At the 2009 Local Government Managers Australia National Congress in Darwin, Local Government FOCUS invited delegates to nominate individuals or teams from their councils who are
improving operations or enhancing service delivery within their community.
In this edition, we showcase another one of our high achievers for 2009.
Lisa Dent, Manager Human Resources, Shire of Capel, Western Australia
Situated on the shores of Geographe Bay, approximately 212 kilometres southwest of Perth, the Shire of Capel covers 554 square kilometres. It has a blend of rural countryside, rolling hills and wide open spaces and is one of the fastest growing regions of Western Australia.
As Manager Human Resources, Lisa Dent is responsible for everything ‘people related’ within the Shire, including working with management and employees on recruitment, training and development and performance management.
Lisa has been with Capel Shire for 18 months bringing with her experience from several other Local Governments, as well as HR experience in the manufacturing sector.
She enjoys working with people and watching them develop as they go through the phases of training and organisational change.
“I also enjoy exploring solutions that benefit both Council and the employees and aligning these solutions to get the best results,” she said. “HR is a diversified role and I appreciate the way the job is always changing, with new challenges arising all the time.”
Lisa Dent said an ongoing challenge is the skills shortage and lack of available resources to address it.
“Local Government has experienced the skills shortage for some time, yet it remains difficult to find the right training programs and resources to overcome this,” she said.
Capel Shire CEO Paul Sheedy nominated Lisa to appear in FOCUS. He said she has streamlined Council’s annual performance review format and documentation; introduced a ten module Leadership Program for directors, supervisors and future leaders; and implemented a new process for recruitment.
“She has brought a professional approach to Council’s whole emphasis on HR,” he said.
Lisa said implementing these changes was all about making things more practical.
“With regard to the recruitment process, I continue to work closely with department managers to ascertain exactly what they are looking for and what their needs are,” she said. “This enables me to develop the most cost effective and time efficient method of finding the right person for the job.
“Changes to the performance review process were also quite simple, bringing the relevant document down to two pages and encouraging the process to be more about a conversation than a form.
“It’s all about redesigning our systems to be efficient and to the point.”
Lisa Dent said the Leadership Program involved all leading hands, management and supervisors right up to the CEO taking part in ten modules to become better leaders and set better examples.
“Although the program was provided by an external organisation, I worked closely with them throughout its development to customise it,” she said. “Effectively, I was a cofacilitator, ensuring I could provide ongoing support once the training was complete,” Lisa Dent said.
“The program identified opportunities for teams to interact and converse across the organisation, opening up problem solving tools and highlighting that similar problems exist in other areas in Council.”
Lisa is now looking forward to organising the next staff development day at the end of the year and conducting her second annual internal employee survey. Held for the first time last year, the survey identified areas to improve internal culture, such as communication and interdepartmental teamwork.
“Our main aim from last year’s results was to move away from a silo mentality and get people thinking across the organisation,” Lisa Dent said. “I am interested to see if staff feel we have improved that over the last 12 months, and what other areas we can develop.”
