09-13-2017 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO: Mayor Keis and Members of City Council FROM: Bill Dircks, Public Works Director DATE: September 7, 2017 RE: Vacant Public Works Maintenance Position With our recent opening in the Public Works Department, we need to look at filling the position. Earlier this year, we hired another new full-time employee in May to fill the vacancy left by Parks and Recreation/Community Services Manager, Bryce Shearen. In the past, the typical crop of candidates has not been particularly strong. There have been well-qualified candidates on paper, but many of them had issues either on their resume or during the interview which caused the City to eliminate them. So, while they were qualified experience-wise, there was reason to be concerned about their past history. Staff looks for attitude, aptitude, and fit when assessing potential job candidates. Experience is not as important as those other traits. Anyone with a good attitude and good aptitude can be trained to do what needs to be done. Many of the past public works hires have been part-time/seasonal employees at Little Canada prior to being hired on full time. Given their seasonal position, we had the opportunity to evaluate them in them in the work place on a first-hand basis. Bryce Shearen, Kurt Frison, Matt Mallory, Bill Dircks, Merri Nadeau, John Datko, Scott Heaton, and Joe Steele were all part-time/seasonal employees prior to being hired full time. These employees had been trained by Little Canada full-time employees and were well-acquainted with the department and the City’s practices and procedures. They were able to make an easy transition to full-time status. It should also be noted that in recent memory, the City has not hired any full-time public works employees who had full-time experience in public works with another agency. (The last one we can recall was hired in the early 1990’s.) In the past, the City’s pay scale was lower than most other cities in the metropolitan area. That necessitated hiring inexperienced candidates who then gained experience in Little Canada and then moved on to better-paying jobs in other cities. The wage scale was eventually adjusted to be competitive with other metro cities and since then there has been less attrition due to that reason. An employee has not left to go work for another public works department since the early 2000’s. Others who have left went on to new careers outside of public works. Based on past experience with hiring public works employees, staff is proposing to add an Apprentice position to the department. The Apprentice employee would be trained on the job with the goal of developing them in a manner that would qualify them for a full-time position with Little Canada or another city if a position did not open up in Little Canada. The Apprentice employee would work