Three Tips for First-Year Building Officials
By Nathan Gonzales, BOAT Director-at-large, City of Kennedale
The path from inspector to department head can be both rewarding and daunting. The decision to lead a building department is often a reason to pause and take inventory of one’s leadership capabilities, and rightfully so. Good leaders are self-aware and recognize areas of their deficiency. Doing so keeps leaders and decision-making honest and humble. Although technical proficiency in building safety is crucial, there are other skills that must be developed. Steve Van Note echoes this sentiment in his book, Inspector Skills, where he highlights the soft skills and communication techniques that every building safety professional should have in their repertoire. Similarly, building officials will find that there are expectations from city leadership to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in areas that do not involve vast knowledge of building codes. Budgeting, revenue forecasting, and performance measures are the language of top administration, and building officials must become fluent. Here are three tips for first-year building officials to help navigate their newfound responsibilities:
Learn the Budget Process
Do you know the name of your finance director’s dog? Do you know the education and testing requirements needed to become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA)? Are you on a first-name basis with anyone from the finance department? If not, ask. Finance personnel hold a wealth of knowledge. Just as many code officials enjoy educating customers about building codes when they show a genuine interest, finance professionals hold the same view of their field. During the spring, while every other department gears up to submit their big money request for the upcoming fiscal year, the finance department is running more realistic numbers that are sure to lower expectations shortly after property appraisals are received. Have you ever heard the previous department head say, “We don’t have it in the budget,” and it made no sense to you, given what the city just took in for a building permit? Guess what, your predecessor was not wrong. Understanding the creation and adoption of a city’s budget is something many public employees have little exposure to. The Texas Municipal League offers several training courses, webinars, and conferences throughout the year specific to budgeting and tax rates. In DFW, the North Central Texas Council of Governments offers a course called Municipal Finance for Non-Finance Executives tailored specifically to department heads tasked with budget responsibilities. The course outlines how the budget process works and provides an eye-opening overview of purchasing, legal, and auditing requirements. Building officials should petition their leadership to attend an upcoming course.
Become a Storyteller
Every building department keeps track of the number of permits issued, inspections performed, and construction value reported. Although these three categories are often showcased in the city’s annual report, it does not tell the whole story of the work performed by all members of a building department. How many permits require plan review, and how much time do plan reviewers spend on projects? If you are fortunate enough to have a plan reviewer, what other departments are involved in reviewing the same project? Are you keeping track of the plan reviews performed by public works, planning, fire prevention, and engineering that often originate from the intake counter of your department? How many phone calls, emails, and questions does your front counter staff perform daily? Ask them to start keeping track. How many hits does your building department webpage receive a month compared to other departments? Ask your IT department. You, like city leadership, will be surprised to learn how many customers utilize the ancillary services of the building department. The idea here is to provide a more accurate picture of staff activity and the foot traffic a building department generates. This vital data can be used to justify both staff and salary increases. Building officials should consider learning how to use the data visualization capabilities of software such as Power BI, Tableau, or Python. Numbers on a spreadsheet do not always translate well. Displaying department data in a more palatable format helps tell a better story.
Level-Up and Instill Competencies
In leadership development literature, competency refers to the technical skills and knowledge required for specific jobs whereas competencies refer to the character traits employees display while performing their respective assignments. What characteristics do you want to instill within your ranks and how can you improve the public perception of your department? In her book, The Handbook of Competency Mapping: Understanding, Designing, and Implementing Competency Models in Organizations, leading human resource author Seema Sanghi provides a guide for leadership practitioners to follow when updating job descriptions and responsibilities. Once a building official takes up their mantle of leadership, they create a vacancy. This vacancy is not just a job opening, but a displacement of experience, knowledge, and character now removed from the field. As a building official, you are responsible for filling the vacancy not just with technical knowledge, but character traits that benefit the public. Perhaps your predecessor had a wealth of knowledge but often failed to distribute wisdom for the benefit of others. This is common in the workplace of any field and usually stems from insecurities. Now that you have reached the top of the building safety ladder, who else have you brought with you? In his book, Leadershift, John Maxwell describes the pivotal moment when he shifted his mindset from climbing the ladder of success to helping others build their own ladders. Great leaders have a long-term vision, and building officials should always consider succession planning.
The first year of leading a building department will bring both challenges and celebrations. Hopefully, the year will be marked by the latter. Becoming proficient in the administration of budgetary responsibilities, performance data reporting, and promoting competencies will instill confidence in your capabilities not only by city leadership, but also from colleagues and direct reports.