Recruiting
and Retention Task Force
Wednesday,
February 15, 2023 - 11:00 AM
Joe Pete Wilson -
Chairman
Chairman Wilson called
this task force to order at 12:04 pm with the following in attendance: Stephanie
DeZalia, Shaun Gillilland, Ken Hughes, Jim Monty, Matt Stanley, Joe Pete
Wilson, Mike Mascarenas, Jen Mascarenas, Chelsea Merrihew, Joe Keegan and Jim
Dougan.
Also present: Dina Garvey
WILSON: Okay, we’ll try
and get and started here to keep this day moving a little bit.
I’ll call us to order.
Thank you for sticking around on this long conversation filled day, but the
only thing on the agenda today, is a put a draft summery report and recommendations,
that I really wanted to just review briefly, not go through it line by line,
but ask that you give some feedback. You know what do we need to change, what
did we leave out, what did we not highlight enough. So, just real quick; the
first part is just a little part of summary of the work that’s been done, but
the first recommendation is to sustain this effort, this mission needs a home
and as Ken said earlier, the Personnel Committee seems to fit that. So, that
the Personnel Department and then the Personnel Department might take on some
of the operational aspects of this. So, again, having it in the Personnel
Committee would make sense for a line or reporting. That would also give a
committee channel for the County Manager or Budget Officer to make sure that
we’re funding, planning, you know, keeping this mission alive by building it
into our operations. So, that’s recommendation one, in a nutshell.
The second is marketing.
We need to market and we need to do it professionally and this marketing
recommendation is really right out the of the draft plan that everyone reviewed
after we got some help from North Country Community College and Kyle Johnston
there, who handles the type of outreach that we were looking at. So, that
really hasn’t changed, recommendation number two, from the draft-marketing plan
that we all reviewed.
Recommendation Number 3
is having a communications and recruitment specialist. Someone who can not only
manage our marketing, manage our partnerships with the college, with CV Tech,
with BOCES. The things Charlie was eluding to in our last discussion. You know,
having a job fair, the work that Jim and Ken are doing, tomorrow, to start
building bridges. We can’t do this ad havoc. If we just keep having it based on
who wants to do it, it’s going to start eroding or losing focus. And this
Recommendation Number Three, to have a person in charge of this would also fit
in, I was hoping Shaun would be back, at the end of last year, Shaun brought up
the need for communications, marketing person for the County, as well. So, what
I envisioned here is this would just be an additional, you know that person we
would hire would have the expertise to handle the type of marketing,
communications we need to recruit and retain, as well as some of the broader
county. So, we wouldn’t be asking for two communications people, we’d be trying
to have someone who, we’re going to keep them busy with doing the recruiting
and retention and also communications for the County.
And Number Five, the
educational pipeline, you know, a lot of the things we’ve talked about, a lot
of the same things we’re seeing being successful, like down in Ticonderoga,
that Donna Watton and Ti Alliance are doing and Ken’s doing a bunch, and Jim’s
doing a bunch. And we really need to formalize this, the mission of it and then
how it’s going to fit in with the communication and retention specialist,
Personnel Department, the Personnel and Administration Committee. So, those
were the recommendations that I pulled out and Ken really helped put this
together. But, this is where I’m at and I’m sure I’m missing some obviously
things. So, I really want some feedback and it doesn’t necessarily have to be
off the top of your head, right now. But, if you make some notes on this and
give it back to me or email me or if you do have some thoughts right now, it
would be great to hear them and I can take some notes.
HUGHES: I have just a
very quick, under recommendation Number One, sustaining the effort, just for
clarity, it’s the Personnel and Administration Committee?
WILSON: Yup
HUGHES: I just realized
that. And then under Number 3, communication and recruitment specialist, I
think we want to add language in there about a PIO, Public Information Officer.
I think that’s what Shaun is looking for, in addition to just general
communications and I had, at his request, written up a report about that to try
and education the Board about where we are, where we’ve been and what we’ve
done and recommendations moving forward. So, I don’t know where that, I did
submit it. I don’t know where it went. I have a copy, but just adding public
information officer to Recommendation 3, I think would be wise.
