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Picture your daily repetitive routine of managing activities and memberships, as well as keeping up with instructors, sports leagues, ticketing, facilities, and point-of-sale transactions, not to mention tending to both employee and citizen concerns. Overwhelming yourself by manually managing these recurring tasks isn’t the only option. If you haven’t heard of it before, let us introduce recreation management software—the more powerful and flexible option.
Your community is where thousands—maybe even millions—of citizens call home, and it’s your job to help citizens protect their home. Mothers, fathers, business owners, even children, will look to the leaders of their community for peace of mind and reassurance that everything that can be done to protect them from an unexpected disaster, has been done. To help you protect your citizens and give them the peace of mind you all want and need, we’ve compiled 8 tips for local government community emergency preparedness. Stay one step ahead of a possible disaster with these planning tips.
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Website Design, Human Resources, Emergency Notifications, parks and recreation
What is CivicPlus®? This simple question deserves more than a simple answer, because we are more than a single solution company. Bringing tailored technology and deep local government expertise together in a powerful way, we deliver thoughtful solutions that improve the processes between people and software applications.
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New requirements associated with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) state that all payment systems must disable early Transport Layer Security (TLS) by 2018. TLS is a technology used to encrypt sensitive information sent via the Internet. TLS is the replacement for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
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New requirements associated with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) state that all payment systems must disable early Transport Layer Security (TLS) by 2018. TLS is a technology used to encrypt sensitive information sent via the Internet. TLS is the replacement for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
If you think all recreation management software solutions offer the same features, think again. Most solutions allow local governments to complete standard transactions, like scheduling activities and allowing online registrations. For many software systems, this is where the functionality ends, and where manual interventions and alternate processes and systems take over.
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It shouldn’t surprise you that there are many people in your community who want to work for your local government. You may be shocked, however, to learn that many of those same people hate your recruitment and hiring process. Don’t feel frustrated. We’re here to help you understand possible areas of frustration so that you can make the necessary improvements to ensure the best talent are following through with your hiring process from applicant to new employee.
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Just like your local government website serves as an effective tool for encouraging individuals to live in your community, and work in your community, your website can be an effective tool in encouraging businesses to establish and grow in your community as well. Everyone will benefit when employers choose your city or town as their headquarters. Citizens will have more employment opportunities, greater access to more restaurants, retail, and other business services, and your community will grow and thrive economically. To start leveraging your local government website as a business recruitment tool, follow the tips below.
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There is no doubt that social media plays a big role in modern day recruiting, especially because many job seekers rely heavily on the Internet during their job search. If you aren’t using social media in your recruitment efforts, then you need to take immediate action to look for ways that you can integrate it into your plan. Without social media, it’s likely that you’re missing out on many qualified candidates.
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With each day your municipality remains understaffed, citizens and staff feel the effects with greater impact. Understaffed administrations are less responsive to inquiries and requests. They have less available staff to complete community projects. Worst of all, they have less bandwidth to proactively initiate programs that could further the community’s mission and vision. When your municipality is understaffed, you’re simply limited in what you can accomplish. A slow hiring process will only hurt your community, your staff, and your citizens. Here are six reasons why.
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Leaders in government human resources know that a good performance appraisal system is an integral component of their process of helping employees grow and develop. Most local governments implement some type of tool that can be used to evaluate employee performance, but the problem is that the performance appraisal system doesn’t achieve the desired results. When the results aren’t achieved, then the most common approach is to change the system to change the performance results.
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You already know that encouraging citizens to get out and get active in your community starts with a promotional strategy that includes online and social. What you may not realize is that your citizens are searching for local government parks and rec programs not just online, but from a mobile device. These mobile-minded citizens are hoping not just to find community-based activities, classes, and leagues, but to complete the online registration process—all from a mobile device.
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You never know when an emergency will strike your community—which is why early preparation, community education, and constant vigilance are essential to keeping citizens safe. One of the most effective ways of preparing your citizens for a possible disaster, is to involve them directly in the education, and response process. If your municipality has not already established a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), learn what it takes to effectively implement a CERT that enables your citizens to become an active part of their safety and preparedness.
