IPMA-HR Agency Awards for Excellence

Media Contact
Debbie Tankersely-Snook
Special Assistant
IPMA-HR
1617 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
Ph: (703) 549-7100, ext. 250
Fax: (703) 684-0948
Web: http://www.ipma-hr.org
E-mail: Tankersely@ipma-hr.org 

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

County of San Diego, Calif.; Arlington County, Va. Human Resources Department; City of Fresno, Calif., Personnel Services Department; City of Livermore, Calif. Support Our Staff Program; and Virginia Western Community College Chosen to Receive IPMA-HR Agency Awards for Excellence

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR), a non-profit membership organization dedicated to providing resources and advocacy for public human resource professionals at all levels, sponsors several recognition programs at the national level for outstanding service, contribution, and accomplishments in the public sector human resources field. This year, the county of San Diego, Calif.;the Arlington County, Va. Human Resources Department; the city of Fresno, Calif. Personnel Services Department;the city of Livermore, Calif. Support Our Staff Program;and Virginia Western Community College were chosen to receive the IPMA-HR Agency Awards for Excellence, which recognize the overall quality, accomplishments, and contributions of an agency personnel program that exceeds the normal operation of a “good government personnel program.” The award is based on agency program initiatives, accomplishments, and contributions within a three-year time period. Awards may be given in the small agency, medium agency and large agency categories, based on the number of employees covered by one’s human resource program. The IPMA-HR Agency Awards for Excellence were given out during the IPMA-HR International Conference and Exposition and IPAC Annual Conference, which was held Sept. 12-16 at the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville, Tenn.

The County of San Diego, Calif.
The County of San Diego, Calif., was chosen to receive the IPMA-HR Agency Award for Excellence – Large Agency. The county employs more than 17,000 in more than 1,100 job classifications. Its diverse workforce is comprised of employees working in jobs ranging from clerical to professional, engineers to road workers, animal control officers to librarians, medical professionals to public safety officers. The county currently has Memoranda of Agreement with eight recognized employee organizations (unions) representing 25 bargaining units. Carlos G. Arauz serves as the county’s director of human resources.

The mission of the County of San Diego is “To efficiently provide public services that build strong and sustainable communities.” To achieve this mission, the county has implemented a comprehensive way of doing business by adopting the General Management System (GMS). The GMS is a five-step annual cycle of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The GMS process begins with creating a long-range, five-year strategic plan, followed by the development of a short-term, two-year operational plan.

Monitoring and control takes place throughout the year using performance measures. Functional threading maximizes efficient use of personnel and material resources by coordinating staff. Motivation, rewards and recognition encourages continuing excellence by rewarding employees who meet and exceed goals.

Supporting the GMS, the county determined there to be three key strategic initiatives:

• Improve opportunities for children and families
• Manage the region’s natural resources to protect quality of life and support economic development
• Promote safe and livable communities

The Arlington County, Va., Human Resources Department
The Arlington County, Va., Human Resources Department, chosen to receive the IPMA-HR Agency Award for Excellence – Medium Agency, like so many other local jurisdictions, was recently faced with a budget gap for FY 2009. A hiring freeze was instituted in October 2008 and individual departments combed through their budgets to identify savings options. After exhausting all other possibilities, the county came to the realization that in order to close the gap, some programs and services would need to be cut and administrative overhead would need to be further reduced.

The county HR department identified more than 100 positions (some vacant) associated with programs and services that were to be cut. After an extensive internal vetting process with department directors and some shifting of employees into critical vacant positions, Arlington County was left with 39 employees who could retire and/or take a generous severance package, or who could interview for one of the budgeted vacant positions, or whose position was reduced from full-time to part-time. A critical end result was keeping staff employed if they wanted to remain with the organization.

The City of Fresno, Calif., Personnel Services Department
Also chosen to receive the IPMA-HR Agency Award for Excellence – Medium Agency this year was the City of Fresno, Calif., Personnel Services Department. The Personnel Services Department for the City of Fresno provides the full range of services for 4,950 permanent, permanent part-time, and temporary employees. The department also manages three short-term labor contracts to augment city staff. The department consists of six divisions: Administration; Organization Development and Training; Human Resources Operations, which includes the sections of Recruitment and Exam, Job and Salary Analysis and Civil Service Board; Labor Relations, Risk Management, which manages Loss Control, Workers’ Compensation, Unemployment, as well as Property and Liability Claims; and Benefits Compensation.

Fresno, among California cities, has been recognized for prudent fiscal management as budget crises have crippled many public agencies. As budget decisions are made, Personnel Services has been closely involved to identify potential human resource impacts as well as to offer, evaluate and implement alternatives to layoff, communicate change to affected parties and to offer retraining opportunities to increase intellectual capital. Displaced temporary employees have been offered transitional services from Personnel Services staff, and referrals to EAP for assistance in dealing with the stress of change have been announced to bargaining units and employees. It is anticipated that the city will end the fiscal year in June with no layoffs of permanent personnel and a collaborative plan to minimize any layoffs going into FY 2010. Fresno is not enacting a hiring freeze but analyzing each personnel request in light of all fiscal and operational factors.