WILSON: Yeah and if you
have something from that other report that you wanted to cut and paste into
there, let me know.
HUGHES: Yeah, I’ll reread
the report. I like this, because it’s just general. It sunrises and then the
report goes more in depth, because you’re making recommendations. So, I’m okay
with that.
WILSON: Okay
HUGHES: And I’m glad to
see you included the employee handbook and county hiring.
WILSON: Oh yeah, I forgot
that, didn’t I. Did I skip over that? And again, I wish Mike was here.
HUGHES: I’m glad to see
that you had that in there.
WILSON: Oh yeah, I missed
Number 4. In conversation, in talking to Mike about work he’s doing and would
like to do, revising and updating the employee handbook and County hiring and
employment policy, I think is going to be key. If we’re going to have
discussions about work from home, about part-time, you know how do we, like I
know Jim’s talked about trying to get some retirees back, part-time. How do we
start building that in, so that it fits with our Union commitments, it fits
with, you know, it’s consistent across the County and it gives Department Heads
clearly designated tools to be creative. So, I added this, about the employee
handbook and policy in support of what Mike is doing.
DEZALIA: Yea, so we have
a subcommittee for that already and we met last year, I think it was 2021.
MONTY: I think it was two
years ago.
WILSON: I forgot, I’m on
that committee with you.
DEZALIA: And we made
recommendations. I don’t know that they really went any farther than that. So,
I think we can have some of those subcommittee meetings, again and we’ll
address those and take the recommendations that have come from this committee
that do exist then and maybe add some of those things to our other
recommendations that we have.
WILSON: Oh, that’s a
great idea and you’re right. I remember that and we did a lot of work and I
forgot that we were on that committee. So, yeah we should resume that.
MONTY: My understanding,
we submitted that to Mr. Manning who gave it to Mr. Tedford and he had it just
about complete with some other things and he’s now charged Mr. Tansey with it,
but we also went, if you remember, last meeting, we’re going to RFP for a
consultant to piece everything, to try and find someone who will piece
everything together for us, matching, mirroring it with the contracts and stuff
for us to look at. For them to do that work, with our suggestions and I’m not
sure when the RFP is due on that, but I know that we just approved that, as a
Board.
DEZALIA: Yeah, Public
Sector HR did a really good job of melding all our policies together on ours.
MONTY: Yeah, so I think
that’s going to go, fit right in to what you’re looking at. But, I agree, we
probably should get together and discuss it, because I’m pretty sure it was
’21. It might have even been ’20.
DEZALIA: There maybe some
additional things we want to put in there since we’ve had this meeting.
MONTY: I think it might
have been 2020.
WILSON: I think it was
before Covid, yeah.
MONTY: I can’t remember,
I’ve only asked for it for 8 years. .
WILSON: That’s a great
idea, Stephanie and maybe we could sit, you know as we work this draft through
a little more, we could get the three of us together, that would be great.
KEEGAN: This is great. A
couple of questions and then an observation, maybe. So, is it, does the plan
recommend the hiring of one individual and then this there a specialist?
WILSON: Yes, yup.
KEEGAN: The marketing
would all be, the current vision is to have the marketing RFP’ed out?
WILSON: Yes, we would, we
looked at what Kyle’s doing and didn’t feel like we had the in-house ability or
the, quite enough need to dedicate one person. Is that how we see it?
HUGHES: Yeah, kind of. I
mean I keep thinking about Holly. You know Holly’s doing a lot of marketing for
the fairgrounds and she has told me the past that it’s just not, there could be
more work put on her plate. So, I’m not saying that there might not be
something internally, but there could be, depending on what the scope of work
might end up being.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: And
that’s the crux. I don’t know that she has the tools to do that kind of
marketing. I think being able to do television ads and/or those really fancy
type press flyers.
HUGHES: I apologize. I
was seeing her as an internal liaison to a hired out-sourced company.
