In October, the PLASP head office staff will be relocating to a new address at 60 Courtneypark Drive West in Mississauga, an expansion that will help us serve our program staff and families better.

Last week, PLASP’s head office staff attended staff training, with a focus on the upcoming move and helping staff to prepare for the changes ahead.

“We’ve been at our current location at 121 Brunel Road for almost 25 years,” PLASP CEO Lynn Hiebert said, as she opened the meeting and welcomed staff. “It’s a lot of change to absorb,” she added, “and we’re going to do everything that we can to support our staff during such a large transition.”

PLASP staff were encouraged at the meeting to try and think differently, during a presentation by Dan Trommater (www.dantrommater.com), a motivational speaker with a special trick up his sleeve – magic. Using magic to challenge PLASP staff’s perceptions and awareness, Dan led the group through a lively and interactive session that had everyone thinking about different solutions to different problems that are presenting themselves to staff  - not only during the transition of the move, but also on a daily basis. “Challenge your assumptions,” Dan suggested to the group. “We make a lot of assumptions on a daily basis. We let ourselves believe that something is impossible, we accept it and then move on. But the human mind is designed to problem solve.”

“We’re always thinking outside the box at PLASP,” added CEO Lynn Hiebert. “Not only in our programs as we grow and require additional space, but in our head office as well. Sometimes, we’re even required to think inside the box, if you think of an office building as one big box that’s constantly being changed to accommodate growth. You add walls or tear them down, meeting rooms become offices, departments move from one section of the building to the other.”

For Lynn Crewe, PLASP’s Manager of Procurement and Facilities, and project lead for the move to 60 Courtneypark, Dan’s presentation was timely. “When you have an organization that’s growing as fast as PLASP is, we need to be creative in how we use our space. There’s a lot of balancing that’s required as we grow and expand our physical space to match the growth and expansion of our organization.”

Many of the PLASP staff remember the move into 121 Brunel Road in 1991. At that time, PLASP was on the first floor only; it was only in later years that the second floor was acquired. “We never thought that it would be possible that we would fill the space at the time,” said Margaret Briggs, Executive Assistant to the CEO. “And here we are today, filled to capacity and moving to a newer, larger space.”

The original space at 121 Brunel Road was 10,000 feet. When the second floor was acquired, the square footage increased to 15,000.

“The new office at 60 Courtneypark is about 24,000 feet,” CEO Lynn Hiebert revealed. “We considered the anticipated growth of the organization when researching a new location, but we’re growing so fast that we understand anything is possible in regards to what we will need space-wise.”

With the growth and expansion of programs throughout Peel and Toronto, the new location at 60 Courtneypark was carefully selected to accommodate PLASP’s continued growth. And, now with over 1,100 PLASP employees, we’re thrilled to be able to provide additional training and meeting rooms to our program staff - as well as new offices and expanded space for our administrative team.

As we get closer to our move date, PLASP will be posting photos and updates to keep not only our staff informed, but also our PLASP families. We invite you to check back often to see how we’re transforming our head office space!