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The ways that job seekers interact with employers has changed. As our expectations have shifted to wanting immediate access to on-demand content, job seekers are starting—and finishing—their job searches online. You likely already know many of the benefits of online job applications, but if you’re still not ready to replace your paper applications with online versions, we’ve got eight more benefits of choosing a government HR software solution that offers an online application component.
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How much time do you spend each day answering citizen questions via phone, email, or in person? An hour? Two hours? You likely already know how you’d spend that time if you could have it back. You’d finally have time to start that project you’ve wanted to get to for months. If you’re wishing your citizens could self-service more of their needs online, freeing up more of your day for additional project work, you’re not alone. Your citizens want the same thing.
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Local government parks and recreation departments have a unique opportunity to help foster the health and wellbeing of the children in their communities. One of the greatest wellness opportunities for young people is to participate in community youth leagues. Not only does team participation teach children leadership and perseverance skills, it helps them to get active and build friendships with their classmates and neighbors. If your parks and rec department is ready to begin offering youth sport leagues, or you’re looking for ways to stay better organized and expand your existing programs, review our checklist of key steps to effectively manage your local government youth leagues.
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Effective March 21, 2017, the latest updates to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 went into effect, impacting the design and management of many federal and local government websites. If you are currently utilizing our CivicEngage® content management system (CMS), know that our platform, ongoing enhancements, and internal experts, will serve as a functional foundation for your compliance strategy. Read on to learn about the latest requirements and how they will impact the ongoing equitable communications of your local government so that you can plan your compliance strategy.
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Every employer, both in the private and public sector, want to keep their employees happy. Happy employees mean tenured employees, but what are the best ways to motivate employee job satisfaction? For local governments, simply increasing wages isn’t always an option, due to union contracts and limited budgets, so what’s left?
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A user-friendly government content management system (CMS) means non-technical staff are capable of building and editing web pages—an essential component of a high-touch citizen communication strategy. The power and flexibility to edit and update your government website is also an important responsibility. Every update you make to a page or content item reflects upon your community’s brand—the very essence of what makes your city, town, or county unique. That means that any images, text, or integrated functionality that is not optimized for digital output may inadvertently fail to represent your community in the best light possible.
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It’s every parent’s nightmare: their child is missing. Abducted. As seconds tick away, panicked parents fear their child is being taken farther and father away from home, and that the odds of their child being returned safely are growing smaller and smaller. Leveraging the power of our nations’ communities and their engaged, concerned citizens, since its inception in 1996, the national AMBER Alert program has proven to be a successful system for helping reunite abducted children with their parents. As of December 2016, AMBER Alerts have successfully recovered 857 children. To learn how to successfully use the AMBER Alert system to communicate potential abductions in your community, familiarize yourself with the reach of the AMBER Alert system, and our communication best practices.
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Your blog is a powerful citizen engagement tool. It serves as an easily accessible, authoritative resource for citizens looking for the latest news and trusted information from their civic leaders. As you work to continually enhance your citizen emergency and routine communication strategy, make sure you are fully leveraging your civic blog. We’ve got four ways your blog can help you amplify your communication strategy, and examples of some impactful blogs from communities like yours.
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The most valuable parks and recreation software platforms are more than just data management tools. They are powerful promotional resources that allow you to market the wide variety of activities, leagues, and classes offered by your community. Learn how to leverage your parks and recreation management software to increase registrations in your community by following our best practices below.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 400 Americans die each year from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning not associated with fires. More than 20,000 visit the emergency room, and more than 4,000 are hospitalized. Fortunately, while these statistics are staggering, carbon monoxide poisoning is preventable in many cases with proper education and monitoring. Help keep citizens in your community safe from this silent killer. By offering education materials and making local resources available, you could help to save a life.
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Your worst nightmare is that a disaster strikes your community. A flood, a bridge collapse, an act of terror. They are all fears that keep you up at night. Are you prepared to act fast enough? Do you have the infrastructure, staff, and planning in place to ensure expeditious, and informative communications that will reach as many citizens as possible? Don’t wait for a disaster to occur to test your communication plan. Be prepared in advance so that if the worst-case scenario occurs, you can step into action without hesitation or fear. Read on to learn where to start when building a crisis communication plan.
