Another semester is well underway, and in the spirit of a year full of exciting projects and developments, I’d like to provide you with an update on activities resulting from our Employee Engagement Survey. In my last communication, I indicated that the executive team had asked the Employee Engagement Committee (EEC) to provide us with recommendations on three priority topics: Communications, Recognition and Change Management. The EEC has met regularly, and has consulted with various college committees including the Academic Operations Committee (AOC) and College Council. As a result of this feedback, the committee proposed a series of recommendations for the executive team’s consideration. Many of the committee’s recommendations have been approved, while others await further development. Here are the recommendations that have been approved and will be implemented. Communications To improve internal communication, all employees will now receive Communiqué, our internal employee newsletter, in their email inbox. This is an effective way of communicating with all employees at Humber in a timely and consistent way.   I strongly encourage everyone to use Communiqué to stay informed and to let others in the college know about any accomplishments or upcoming activities. Communiqué contains vital college information, activities and news, and the Communiqué website includes valuable resources such as an event calendar and links to key college information. As well, the communications working group will collaborate with other areas of the college to create a shared Humber community calendar that will include information from the academic, corporate and Human Resources calendars, as well as highlight special events, and statutory holidays. This calendar will have all relevant information in one place and be easily accessible on the Communiqué website. Finally, the working group will also be exploring opportunities to create more interaction between employees at all levels of the college. This will include developing a cross-college communication committee, which will give employees an opportunity to share their valued opinions. Change Management The change management recommendations are targeted at three areas:

1. Ensuring that the amount of cumulative change planned for the college is reasonable and does not unduly overload any of our teams;
2. Training and supporting leaders and project teams in developing and executing plans that prepare people for changes that will affect them; and
3. Training individuals to productively deal with and embrace change.

Recognition A recognition committee will be established with representation from all employee groups. The committee will develop and implement formal and informal recognition programs for Humber as well as review the college’s service awards program. One element of employee recognition that I am particularly excited to see will be an electronic “Wall of Distinction”, which will be placed in a strategic location at the North and Lakeshore campuses. This will highlight award winners, upcoming recognition events and other important information. Finally, the committee will help to develop a Recognition and Awards website, to be launched in spring 2016. In the coming weeks, HR Services will conduct a short random sample survey of all employee groups to gather your feedback on our recognition initiatives. The survey link will be made available to all employees as well. Once the survey is available, an announcement with instructions on how you can complete the survey will appear in Communiqué. I would like to thank the EEC for their work over the past nine months and those who provided feedback and shared their perspectives. In addition to these college-wide projects, there are action plans being developed by every school and department to address their specific survey results. Check Communiqué for further updates as we make progress on these valuable initiatives.