MASCARENAS: Yes, agrees.
HUGHES: I want to
replicate what you guys are doing.
WILSON: We looked at the
college’s model and the data that you get back from that and the why you’re
able to tailor what you’re doing. That takes a level of sophistication.
HUGHES: I want an
internal person to be the liaison to that.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: Yeah
WILSON: And overseeing.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: Joe, if
you could and I’m sorry I’m coming in on this late, but I was just meeting on this 5 minutes ago,
which is why I’m late. We are looking to develop an RFP, we’ve got a couple
good examples, but did you RFP to get the firm you got?
KEEGAN: I believe we did.
I’ll get the contract to you.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: Yeah,
if you did that would be a helpful thing to see. We’re trying to collect
explains of RFPs. What people are using.
KEEGAN: I can’t remember.
Let me look and I’ll share whatever we have with you.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: That
would be great.
WILSON: And then you had
some other points, as well?
KEEGAN: I did. The thing
that we found is our communications specialist was so, it’s important for them
to be so tied into that marketing piece. So, that you’ve got that synergy of
messaging across, you know whether that PIO is quite the same role. He’s our
PIO, he’s our communications, he’s doing enrollment marketing, he’s doing press
releases, all that kind of stuff. So, having that link of the communications
specialist is important, if not a full-time job just to make sure that there’s
that constant flow of the same thread of messaging going through.
And I was wondering if under
5, any of the educational pipeline duties could fold up under that person?
WILSON: I was hoping
that. I’m hoping that we’re not creating a job that’s too big and with too
many, that’s what I was hoping though. Is that we could keep this is one person
and some, like with consistent messaging, the depth of knowledge. I am hoping,
but I have no idea.
KEEGAN: And we saw, was
it Finance Committee, I can’t remember, but you had a presentation from…
WILSON: Public Health,
the ones with the videos and they’re just getting ready to…
HUGHES: BRIEF
KEEGAN: So, there’s a
model already out there about marketing Essex County.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: And I
do have that information from them in terms of who they used, the tool they
used to procure those individuals.
KEEGAN: Yeah, we use
them, as well.
And one last thing, Joe
Pete and this is a real quick read, but a lot of seems focused on recruitment.
More recruitment heavy then retention and I don’t know if there’s…
MASCARENAS, MIKE: You
sound like Jim Dougan. Now, you’re going to get him going.
WILSON: And that’s a fair
statement. Going through this I reflected on that quite a bit and it’s so much
easier to come up with ideas for recruitment than it is for retention and some
of the things that we did already address. Like with the life insurance, the
referral and I think when we overall the employee handbook, that might be a place.
I struggled to get these bigger initiatives. Well, we worked when we looked at
housing and childcare. I mean those are some of both, but you’re absolutely
right.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: And
you’re absolutely right, 100% right and there’s some real reasons for that and
you probably even deal with it, somewhat at the college. This year we’re in a
negotiation year. So many of these issues end up being contractual that you’re
dealing with. You know, we’re at a competitive disadvantage in terms of civil
service where we have a lot of different jobs that are in the same class. One
area, I’ll give you a for instance, in DPW, Jim, if I misspeak, tell me, but
they’re get the general idea. Our MEOs are say a Grade 8, well we have 13
titles that are in a Grade 8. So, if we decide that our MEOs are getting paid
too little and maybe that’s why we’re struggling to get them, it’s going to
impact every Grade 8 we have. I can’t arbitrary move one Grade without it
impacting every Grade in/around that. So, then the Grade 10s, well, hang on a
minute, I’m a Grade 10, because I have this level of education or this level of
experience or I have a doctorate; right and they’re not wrong. So, now it
creates a domino effect where towns may only have a handful of employees, they
might not even have anybody else in a Grade 8. So, it’s figuring out how to do
that salary structure it a little bit easier for them. I’m not saying there’s
not things we can do, there absolutely is. Jim and I are talking about for his
particular office starting to create additional titles where movement can
happen more free and easy. Where maybe we have, we haven’t landed on this, but
an MEO 1, and MEO 2, HEO, HEO 1, HEO 2. So, now we’re rewarding people that
have been here for a longer period of time and we’re able to give them that
shout out through title and they’re automatically a Grade higher, because of
that without impacting our whole salary structure, which is 500 employees. So,
there’s some real reasons for that, Joe Pete, why retention’s a little harder,
but in your contract, you do have things such as flextime; right? We have paid
leave for different things. So, I don’t want to keep talking, but.