Fresno operates under the mayor form of government, and the city manager is appointed by the mayor. The Personnel Services Department is a central HR agency.

The City of Livermore, Calif., Support Our Staff Program
A full-service municipality that has just short of 500 employees, Livermore, Calif., is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and vows to attract, hire and develop a highly diverse, competent and qualified workforce. This commitment is reflected openly in our diverse, competent and qualified workforce. This commitment is reflected openly in the city’s development of a program to foster such a workforce—a workforce that is truly diverse and inclusive of all differences including developmental and physical differences.

In today’s tough economic times, this is no easy feat. Dwindling fiscal and human capital coupled with increased service demands is a familiar paradox; yet never before have public resources experienced such erosion as today. The “do more with less” expectation is no longer a sufficient means to productive ends in this environment. Today, a new imperative is at hand: a “do better with less” calling, which requires public agencies to evaluate their current environment and identify alternative means to meet desirable outcomes more efficiently.

With such a vision, the City of Livermore took an innovative approach by attempting to tackle two seemingly different challenges (improved business efficacy and equal employment opportunity) with the same creative solution—development of the Support Our Staff (S.O.S.) Program, which has this year been chosen to receive the IPMA-HR Agency Award for Excellence – Small Agency.

The S.O.S. Program is rooted in management beliefs that increased productivity and efficacy of administrative services can be reached by way of a more broadly diverse workforce. Such a solution relies on inclusion to create and maximize a broader range of workforce talents in order to more productively meet administrative service demands—and so evolved the S.O.S. Program.

In partnership with East Bay Innovations, a nonprofit advocacy organization serving people with developmental disabilities throughout Alameda County, Calif., the S.O.S. Program was designed to improve core business needs through workforce inclusion and diversity. By purposely employing individuals with developmental disabilities to perform routine, entry-level functions throughout the city, the City of Livermore envisioned increased productivity and effectiveness of administrative services due to a broader pool of talent. Recognizing the potential that this valuable and largely untapped labor market could provide productive and contributing members, the S.O.S. Program was designed with the following two primary purposes in mind:

• Develop and maintain a pool of temporary support staff available to flexibly meet the ongoing, ever changing routine administrative needs of the city; and
• Extend public supported employment opportunities and on-the-job training to individuals with developmental disabilities within the Livermore community.

The City of Livermore’s hope is that, through the success of the S.O.S. Program, other public employers will be inspired to follow their lead.

Virginia Western Community College
Also chosen to receive the IPMA-HR Agency Award for Excellence – Small Agency, was Virginia Western Community College. The vision statement for Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) is, “As a student-oriented Center for lifelong learning, Virginia Western Community College will meet the needs of our diverse community by providing comprehensive educational programs and workforce development.” This vision is reflected throughout the college’s strategic plan, known as Vision 2013.

As an employer, VWCC’s workforce is diverse, employing 17 administrators, 13 professional faculty members, 90 full-time teaching faculty, 312 adjunct teaching faculty, 128 full-time classified staff, and 52 wage employees who serve more than 8,000 individual students in any given semester.

The diversity of VWCC is changing in the broadest sense, adding generational, cultural and technological diversity along with more conventional lines of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, and personal style. Diversity and work-life balance are interconnected, and navigating a balance between work and the lives of VWCC’s employees is similar to connecting the dots to complete the picture. If the dots are misconnected, VWCC, as an employer, will not be successful in meeting its vision or in addressing the reality and needs of its workforce. The school’s goal is to connect the dots to complete the picture—a work and learning environment that is focused on balancing the needs of employees, customers and the organization to achieve a workplace that is effective, healthy, productive and happy.

One of the Service Core Values of VWCC is to “Foster a community that demonstrates care and support for students, faculty, staff and the citizens of our service region.” Through the design of the VWCC WorkLife program, VWCC is focused on building and managing a multifaceted work-life portfolio to meet the diverse needs of its workforce and deliver programs that attract, retain and reward VWCC’s most valuable resource—its employees. Human resources, in the design of the WorkLife program, has developed several pillars of support for work-life effectiveness that address what VWCC feels are the most important connects between employees, their families, their community and the workplace. They include:

• Diversity initiatives
• Health and wellness
• Financial support
• Learning for life
• Care giving
• Workplace flexibility
• Community involvement

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IPMA-HR is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to providing resources and advocacy for public human resource professionals at all levels. Comprised of four regions and more than 50 chapters, IPMA-HR represents more than 9,000 individuals and 1,300 agencies in local, state and federal levels of government worldwide. IPMA-HR provides a focus and forum for the discussion and exchange of views and best practices among public sector human resource professionals throughout the United States and abroad.