Growing and Retaining Our Workforce (GROW): A Framework to Support Municipal Workforces

Intro

Cities are operating in varied circumstances and structures. Some may be focused on modernizing outdated staffing structures, processes, and policies to meet their city’s current needs. Others may already have a strong foundation for basic operations and are in a position to innovate and further expand their efforts to invest in their municipal workforce. The GROW Framework is intended for cities that have the capacity and structure to maintain basic operations and have or are interested in developing the ability to innovate and transform current policies and practices so that the municipal workforce can thrive.

How to Use the Framework

The GROW Framework was developed as a tool to help cities consider their workforce challenges and opportunities before designing and implementing solutions to strengthen their municipal workforce. The framework identifies four core areas that city leaders can apply based on their workforce needs and local contexts, with example tactics for each area. Together, the core areas and tactics can help cities recruit, train, and retain a skilled and diverse workforce and build sustainable talent pipelines for high-quality, critical city government jobs.

When using the framework, cities can focus on the core area(s) that are priorities and that they can feasibly undertake at a given time, rather than addressing all four areas at once. The tactics are intended as examples, not an exclusive or comprehensive list of actions cities can take.  

[Updated GROW Framework Graphic]

Guiding Principles

The GROW Framework recognizes that investing in the public sector workforce is not only essential for city governments to operate effectively, but also benefits individuals and the community through the impact on economic opportunity and delivery of city services. The framework is grounded in the following guiding principles, which apply across the core areas:

• Implement inclusive and equitable policies and practices to foster upward mobility for community members and enable cities to tap into all potential talent. When a city workforce is reflective of its community, the city is better positioned to understand community members’ needs, deliver responsive services, build and maintain trust across the community, and expand access to quality public sector careers.
• Center and uplift worker voice in the design of policies and practices that impact local government employees. Engaging employees directly can strengthen retention by ensuring that workplace policies reflect what employees need to feel valued and able to succeed in their roles.
• Build partnerships with labor, workforce, education, and community organizations to develop and sustain talent pipelines for municipal jobs. These partnerships help cities align resources, expertise, and programs across systems to create more coordinated and sustainable workforce strategies.
• Prioritize collaboration and communication across city departments to facilitate consistent implementation of workforce policies and practices. Clear roles, expectations, processes, and decision-making structures can help cities coordinate workforce efforts across departments and sustain positive practices over time.
• Invest in Human Resources (HR) systems, infrastructure, and capacity as a critical component of municipal workforce transformation. This focus can help HR teams move from a primarily administrative- or compliance-focused role toward a strategic workforce planning approach that focuses on longer-term and sustained improvements.
• Collect and analyze data related to recruiting, hiring, advancement, retention, and other key areas. Consistent and ongoing data collection and analysis caninform the development and implementation of workforce policies and practices and enable data-driven continuous improvement efforts.

Core Area One

Grow Community Awareness and Public Sector Engagement

This core area helps cities build the foundation for a strong municipal workforce by improving awareness of the value of public sector careers and increasing interest in these careers across the community.

Example TExpand Pathways Into Public Serviceactics

• Develop consistent and straight-forward messaging that promotes municipal careers and communicates the city’s value proposition as an employer.
• Use public-facing communication channels, inluding social media, to regularly promote municipal job opportunities and career pathways.
• Partner with K-12 schools, postsecondary institutions, workforce organizations, and community-based partners to build awareness of municipal careers, beginning with career awareness activities in grades 5-8 and offering work-based learning opportunities for high school students and young adults.
• Host or participate in career exploration events that allow community members to better understand job opportunities and interact directly with city staff across departments.
• Uplift the stories of municipal employees to promote how local government work provides career opportunities for community members and positively impacts the community; intentionally feature stories that highlight diverse roles, entry points, and advancement opportunities.
• Partner and coordinate with all relevant city departments that conduct external programming and communications (e.g. Offices of Communications/Public Information, Workforce Development, Community Engagement).
• Track outreach activities, gather feedback from the current workforce and the community, and use participation and outcome data to improve future engagement efforts.

Core Area Two

Expand Pathways Into Public Service

This core area helps cities develop and sustain strong talent pipelines by clearly defining and aligning community resources to municipal workforce needs and establishing equitable and accessible entry points into municipal jobs.

