Determining Your City’s Readiness to Engage

Intro

Cities should consider a set of initial questions to understand how to strategically invest in policies, practices, and programs to strengthen the municipal workforce. Reflecting on these prompts will offer important insights into the city’s capacity, existing resources and initiatives, and other context needed to embark on the changes needed to meet key municipal workforce needs.

Key Considerations

• What key municipal workforce challenges are you hoping to address?
  • Have you begun to collect and review data to help you understand your workforce challenges?
  • For the challenge(s) you’ve identified, are they specific to a department or job classification(s)?
  • To what extent are you aware of any common barriers current or prospective municipal workers are facing (such as access to child care, transportation, health care, housing, etc.)?
  • If you solve these challenge(s), what positive impact will your community see?
• Do you have the support and engagement of:
  • Executive leadership such as the Mayor, City Manager, or Chief of Staff?
  • The Human Resources department?
  • Leadership across city departments?
  • Unions?
  • Education, workforce, and community organizations that prepare workers for municipal jobs and provide wraparound supports?
• To what extent has your city engaged current, former, and prospective municipal workers to understand their experiences throughout the employee life cycle?
  • Are there existing mechanisms to regularly gather input from employees throughout their experiences applying for and being employed with the city?
  • How does employee input factor into how decisions are made that affect employees’ experiences?
• What efforts (if any) has your city made to create more pathways into city jobs and reduce barriers to entry?
  • Does your city have active internship, apprenticeship, or work-based learning programs that create entry points to municipal careers?
  • Does your city have a civil service structure? If so, in what ways does the civil service structure practically serve and/or hinder the recruitment and hiring processes?

In addition to these initial considerations, cities can use this Self-Assessment Tool to identify the specific assets and challenges existing within the city’s municipal workforce.