves asking staff additional skills they may have
that are above the skills they utilize in their current position. Ms. Basile
then provided examples. She mentioned that the inventory data will be
maintained in the human resources system and will assist Senior Management in
future.
Trustee Higdon said staff
and public safety measures will be a daunting task for Senior Management. He
looked forward seeing the results. He personally hoped budget cuts would not
be too severe to OPL.
In response to a question
from Chair Luloff regarding what can be attributed to the number of
cardholders dropping, Ms. Basile said staff estimate it is due to the lack of
branch access during the closure and the inactivity of physical service.
Chair Luloff asked
whether demographics can be used to reach customers. Ms. Basile said currently
demographics is not a measure that is tracked. Generally, the available
database has postal codes.
Chair Luloff urged staff
to investigate measuring demographics for cardholders as it would be helpful during
the pandemic. Ms. Basile explained that there is no good rationale for not
having it. Historically, demographic information was not gathered from
customers due to privacy concerns. Ms. Basile said staff will note that
concern as the operational and strategic benefit of demographic data has been
raised in other forums as well.
Trustee Slack thanked
staff for their courage in going forward during difficult times. He said the
COVID-19 Ad hoc Committee and the Board are available to provide feedback.
In response to a question
from Trustee Tierney whether OPL and Library Associations have reached out to
provincial and federal counterparts for assistance during the pandemic, Ms.
McDonald said the City is gathering information from all departments;
however, there is no update at this time. She mentioned that Ms. Basile is
the lead working with the City regarding finance and funding projects. Ms.
McDonald indicated the Library has not reached out to politicians thus far,
however, she and the Chair are looking to meet with Ms. McLeod, the Minister
of Heritage, Sport, Tourism, and Culture Industries. Trustees are encouraged
to send any ideas or suggestions to the CEO.
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