Notes from the session
Q1. What are you doing with regard to succession planning?
Andy Hall
- Andy created a culture of growth by establishing a friendly environment within the city.
- Established a “go-to” person for staff and a “go-to” person for the community, including the navy, residents, council, Port of San Diego, etc.
- The Assistant City Manager became the Chief Administrative Officer handling all staff issues and day-to-day city management.
- The City Manager is out in the community attending community meetings and working side-by-side with staff on issues important to the community, like homeless encampment cleanups.
Chris Constantin
- Chris joined an agency with a low turnover when a 20-year city manager retired.
- He’s established a culture of getting work done by jumping in and taking on tasks with staff.
- He’s been on ride-a-longs and filled in potholes with the streets division.
- He likes to be visible to the front-line staff and the public.
- He shares much of the council’s actions and dealings with staff so they are aware.
- He does struggle with employees and getting them to stretch within their roles.
Jim Lewis
- Jim believes it’s a talent war. He knows the next best person for a position is a person they have internally.
- They look at who will most likely retire and then identify the all-stars who can replace them.
- They create career paths for the all-stars to fill in the voids.
- Takes compensation studies very seriously.
- Tries to make job assignments more flexible.
- Very involved at conferences because employees are their best recruiters as part of their succession planning. Has a hefty training budget. Never cuts the training budget to help people grow.
Jon Shull
- Believes that the top executive must have a solid second in command.
- Another person should be in the room for significant decisions so they can have a broad perspective of the agency’s issues.
- The number two should be exposed to the entire agency, not just their specific department.
Q2. What do you do in terms of training and educating your employees?
Jim Lewis
- One of the most important things for people today is professional development.
- They want to know they are being grown to handle the next step.
- Pismo reimburses employees for their degrees.
- Sends a ton of people to conferences.
- Believes you can’t think, “What if you train people and they leave?” But “What if you train them, and they stay?”
- You can end up with loyal, happy employees.
- They have an internal Management Academy and want their managers to understand other departments and how their role intersects with other departments.
- Invests in regional leadership academy and Center for Organizational Effectiveness programming.
- They allow employees to take risks and make mistakes.
- Employees know they can fail because Pismo wants them to take risks and push forward.
Chris Constantin
- Employees that want to grow sometimes leave for other jurisdictions because they can only grow so much in their communities.
- Trains employees to maintain their skills, enhance their skill set, and expand their knowledge into other areas so they can go out and get a skillset that will help at a new job they want to have.
- Establishes three types of academies for staff to progress through.
- A foundational academy that every city employee goes through initially to understand the basics of how government functions.
- A supervisory/managerial academy, which gives skillsets to understand the human resources interactions that occur when you supervise/manage people and the accountability that goes with it.
- An executive academy, which is typically for directors, but is offered to every employee.
- Sits down with staff and asks them where they want to be in one year, three years, or five years.
- He wants to help mentor staff so they grow and know where they want to grow.
Andy Hall
- Takes education very seriously.
- Tries to put every one of their employees on a career path.
- They have helped employees get an education by flexing their salary.
- People have gone on to get a master’s degree with this option.
Q3. How are you considering succession planning during the hiring process?
Chris Constantin
- It’s hard to succession plan during hiring because sometimes you are lucky to have a candidate.
- We have to look at what makes a good employee foundationally.
- Maybe the candidate isn’t a rock star in everything, but San Dimas wants employees who will stretch themselves and are willing to learn and grow.
Jim Lewis
- The perfect candidate is a unicorn.
- They look for what is in a person’s heart, work ethic, passion for the job, etc.
- Hire for fit, but don’t feel you must hire anyone.
- When hiring, consider – under-hiring and grooming the perfect person from the beginning.
- They are very intentional about clarifying what Pismo beach stands for with new hires.
- They provide their new employees with swag to make them feel a part of the team from day one.
- They work with the local junior college to create a hiring pipeline for their city.
- They host a leadership day with city managers from neighboring cities to whet the appetite of high school students and get them interested in local government.
Andy Hall
- In 2017, Imperial Beach’s Finance Director was murdered on vacation. The sudden loss left the city reeling.
- IB hired a seasoned finance director who would only stay for a three-year contract.
- They then hired a finance manager who was told on day one that they needed to learn everything they could to take the finance director’s position once their three-year contract concluded.
- It’s a privilege to know every employee by name. As a city manager in a small city, you must meet with employees, get to know them, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and how they can grow.
- When you are such a small organization, you can hire for fit, train for skills and potentially change the direction of a position based on the skill set of the new hire.
Q4. What are you doing to retain employees? What are you doing to create a culture of change within your agency?
Andy Hall
- Tries to make IB a city with a culture where people love to come to work.
- Wants employees to have fun because they get more done when they enjoy their work.
- Has many wellness activities and free time games like softball and basketball.
- Wants his employees to know he loves and cares about them, creating a culture and environment where they feel appreciated and valued.
Jim Lewis
- Culture, culture, culture is so vital to retaining your employees. You need to have a unique culture that employees can get behind.
- What is your brand? What is the value proposition for your employees?
- Pismo’s brand is “‘cuz we’re Pismo!” It manifests in a swagger and pride in being a City of Pismo Beach employee.
- They carry a “values and mission” card, and people feel they are part of a team.
- Remodeled city hall and included an employee lounge with couches, video games, and pictures of employee groups on the walls.
- Believes a vital mission and focus are critical to culture.
- Closes the city for a day to mix employees and departments up.
- The executive team and the council serve lunch.
- It’s like a pep rally, but they also work to see if their brand proposition still holds water with the team.
- They have a think-tank-style event with analysts to get a new perspective on essential employee issues.
- Ties to take individual staff members to lunch to thank them for their hard work.
Chris Constantin
- San Dimas used a 5-step compensation schedule that employees usually maxed out at about year two.
- He changed the salary table from 5% to 2.5% to extend the table. The fact that they can keep the pay increases going for a more extended period is ideal.
- Has bowling tournaments against other cities to encourage group camaraderie.
Q5. What are you doing to create a culture of change within your agency?
Chris Constantin
- Ask the question, “why?” Keep asking the “why” to get down to the root of the problem.
- Have staff start thinking, “What is the purpose of doing this?”
- Use the technique of the five “whys” to get to the root of problems.
- San Dimas had a recreational hiking program that for years charged participants $2 each. He began asking why each person was charged $2 and it opened a discussion as to whether it was good practice to do so in the grand scheme of things. (e.g., staff time involved, little revenue received, etc.)
Questions from the audience
- What happens when director-level staff gets defensive that a CM is interested in all employees?
- Tell directors that you want to round out the culture and that you want to be an approachable city manager.
- Have a season where you learn people’s names and how the organization works.
- Tell your directors that you are a coach and an encourager. You will not undermine directors but want to get to know the employees.
- Have conversations with your department heads and create a sense of urgency with them to work on the culture change.
- What can we do as a profession?
- Volunteer to be a guest in a class to help with how things work in local government.
- Host students who want to shadow a local government official.
- Every department has an internship position. They have hired two full-time employees from the internship program.
- How have you adapted to this post COVID zoom world, and how has that impacted your culture?
- The hardest thing for IB was to ask employees to stay home when they wanted to go to work.
- San Dimas – Brad McKinney was the interim CM and was back operating 100%. In Chico, they completely shut down and were working hybrid.
- The reality of the situation we are in is that we are going to be mixing and matching a hybrid workforce.