Our plan is to continuously be looking at the policies and laws at all time to ensure they're relevant to the nation.
We've in the past had a housing policy that just sat on the shelf.
It was not being implemented and when we looked at it, it was because it didn't reflect the needs and the values of the community.
Well the code of conduct is important because it sets the ethical tone for the organization, and it's for everyone to follow.
Under the Financial Administration Law, Tzeachten has a Finance and Audit Committee and this committee is used to review budgets, audits, do a lot of the financial footwork that that council has to approve.
This is helpful because like any elected official, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're the financial experts, or have the time to review documents that are important for Tzeachten's well-being when it comes to finances.
Managing your information technology is an important part of business because you at least want to meet the same provincial or federal standards for security of private information.
And when we upgraded our network server last year, we ensured that process that the data was secure.
But we also look beyond that, and looked at ways of backing up our data off-site so in the event an emergency, or a natural disaster, we could start business the next day.
Even though we outsource our IT management, it's still important to have a policy in place so that we can set the parameters for which that company needs to operate and protect our information.
Integrated planning is my favorite part of this job because it involves a lot of collaboration amongst the departments for risk planning, looking ahead so you can just set aside money for something.
Multi-year forecasting, to see the financial health of your organization in five years.
Budgeting, those are tools that are valuable for department directors to see if they're on track, and strategic planning of course, for Chief and Council, so we can implement their overall vision.
Planning is extremely important for Opaskwayak Cree Nation.
We actually have a monthly community meeting that we rotate throughout our community, from the hotel to community halls, to ensure that those that aren't normally accessible able to attend those meetings in those particular areas of our community.
We actually have transport lado that brings members to the community meetings as well.
We also ensure that we put that on a live feed through Facebook so that people can join in by a computer and watch us as we conduct our business within the Opaskwayak Cree Nation.
Our investment policies help us to ensure we're doing the very best investments for this nation membership, but also it ensures that we're monitoring the investments.
It's very important to have strong human resource practices.
When you're hiring somebody, you're looking for the best qualified candidate who's gonna bring up the best in the organization, who's gonna put their best foot forward for you.
And in some unfortunate cases, even in termination, you need to have those HR practices in place so you can avoid costly legal issues.
Importance of having a performance of using training system is I believe when you initially hire an employee, you need a work plan.
So if you do a work plan properly when you meet with them, and during the first year or at least at the end of the first year you can identify if you both met your goals, and at the same time maybe identify training that is needed if they didn't meet their goals, or identified the areas that they may be able to grow and help to an organization better.
But when I also look at training plans, I look at how we can tie that job into the strategic plan.
They feel that the importance of their job can be tied to that strategic plan.
I personally endorsed the work of the Financial Management Board and the work that they do in helping communities get back on their feet or start running with respect to their their relationship with with others by establishing the rules the policies and and implementing them, it makes your community far more accountable, not just to the members, but also to to your neighbors because in order for your community to survive, what we learned is that, we need to start building our capacity and that's exactly what the FMB does.
It builds that capacity so that you can go out and actually work with, partner with, off the reserve agencies because you're going to need to do that at some time, but as well to build that that level of confidence with your community members.