MANAGER COMMUNITY BENEFITS

Job Summary:

To manage, oversee and implement the Community Benefits Framework according to up-to-date, robust, innovative, and effective evidence that guide the City on the scope, equity principles, and the "how-to’s" of implementing community benefits. To strengthen the City of Toronto's capacity to utilize its levers (i.e. procurement, real estate transactions, or financial incentives) to achieve equitable, inclusive, and impactful community benefits outcomes in City projects. To manage and maintain open and transparent relationships with a wide range of strategic internal City partners, the external community and key collaborators.

Major Responsibilities:

• Develops and implements detailed plans and recommends policies regarding program specific requirements to leverage City programs that create inclusive economic development resulting in training, employment, and business opportunities that reach Indigenous, Black, and equity-deserving communities.
• Provides strategic advice and recommendations to City Councilors, Senior Management, Divisions, agencies, and corporations on ways to maximize the use of City of Toronto levers and align City projects with established equity strategies and priorities in order to create training, employment, and business opportunities that reach Indigenous, Black, and equity-deserving communities.
• Manages and leads community benefits consultation meetings regarding business services with City Councilors, relevant divisions, agencies, and corporations in a fast-paced, political environment.
• Builds and maintains strategic and collaborative stakeholder relations across a wide range of sectoral and political leadership, City divisions, agencies, and corporations, while managing competing stakeholder interests and expectations.
• Ensures corporate-wide implementation of the Community Benefits Framework using evidence-based, transparent, and accountable approaches.
• Ensures the City's community benefits long-term goals and priorities are supported through budget planning, building business cases, engaging internal City champions and external stakeholder and community champions.
• Ensures effective resource development, issue management and administration of program budgets including the preparation of business cases, briefing notes, media and public information, program comparison information, coordination with other City divisions and reports.
• Ensure programs address key municipal and community priorities through research, stakeholder consultation, community engagement, and coordination.
• Develop policies for community benefits program delivery and ensures programs comply with relevant city priorities and policies.
• Navigates and coordinates community benefits program delivery with related City and community initiatives, and emerging sector trends to maximize opportunities to leverage public resources and reach underserved communities.
• Monitors and analyze current emerging social, economic, and political trends and issues in community benefits as a basis to provide strategic advice to senior management and Councilors for program development, resource development, allocation recommendations, etc.
• Develops, prepares and negotiates agreements with suppliers, contractors, other divisions, partner organizations, and client groups.
• Provides advice, guidance and delivers presentations to other municipalities and provinces, universities, colleges, and professional networks on the topic of community benefits policies and program development.
• Leads the development of foundational resources and guiding documents to establish a new Community Benefits Unit such as organizational and governance structure, team functions and roles, work plans, priorities and deliverables, budget and resources, measuring outcomes, and evaluating processes and functions.
• Recruits, onboards, leads, and manages a high performing, multi-disciplinary staff team across a wide portfolio of staff roles and functions including research analysis, policy and program development, workforce development, business analysis, evaluation and monitoring, communications, and reports/briefs.
• Manages, motivates, and trains the unit's staff, ensuring effective teamwork, high standards of work quality, organizational performance, continuous learning and encourages innovation in others.
• Supervises the day to day operation of all assigned staff including the scheduling, assigning, and reviewing of work. Authorizes and controls vacation and overtime requests. Monitors and evaluates staff performance, approves salary increments and recommends disciplinary action when necessary.
• Develops, recommends, and administers the annual budget for the unit, and ensures that the unit's expenditures are controlled and maintained within approved budget limitations.
• Manages ongoing in-depth best practice research, policy analysis, program development, trends analysis, jurisdictional scans, literature reviews and key informant interviews to keep up to date with the most cutting-edge research and information available globally.
• Manages the development and implementation of ongoing innovative systems design projects (prototype development, validation, feasibility testing, and pilot testing) to ensure the City of Toronto's Community Benefits Toolkit evolves and meets the changing demands of users.
• Manages the ongoing training and implementation of a Community Benefits Toolkit (includes: resources, guidelines, templates, monitoring and evaluation framework with outcomes and indicators, data collection and reporting tools) and ensures it's available to all City divisions, agencies, and corporations.
• Manages the development and implementation of the unit's performance measurement, with outcomes and key performance indicators to measure success and year-over-year performance.
• Manages the development and implementation of communications strategies to reach both internal City partners as well as external stakeholders, through the translation of community benefits information and knowledge into accessible products such as website content, information materials and presentations, overviews, and reports.