In municipal government, there’s no job quite like being a Chief Administrative Officer. While the Mayor is widely seen as The Boss, the reality is that Mayor and Council rely heavily on the expertise of the CAO to keep municipal business moving. The CAO is not just accountable to the Mayor and Council, however. Like any executive, they are also responsible for keeping their staff efficient, productive, and happy. With pressures from above and below, CAOs are often the ones with whom the buck stops when it comes to executing the Vision of the town, a role that comes with enormous responsibility and a need for technical expertise. What kind of person is suitable for such a role? How do you find them? And most importantly, once found, how do you keep them?
Indeed, the role of CAO is not for the faint of heart. Long hours, late calls, days filled with meetings and emergencies of all kinds, being a CAO comes with a lot of personal disruption and requires a resilient and nimble mind. But raw intelligence and ability are not necessarily enough to find success as the Chief. A good CAO understands the personalities of the staff, Mayor, and Council, and knows enough about their roles and goals to help keep everyone at the municipality rowing in the same direction. If the combination of technical ability, HR experience, financial smarts, political acumen, emotional intelligence, and personability sounds like a tall order to you, you’re not alone. A strong CAO is a rare find, and with hundreds of municipalities in Canada all looking for the best in the business, finding and keeping a good CAO is more like catching lightning in a bottle than recruitment.
To catch lightning, you first need a sturdy bottle. The better the municipal corporation already functions, the more easily you’ll attract a capable, professional CAO. This includes the standard offerings like a competitive salary, benefits, and vacation time, but also the culture of the workplace, the quality of staff and municipal systems, and Council’s approach to governing. In Canada, this tends to favour big cities as they are often large organizations by definition and better funded by taxpayers and other orders of government. But small municipalities have their own challenges that require a steady hand on the tiller: more diverse geography, a wider variety of municipal needs, and a larger focus on infrastructure to name a few. Not every town has that level of resourcing, yet all towns still need a CAO. Some need a new CAO precisely because their municipal corporation is not achieving in the way Council would like. Like any worker, CAOs want to work in a place they love, a place where they feel valued and a part of something larger; in short, a place where they can make a difference. And herein lies the next lesson: making your town feel like a home.
Plenty of CAOs decide they would rather work and live in a small community rather than a big city. After all, there are over 3,500 municipalities in Canada, and only a handful of Torontos, Vancouvers, and Montréals. For many, it’s their hometown, for others, they prefer a small team and having more of a hand in the day-to-day activities of the community, or perhaps they simply don’t care for the hustle, bustle, and costs of the big city. Many small town CAOs do their jobs simply because they love their community and hold reverence for the important work local government does in this country. The trick to attracting great staff of any kind is knowing what advantages your unique community has to offer and leaning into those advantages, and the trick to attracting a great CAO is understand how to showcase those advantages to help them see what your residents see and fall in love with your town. Decent pay, reasonable cost of living, beautiful scenery and trails, a good working environment, strong local culture, and the opportunity to do big things to help people are all good incentives for the hard-working, community-minded CAO.
Eventually, though, your CAO will move on, whether through retirement, moving onto a new opportunity, or even leaving involuntarily. A CAO search can take months and sometimes years, but the work of the municipality must continue in their absence. One option is to enlist consultants or other experts to provide advice and oversight to tide over the municipality while you seek new leadership. If the split is amicable, your outgoing Chief will ideally be able to share some thoughts on who is currently the best fit for the Interim role, or any other glaring issues you may want to handle before hiring. If it isn’t, you may run the risk of losing some institutional knowledge if they depart without sharing. With luck, your Interim CAO will be short-lived, and your municipality will soon be on to bigger and better things.
Fundamentally, there is no great trick to hanging onto your Chief. It really comes down to treating them well, providing them interesting and meaningful work, making them feel valued and included in the work of Council, and helping them to see the fruits of their efforts in the community. When municipal staff see their work represented and praised in the municipality, that fulfillment will carry them a long way to achieving great things for their town.
What’s important to you in a job as a CAO? Does your community have a longstanding CAO, and how did you get them to stay? Have you recently experienced CAO turnover? Email us at tyler@strategicsteps.ca to share your thoughts!
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