12-14-2022 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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much and agrees to have City staff perform the coordination and communication with residents, it should be monitored to ensure it does not negatively impact the Finance department. 5) Communication Communication is important in a small organization. The City Administrator has weekly Leadership Team meetings and bi-weekly one-on-one meetings with department heads. The Leadership Team meeting is where department heads openly discuss issues relevant to the upcoming City Council meeting and other issues that arise. Some staff shared concerns that they were not included in this information despite the Administrator’s directive to department heads to share the information discussed in Leadership Team meetings with their staff. Leadership Team meetings have an agenda but no minutes or summary of what was discussed. My recommendation would be to have somebody on the Leadership team take notes, prepare a brief bullet point summary of the discussion outside that of Council meeting preparations to e-mail to City staff not in attendance. If staff have further questions, they are welcome to approach their department head. 6) Researching technology, software, etc. Several staff commented on the challenges associated with finding time to review, research and decide upon new technologies to implement at City Hall and then having to determine a reliable vendor to go with. The recommendation to hire an Assistant City Administrator is intended to help the City to be more proactive in obtaining the technology needed to realize greater efficiencies. I am also recommending that staff continue to be encouraged to attend professional meetings, network with staff from other cities, attend training through the League of MN Cities and participate in conferences where frequently there are vendors highlighting new products and various sessions focused on local government issues. Staff may not have had time for this previously but hopefully as more technology is introduced and additional staff are available to assist the workload will allow for more networking and training. The City has to do its own research into products and software and technologies available, but a lot can be learned from having connections with other cities and talking directly with other city staff about what they are currently using to streamline city operations. 7) Performance Reviews The City has a three page employee performance review document that evaluates employees, supervisors and department heads in nine performance areas and concludes with employee work, training and educational goals. The employee being evaluated can provides comments before signing. I would recommend adding a section that specifically encourages employees and supervisors to provide feedback to the supervisor completing the evaluation. This may be management’s expectation and understanding in providing the employee comments section, but it could be more specifically requested with a few basic questions. A staff person noted that there were several years where performance evaluations were not completed and performance evaluations should be completed annually. Staff appreciates the documented feedback. Frequently, I see a more extensive performance review for supervisory and department head positions which are held to a higher level of expectation.