Praise for Your Labors and Requests for Your Help

From CAO Helen Robbins-Meyer

As we head into the long Labor Day weekend, I’m taking the occasion to applaud the tremendous work you do. All of you, all year long, for all our residents. The vision of our leadership is nothing without your efforts to turn it all into reality.

You’ve done it through a remarkable upheaval in how we work. Without missing a beat. The pandemic was disruptive in awful ways, but it also opened our eyes to new modes of operating. Changes we made in a crisis have now turned into options we can employ deliberately and strategically. It’s your flexibility and commitment that have made that shift possible.

Along with my thanks to everyone, I want to share a few other notes on the labor front – and ask for your help.

This Labor Day, I want to recognize the partnership that the County has and values with its labor unions. We are in a new era at the County, and our recent labor negotiations put a focus on our shared values in reaching agreements that had a positive impact on our workforce. Labor Day’s origin was in honoring the labor movement and its achievements. We appreciate the stability and contributions our unions bring to serving the public. I thank our labor leaders and members for their spirit of teamwork and look forward to moving ahead together.

Turning to employee engagement. We’ve put a lot of emphasis on community engagement externally. We need to do the same internally.  

A next step toward that will be an employee engagement survey to help us understand what we are doing well and identify areas where we need to make improvements.

 We turned to an outside consultant and also worked with labor associations to get their input. We want the consultant’s expertise in this area and fresh perspective. We also want their independent status. They’ll run the survey. You’ll get an email directly from CPS HR Consulting, and your responses will be confidential. We really want your frank opinions so we can assess strengths, identify gaps, and take action to make sure we have high levels of engagement. Here’s a little more information on how it will run.

The survey goes out to participating departments September 12. Watch for it – and please take it! 

One more thing we need help with, and we’ll pay you for it. We have a lot of job openings to fill, and we’re competing in a tight market. So the County is starting a referral bonus program. Employees can get $1,000 for referring someone who winds up hired into a number of hard-to-recruit positions. Lots of nursing and health care positions, sheriff’s deputies, engineers, and others. For all the details, check out these program guidelines and the referral form. In the future, you’ll find those links on InSite’s Employment page. 

Besides the cash incentive, you’ll be helping your colleagues by bringing much needed staff on board.

I want each of you to have a high level of satisfaction with your work. For one, I truly want that for you personally. But getting people in place, keeping them here, making sure they stay motivated – these are all essential to fulfilling our mission of serving the public with excellence.

I’m in awe of what you accomplish. We take on enormous challenges, and it’s hard work. However you celebrate the holiday weekend (and thank you to the many staff who will work those days), I want to celebrate your labors and all your achievements. Thank you, and happy Labor Day!