HUGHES: I have to leave
in 5 minutes, unfortunately, because I have a 1:00 grant meeting, but I just
wanted to remind the committee of the November 4, 2022 webinar that I attended with
Ian Coyle of Livingston County, he’s the administrator there, Page 2 provides a
bunch of strategies for retention. I actually spoke with him at NYSAC this
weekend and had a really good conversation with him at retention and
recruitment. If we’re looking for strategies, I don’t think we have to create
them. I think they already exist and I just would like to remind people of that
November 4th document. I think we can add some of those in here for
future consideration.
DEZALIA: Yeah, in
Syracuse and along with Saratoga County they had a lot of strategies. I think
the paid parental leave is also a retention and recruitment. So, there’s like
creative ways that you can use different things for both.
WILSON: Thank you for
sticking around, Ken. And I think again, this goes back to recommendation
Number 4, the one I skipped about the handbook. A lot of this stuff is where
we’re going to address it in our small work group, then in the Personnel
Committee, Personnel/Administration Committee with the County Manager, with the
Head of Personnel. A lot of that stuff is going to get developed and fully
codified in that work.
MASCARENAS: One thing and
like I said, I don’t want to belabor this and before our Chairman returned I
was going to talk about something that was very near and dear to your heart.
So, every night or at least some point during the week the Chairman’s reminding
me that we some sort of communication specialist in the County. Somebody to do
that work and it looks like that’s part of your recommendation. That maybe
something that we can look certainly look at sooner rather than later or make
it part of the 2024 budget submission. Currently we have 85 positions or so, as
we learned today that are unfilled. We could look at creating that and not have
an impact on our current budget, because those positions are budgeted, quite
frankly. If it’s something, you’d rather do sooner than later, we certainly can
and I think we can integrate, maybe the two goals to meet the needs of the
Recruitment/Retention Committee and the overall County voice that we’re trying
to get out there.
WILSON: And that’s what
this recommendation was meant to dovetail with Shaun’s talk about public
information and so it was meant to be an additional rational for having the
position and some additional duties to make it really a full time job.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, because
that was my concern, at first.
WILSON: Yeah, so thank
you. Any other thoughts?
STANLEY: I think
recruitment is something that we’re sitting around here brainstorming to see
who we can get to walk through the door. Retention I think is an issue, trying
to get the voice of our current employees to help, maybe create some of those
things that we may think are great things and great points that maybe we think
would help retain people, but maybe that’s not what the employees think are
important. So, I think in trying to get a pulse on the voice from our current
employees may help us in some of those retention issues.
WILSON: And Joe and I
were talking about recruiting younger people, whether it’s for college or for
the workplace. They don’t want to show up 9:00-5:00, 5 days a week and they
want to be flexible and they want to tailor stuff and that’s going to be hard
for us to adapt, but we need, some of the things I was talking with Joe about
were things that never would have occurred to me. I was getting them from
younger, potential employees and college students and how are we going to adapt
and it’s going to come back to our policies, again.
STANLEY: It’s hard to
plow a road from your couch.
MONTY: That was going to
be comment, we’re as government employers, employing people providing
government services, it’s hard not to have people full-time.
WILSON: Yup
MONTY: Because needs are
there every single day, regardless of what department we have. Very few
departments you can go and work from home and provide needs to the constituents
that are paying you salary and that’s, to me, that’s a really strong
consideration with anything we do.
DEZALIA: I can say that
the three counties that spoke on this, they all implemented flexible work
schedules. Where not everybody was coming in 9:00-5:00 anymore.
