MANAGEMENT UPDATE.

PUBLIC SECTOR HR AND RESIDENT SATISFACTION

There’s a general sense among residents, and even employees, of local governments, that the job of HR is limited to internal functions that administer leave policies, appraise employee performance, manage compensation and classification systems, post job openings and deal with recruitment, hiring and retention.

But a new, first of its kind study, released last Wednesday, powerfully demonstrates that there are statistically significant correlations between HR effectiveness and resident satisfaction with government and quality of life. The report was created through a collaboration between UKG, Polco and Barrett and Greene, Inc.

“This is the first empirical study to show that internal HR practices directly impact how residents perceive their local government,” said Nick Mastronardi, Ph.D., co-founder, CEO, and board chair at Polco. “It validates what many municipal HR professionals have long believed: that investing in people leads to better public service.”

The white paper,“Building Government from Within: Workforce Excellence and Resident Satisfaction,” was based on a comprehensive 73-question survey and found a number of HR strategy areas that were clearly linked to resident satisfaction.

Some of the major findings:

Performance management practices demonstrated the strongest correlation with resident satisfaction, helping municipal governments ensure employees have clear goals and their accomplishments are recognized.

Cities with HR departments properly staffed with qualified professionals also rated higher, in part due to their success in attracting talent and nurturing a positive employee experience across the entire employee lifecycle, including onboarding, and career and skill development.

Employee well-being also correlated strongly, including programs that span emotional and physical health, financial literacy, manageable workloads that prevent burnout, and fostering better manager-employee relationships that help boost retention, increase pride, and ensure employees can bring their best selves to work every shift.

Effective recruiting and hiring, driven by technology, can reduce overall time-to-hireand also expand the qualified candidate pool, helping to ensure new hires possess needed skills, and embody organizational values.

Last week, Barrett and Greene Inc. published a Guest Column by Bob Lavigna, public sector fellow at UKG and the UKG study leader, in which he stated that “HR departments can use our results as solid evidence to demonstrate to elected officials who control their budgets that focusing on the workforce can have a real payoff, including in voters’ positive views of their local government. And that, to put it bluntly, translates into votes.”