If you walked into the Arena and Events Center in February 2023 looking for the Board’s FY24 Planning Retreat, you may have been surprised to hear waves of laughter fill the Cabarrus Rooms. The Board of Commissioners and County leaders were all-in as they came up with their most creative and daring ideas for the future of the County.
The event was a kickoff for the County’s next strategic planning process.
The last plan was adopted in late 2019—just before COVID-19 and economic factors impacted our community and changed nearly every aspect of our work.
In January 2023, Commissioners unanimously approved working with Centralina Regional Council (Centralina) to develop a board-guided strategic plan that sets priorities and provides a framework for future business operations.
Centralina began the planning process in February 2023 with a review the 2022 Community Survey and Workplace Climate Survey findings, interviews with Board members, County management and a survey sent to department heads. Their inputs gave Centralina an idea of what a strategic plan means to our organization, what about the last plan did or didn’t work and what would be needed to successfully design and implement a new plan that moves us forward.
From there, The Strategic Plan Core Team (a small group of employees with varying levels of experience and roles in the County) collaborated with department heads, the Board of Commissioners and Centralina Regional Council to develop the mission and vision. These concepts will be presented to the public in September.
The Strategy Team has incorporated employee and public feedback in the process by:
- Using the Workplace and Community survey findings as the foundation for the plan
- Hosting workshops with County department heads and managers, departments, Gov. 101 participants and ARPA-funded organization leaders
- Facilitating small group and one-on-one conversations
- Leaning on an advisory Core Team of cross-County employees
Defining the vision, mission, goals and strategies
Once the County Board and staff drafted a new vision, mission and goals for the organization, it was time to develop strategies to accomplish the goals. To get that done, the Strategy Team held 26 in-person and one online workshop where they engaged with hundreds County employees to brainstorm big ways their departments and the organization as a whole can accomplish the strategic plan goals. Those big ideas were turned into top strategies that reflect the ideas from staff across all levels of the organization.
In July 2023, Centralina facilitated a final workshop for department heads and managers across multiple departments to review the draft strategies submitted by County employees. Centralina prompted managers to react to the strategies and assess the feasibility of each. The workshop provided an opportunity to understand potential barriers as well as the support needed to accomplish the strategies. Ultimately, staff prioritized draft strategies based on where we as an organization can do the most good. After final revisions were made, County leadership reviewed each goal and strategy, and gave final input before they were presented to the Board of Commissioners.