MASCARENAS: We do have
that.
DEZALIA: So, obviously
you have to look at every department. We would have to look at maybe their
model and how it was working for them, because the implemented it. They’re in
their first year of it.
MONTY: Are they
unionized, too?
DEZALIA: Saratoga County,
Monroe County and I think Livingston. I think it was three counties.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: We do
have flex, but we don’t have, so every department has the ability to do that
and some of that reins on the department head. You do have offices that are
statutory by nature and you have office that can be more flexible. So, like in
IT, I have people that come in at 7:00 in the morning, right through 9:00 in
the morning and I allow them to kind of set their schedule and it works. It
actually is a better form of service, because now I’ve got coverage from 7:00
to 5:00. Places like DMV, are probably, I’m guessing are set by the State and
say you’re open from this time to this time.
MERRIHEW, CHELSEA: Yeah
MASCARENAS, MIKE: So, if
you’re a cashier or somebody working that counter you kind of got to be there
from those times to those times. So, you’re right. We need to look at what
titles can we be more flexible with? How can we do that and still provide a
high level of service, because I think we would all agree that the State’s work
from home policy isn’t working. We can’t get a hold of anyone ever and so we
want to provide that high level of service, but still provide that level of
flexibility. That’s the main thing and I think we can do it and I think we have
an opportunity this year during the contract negotiations to work on those
things.
MONTY: And playing
devil’s advocate, again and I don’t mean to downplay anything. So, now we’re at
some departments can offer it, right and some can’t. so, now are we going to
see an influx of people go and say, hey, I want to go from here to here,
because I want to flex my time. So, the only thing we’re doing is moving the
problem to someplace else. So, now you’ve got less people working here, because
everybody wants to go work here.
WILSON: But, I think that
can be a strength, too, if we start identifying pathways in and offering, like
Jim has talked about this, you start here, there are steps that you can work up
where you’ve got liaisons with training like the county or internal training.
So, yeah that would be a way to get people in the door and they work their way
up.
MONTY: Maybe, but also
how do you explain to DPW, how do you explain that to the Sheriff’s Department
that these people and again, I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I’m not
disagreeing with anything we’re putting here, but I just think, you know this
is not going to be a one fit for everybody.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: It’s
all part of the discussion.
MONTY: There could be 20
different policies.
WILSON: There’s going to
be a lot of growing pains. At the job fair, I met someone that I would consider
early career professional stage age, you know, probably around 30 years old and
she said, I have 3 or 4 things that I do for an income stream, I’m totally in
charge of my schedule, I can go anywhere, do anything I want, I am making
enough money to be happy, but I’m exploring the idea of what it would be like
to go to a job and you know, it’s going to be to recruit people that bring real
skills, but are coming at it from a point of view that I just never thought of
before. You know, it’s going to be growing pains for us and I’m sure for
Saratoga, all the counties you listed, there’s growing pains there and yeah,
we’re going to have to see what we’re comfortable with trying.
So, I would ask for any
comments that you think of afterwards, please send them my way. This is a great
discussion and this is really helpful. I’ll take what I got here. Look for
other input. We’ll follow-up about the handbook and maybe get Shaun in.
DEZALIA: The subcommittee
for the policy manual.
WILSON: Have emails been
going out about that? I haven’t seen them.
MASCARENAS: Friday, our
RFP is due on the policy manual. So, we did put that out and hopefully we’ll
get some vendor that responds to that and we can get to work on that.
DEZALIA: So, maybe we can
meet in March.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: Yeah
WILSON: That would be
great.
MASCARENAS, MIKE: So,
crossing my fingers. We didn’t have a vendor, as of yesterday that has
responded, but that’s not unlike a vendor to come in at the 11th
hour and put in a proposal.
WILSON: Thanks everybody,
thanks for being here this long.
AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME
BEFORE THIS RETENTION AND RECRUITING TASK FORCE, IT WAS ADJOURNED AT 12:30 PM.
Respectively Submitted,
Dina L. Garvey, Deputy
Clerk of the Board