A. General Description of Project
The Municipality of Shuniah is issuing this Request for Proposal (“RFP”) to identify qualified consulting firms or individuals (the “Consultant) for the preparation of an Organizational and Compensation Review. The Municipality seeks a Consultant that has experience in such work including an assessment of the Municipality of Shuniah organizational design, assessing the existing staffing structure in relation to municipal trends and practices, and recommending alternative organizational structures, staffing levels, compensation levels, compensation agreements (policies), job titles and job descriptions where warranted. This request for professional services will recommend changes to improve accountability, efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness for positive results. The Municipality of Shuniah also requires the review to contain an Implementation Plan, outlining a prioritization of immediate, short-term, medium-term and long-term Implementation actions. The selected Consultant will be one that has demonstrated experience in the preparation of municipal organizational and compensation reviews. The purpose of this RFP is to solicit responses from Consultants wishing to be considered for this project to enhance the Municipality and its delivery of core services.
The goal of this project is to create a roadmap or blue print for change providing recommendations to assist the Municipality in becoming more operationally effective and efficient with a focus on excellence in quality customer service as well as to align organization capacity to ongoing strategic priorities.
The basic components of the review will include:
a) Review existing organizational and compensation structure and outline benefits and challenges.
b) Review departmental functions in terms of work flow and alignment.
c) Review decision-making structures to identify opportunities for enhancement.
d) Review all non-union compensation agreements, pay equity plan and applicable policies and identify opportunities for improvements and changes.
e) Report on findings and make recommendations.
f) Provide an implementation plan for change and continuous improvement.
B. Background
The area of the Municipality of Shuniah covers 55,374 hectares from Copenhagen Road at Highway 11/17, Bare Point Road east on Lakeshore Drive to a quarter of a mile west of Ouimet Canyon. The northern boundary is Eight Mile Hill on Spruce River Road (Hwy 527) and on the south a shoreline of approximately 40 kilometers from Bare Point to Bays End and the shoreline on Black Bay.
Shuniah has a considerable cottage population. The population of Shuniah is estimated at
2,737 which is based on owners whose full time or permanent address is within Shuniah. However, during the summer months those numbers almost double and are estimated to be as high as 5,000.
Being in proximity to the City of Thunder Bay, the Municipality of Shuniah serves mainly as a bedroom community with very minimal commercial development within its boundaries.
The Municipality aims for service excellence while offering a variety of amenities, facilities, programs and services that residents, visitors, businesses and customers need and expect. Municipal Council and staff are committed to building a focused, responsive, resource-conscious and results-oriented organization. The Council and Administration of Shuniah have experienced several changes and transitions in the past few years, including but not limited to senior staff turnover, evolving regulatory standards, increased need for accountability and increased public expectations for efficient service delivery. The aforementioned variables have necessitated this Organizational and Compensation review.
Personnel employed by the Municipality include:
TypeUnion / Non-UnionNumber
CAONon-Union 1
ManagementNon-Union 6
Office – Full-TimeUnion1 **
Roads Crew – Full-TimeUnion 4 **
Permanent Part-Time /
Seasonal Part-TimeUnion8 **
Student, Recreation Programming –
Part-Time/SeasonalNon-Union10 **
Fire and Emergency ServicesNon-Union/Volunteer 35 **
** Note: These employee types are outside the compensation review portion of the scope of this RFP.
C. Scope of Work
The Municipality of Shuniah is seeking proposals from qualified consultants to undertake a Corporate Organizational review including a review of the Municipality of Shuniah’s non-unionized Compensation Plan:
- Complete an in-depth current state review (e.g. strengths, opportunities and gaps) and provide future state recommendations for change with a focus on improving organizational effectiveness and strategic management.
- Ensure appropriate workload distribution for all directors reporting to the CAO.
- A compensation review and recommendation taking into consideration organizational review recommendations as well as current compensation agreements and pay equity plans for non-unionized employees.
- Make recommendations for improvement, including designing an optimal organizational structure based on recommended staff, functions, processes, and objectives to most effectively and efficiently delivery priority programs and services.
The following terms of reference have been established for the Organization and Service Delivery Review:
- To review and evaluate the current organization structure and staffing in light of the Municipality’s service delivery requirements as well as sound organization principles.
- Related to the above, to assess the Municipality’s service delivery by Department so as to identify strengths and improvement requirements.
- To incorporate in the review and evaluation a comparative analysis of the Municipality’s current organization setup and staffing vis-à-vis the arrangements of similar size municipalities in the local area; to utilize the benchmarking exercise to determine best practices in the organization, staffing and service delivery.
- In carrying out the review, to obtain the inputs, comments and suggestions of the Municipality’s management team (N=7), members of Council (N=5) along with key stakeholders.
- To review the Municipality Strategic Plan for 2016-2020 in order to note organization and staffing implications and/or requirements.
- To review, evaluate and provide recommendations on span of control exercised by management including involvement and control of decision-making delegation. This task will assess managements appropriate scope of authority and control to effectively carry out assigned responsibilities.
- To recommend revisions/adjustments to the current organization, staffing and service delivery which would:
- clarify roles and responsibilities of the management staff,
- eliminate duplication and overlap of responsibilities within and between Municipal Departments,
- improve delivery time and quality of services as required,
- apply pertinent benchmarking and best practices data from the comparison municipalities,
- a process for measuring and collecting feedback from residents and customers when it comes to municipal services,
- establish appropriate staffing levels by Department (i.e., “right sized”),
- strengthen communications/ coordination within and between Municipal Departments, and
- provide for succession planning and career paths for management employees which in turn enables the Municipality to attract and retain high caliber talent.
The Compensation review will review the appropriateness of the Municipal designated comparators and carry out a comparator review for all non-unionized positions in the Municipality.
To prepare and present a final report summarizing the consultants’ findings, conclusions and recommendations for consideration by Council and Municipal administration including:
a) Recommended changes to the current organizational chart and justification for any changes.
b) Recommended changes to the municipal compensation system including taking into consideration all municipal compensation agreements.
c) Changes to job descriptions in accordance with the new organizational chart.
d) Recommendations regarding a personnel policy manual which shall include a process for annual performance appraisals, employee training plans and a process for reviewing all compensation as it relates to new or changing positions.
e) A written final report to Council summarizing the results of the review incorporating findings, an analysis, recommendations, conclusions and work plans (including detailed implementation plan with activities, sequencing and dependencies – including change management support considerations)
f) The Consultant shall appear before Council to present the final report
All recommendations will aim to:
- Strengthen relationships
- Improve the efficiency of service delivery
- Create a better ability to focus on and execute on strategy
- Clarify roles and accountabilities across the organization
- Improve value by achieving more with what you have