Example Tactics

• Identify priority occupations for pathway development by regularly reviewing workforce needs, vacancy trends, turnover risks, and hard-to-fill roles across departments.
• Define the skills, competencies, and credentials needed for priority roles and use that information to guide outreach, training partnerships, job design, and advancement pathways.
• Update job descriptions and role documentation so they reflect current skill, competency, and credential expectations and can be used consistently across departments.
• Partner with education and training providers to identify gaps in programs that prepare people for municipal careers and align career advising, curricula, and credentials with municipal workforce needs.
• Address barriers to accessing and completing education and training programs by identifying the support needs of workers, such as transportation, scheduling flexibility, tuition assistance, wraparound supports, or clearer information about requirements and next steps.
• Design multiple entry points by connecting work-based learning opportunities, such as internships, apprenticeships, and transitional jobs, to longer-term municipal workforce roles.
• Identify priority populations or communities and develop targeted strategies that create and expand pathways for these community members into municipal jobs.
• Analyze recruitment and hiring data to identify gaps in representation across demographics and communities, then use the findings to strengthen the recruitment strategies and process.

Core Area Three

Strengthen Recruiting and Hiring

This core area helps cities to consistently have qualified and diverse applicants for municipal jobs and ensure that recruitment and hiring processes are positive and effective for both applicants and city departments.

Example Tactics

• Develop a citywide recruitment strategy that establishes shared principles, priority roles, target audiences, outreach channels, and recruitment expectations across departments.
• Partner with education and training providers, workforce organizations, community-based organizations, unions, and others to hold recruitment and hiring events for priority roles.
• Tailor recruitment efforts to reach priority populations and communities through targeted outreach, accessible materials, community-based recruitment events, and partnerships with trusted local organizations.
• Adopt skills-based hiring practices to revise job descriptions, identify transferable skills, create alternative qualification pathways, and use structured skills assessments to make municipal jobs accessible for community members with a wider diversity of experiences.
• Review hiring policies, position classifications, education requirements, and civil service processes to identify requirements or practices that may be outdated, unnecessary, inconsistent, or barriers to qualified candidates, engaging public sector unions as appropriate to the city’s context.
• Improve the candidate experience by making applications mobile-friendly and easy to navigate, clearly communicating hiring steps and timelines, providing timely updates, and explaining how candidates can request accommodations.
• Develop job descriptions that provide clear information about the job role, including pay ranges, skill needs, job requirements, and other information, so applicants are fully informed about the position for which they are applying, engaging public sector unions as appropriate to the city’s context.
• Analyze recruitment and hiring data regularly and benchmark data to industry standards, including applicant pools, time to hire, selection rates, and hiring outcomes, and use findings to identify bottlenecks, test improvements, and strengthen the effectiveness of hiring processes.

Core Area Four

Improve Workers’ Experience

This core area helps cities improve the workplace experience of municipal employees, from onboarding to advancement, and advances professional development, retention, and succession planning for the municipal workforce.

Example Tactics

• Enhance onboarding to be more than the first day of employment, such as holding 30/60/90-day check-ins and providing a resource guide for new employees.
• Create mentoring, peer support, or cohort-based engagement opportunities that help employees build relationships, navigate city systems, and access support across departments.
• Align professional development with skill needs and career growth opportunities so employees can build skills to advance into senior roles, move into different jobs, or continue growing within their current positions.
• Use employee feedback to inform workforce policies and practices by regularly collecting input from employees throughout the employee lifecycle, including through check-ins, surveys, and exit interviews; sharing how feedback will be used; and consistently communicating progress back to staff.
• Periodically review compensation, benefits, and work arrangements to assess pay equity, market competitiveness, parity across roles, and opportunities to improve job quality, employee well-being, and retention. 
• Develop succession planning practices for critical roles by identifying positions at risk due to retirements or turnover, preparing internal talent, and creating clearer pathways into leadership or hard-to-fill roles.
• Apply job quality principles across municipal workforce planning by considering safe working conditions, positive organizational culture, stable and transparent pay, predictable schedules, and family-sustaining benefits when developing recruitment, retention, and employee experience efforts.
• Analyze advancement data to identify trends and possible disparities and use findings to inform improvements to employee supports, advancement opportunities, and workplace policies.