About Wodonga Council
Wodonga Council – our people
Wodonga Council is committed to investing in the professional and personal development of our employees, building on the proven fact that a happy and satisfied employee translates to a happy and satisfied customer. The council’s key human resource objectives are:
- To encourage and enable all staff to make a personally satisfying contribution to the achievement of the organisation’s goals thus continually improving the organisation;
- To maximise organisational effectiveness through the contribution of our people;
- To provide a work environment conducive to maximising the potential of our people, recognising wellbeing as a critical component of business success;
- To be recognised as a highly desirable place to work;
- To possess the staff with the skills to deliver the strategies and actions in the council plan; and,
- Have a culture based on our organisational core values.
Our vision
Our people, our city, our future.
Our mission
We will strengthen our community in everything we do.
Our values
- Trust
- Respect
- Integrity
- Learning
Our people have agreed to demonstrate the core values of trust, respect, integrity and learning through the behavioural competencies listed below. By demonstrating these values and behaviours, we build strong relationships with each other and with our community.
Demonstrated by:
Build relationships
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- Spend time getting to know team members and key stakeholders/clients
- Actively listen, be supportive and communicate openly
- Value what you and others do well and celebrate successes
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Choose your behaviour
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- Understand your emotions and the impact they may have when you interact with people
- Always pause and think before acting, and manage impulses for positive effect
- Be courageous, and step outside what is comfortable when required
- Be present and focus solely on the person you are with
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Respect others
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- Listen to, and understand others feelings & perspectives
- Resolve conflict positively, maintaining confidentiality and respect for all parties
- Respect individuality
- Speak of those that are absent only in a positive way
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Act with integrity to build trust
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- Tell the truth in an appropriate & helpful manner that does not compromise the organisation’s objectives & values
- Keep confidences
- Do what you say to the best of your ability
- Be open about mistakes
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Work together & learn from each other
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- Be patient with people as they learn
- Be open to new ideas & receive feedback openly
- Get involved
- Receive feedback openly and look for improvement opportunities
- Understand that everything we do affects others, now or later
- Work toward common goals and recognise we depend on each other to achieve them
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Be community & customer focused
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- Use community and customer feedback to improve services & relationships
- Continually strive to deliver the best services and outcomes for the resources available
- Have a ‘can do’ attitude
- Be friendly, co-operative & helpful
- Respond promptly to customer enquiries
- Exceed customer expectations wherever possible
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Continuously improve & innovate
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- Continually pursue improvement opportunities
- Generate & develop new ideas & share them
- Be willing to question the way things are to find solutions
- Seek out best practice and learn from it
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Manage Risk
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- Be prepared to take risks but continually assess implications of what you do before acting
- Spot problems and threats & respond appropriately
- Actively identify and plan ways to make good things happen for as many stakeholders as possible
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Be open to change
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- Respond well to new situations and see change as an opportunity to grow
- Be willing to change to meet future needs, despite being happy with the way things are now
- Recognise the need to support others through change
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Business excellence
The City of Wodonga has been using the Business Excellence Framework as the focus for its 12 year quality journey since 1996. The counciil's efforts have been rewarded by 85 per cent of the residents currently advocating Wodonga as a great place to live and 93 per cent of staff considering that the Wodonga Council is a workplace they would recommend to friends and relatives as a great place to work.
The commitment of the City of Wodonga to business excellence was recognised this year when the cCouncil won gold at the Business Excellence awards. The Evaluation Team acknowledged that there was a high level of performance across all category items and that the council has been identified as a ‘Best in Class’ practitioner in a number of critical aspects across the framework. They are:
- Leading the organisational culture
- Gaining and using knowledge of customers and markets
- Customer perception of value.
Other areas of excellence were identified from strategic planning and leadership.
The Business Excellence Steering Team champions business excellence throughout the organisation and oversees the direction of the program. The functioning of the Innovations team was reviewed by the steering team, with a number of improvements recommended. One recommendation to make the Bright Ideas process more user-friendly was to have staff email their ideas to RALF, an organisational mascot who was created through a staff competition to help staff get more involved in making the City of Wodonga an even better place to work. RALF stands for Relationships, Attitude, Learning & Fun, and working on these four things has been identified as a way to help the organisation continue to improve. RALF is a fun character and a brand for business excellence.
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