State of the Trust: Achieving One Company, One Culture

In this letter to all employees, President & CEO Jeffrey Harrison shares his vision for achieving One Company, One Culture, progress we've made, and barriers we must overcome.

Citizens Employees: 

As we begin the 2021 fiscal year, I would again like to thank you for your tremendous performance throughout 2020, and urge you to remain committed to One Company, One Culture as I discussed in my recent State of the Trust address. 

One of several new strategic initiatives that will begin this fiscal year is developing and deploying a sustainable action plan for achieving One Company, One Culture. This plan will foster One Company, One Culture through companywide communications, branding, training, and collaboration.  

My Vision of One Company, One Culture 

• All employees, regardless of the position they hold or the department they represent, are always selflessly focused on the needs of the beneficiaries of the Trust – the customers and the communities we serve. 
• Employees are modeling behaviors in keeping with our core values of Safety, Integrity, Diversity, Teamwork and Quality. 
• All employees are working each day with a shared passion toward Trust-wide Strategic Goals. It will mean Trust-wide goals will always take priority over, and be supported by, individual, departmental and operating division goals. 
• Employees are fully embracing the Citizens Lean and Six Sigma process, which at its core is all about continuous improvement. CLASS directly addresses our responsibility to continuously evaluate our business operations to provide consistent value, quality and the lowest possible rates for our customers. 
• Diverse cross-functional teams operating in an inclusive environment are fostering innovation that produces better and more sustainable results for our customers and community stakeholders. 

• Employees view themselves as stewards of the Trust – people who are responsible for meeting the daily needs of customers and doing so in a manner that always ensures the very best long-term outcome for all Trust stakeholders. 

Our Progress 

The extraordinary performance of Citizens employees throughout 2020 is a clear indication that our foundation is strong and that we are continuing to make progress toward achieving One Company, One Culture. You are continuing to serve our customers with unparalleled excellence and integrity during this difficult time in our history! Here are a few examples of the ways employees are acting in the spirit of One Company, One Culture. 

Employees from Underground Gas Storage, Capital Programs & Engineering and Environmental Stewardship recently joined forces to complete an inline inspection of 45 miles of the 20-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline from our Greene County storage facilities to Marion County. 

Our Thermal Operations team recently joined forces with the Customer Relationships team to secure new contracts for chilled water service with the IU Health and IUPUI. The team also secured extension of a contract with Indiana University for Citizens to operate IU’s steam distribution lines on the IUPUI campus. 

Our Customer Operations team has successfully implemented our new C2M customer information system that is enhancing service to customers interacting with us through the Contact Center, our website and in the field. Smoothly implementing this complex system during this challenging time is an extraordinary accomplishment that required teamwork among many departments across the Trust. 

Gas Operations, Shared Field Services, and Water Operations worked together to develop an enhanced hiring and training program to stabilize the bargaining unit workforce. Learn more HERE.

Barriers to Overcome  

With the acquisition of the water and wastewater utilities nine years ago and a larger, more geographically dispersed workforce, our organization has become increasingly complex, which has led to the development of subcultures. This has, at times, contributed to fragmented decision making and turf battles between departments and operating divisions that detract from a focus on achieving Trust-wide goals. 

The pandemic has created a certain inertia that has refocused the organization on the importance of innovation, teamwork, communications and collaboration. When the pandemic ends, we must continue to embrace our new collaboration tools and remember that building strong relationships -- critical to the success of One Company, One Culture -- is best achieved through face-to-face meetings and other personal interactions. 

Achieving One Company, One Culture will require open and honest communication focused on regular dialogue about our ongoing goals.  

We will drive One Company, One Culture by leveraging the power of diversity and teamwork while having a desire to learn from others’ points of view.  

With 30 percent of our workforce eligible to retire over the next five years, we must recognize that sustaining One Company, One Culture depends on effective employee development, succession planning and knowledge management. 

In the year ahead, I urge you to build on the momentum from 2020 and take the next step toward achieving One Company, One Culture. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to our mission of service to the people of Central Indiana! 

Jeffrey A. Harrison

President & CEO 

2021 STRATEGIC ACTIONS

During the 2020 strategic planning process, the 10 SMART actions below were identified and have been added to Citizens’ Strategic Plan.

Customer Satisfaction

• Increase Warm Heart Warm Home (WHWH) funding through promotion of, and cobranding with, Utility Shield and greater distribution of assistance through billing programs
• Establish an educational campaign about our utilities, including virtual tours of facilities/processes and messaging on resiliency of our services
• Automate new customer start-service transactions via self-service portal with integrated online credit check solution
• Enhance neighborhood ambassador program to further develop relationships with community stakeholders

Employee Engagement

• Develop and deploy a sustainable action plan for One Company, One Culture program
• Select and implement a new performance management system
  

Financial Integrity

• Identify and implement new cost-savings and value-added ideas
• Maximize resource utilization across business units through targeted asset-sharing and departmental synergies

Performance Excellence

• Define divisional and departmental top 3-5 critical processes and conduct a “gap analysis” to develop a list of procedures that require documentation
• Create an online interactive tool allowing customers to report water service disruptions or leaks to increase community