A Trip to Rochester

I just returned from attending the League of Minnesota Cities 2008 Annual Conference in Rochester. This is the first time that I have decided to attend an event that is outside of the metro area. I always had some reservations about the benefits vs the cost of attending an event that required hotel and travel costs. I am, however, glad that I decided to go. I doubt that I would tend to do it every year but I believe that this trip was beneficial.

The theme for the conference was baseball, so the staff wore Twins jerseys, classes had titles like "Just for Rookies" and "Property Maintenance Programs: who's batting clean up?" Tom Kelly, the past manager of the Minnesota Twins, was the keynote speaker at the Opening Ceremony. You might question what value Mr. Kelly could bring to a elected officials conference. I did, but he was entertaining and made several key management points that really hit home.

There was a "marketplace" featuring a wide variety of vendors that provide various services to cities which was available to visit in between training sessions. I tended to visit vendors that provide services to Maplewood to learn more about the services they provide and the people in their organizations. I also spent a fair amount of time talking to a vendor of playground equipment. It is amazing that you can't just put in some simple equipment. You have to provide soft landing surfaces and equal access for handicap users on the playground. At a recent council meeting I had suggested that in some of our neighborhood parks which lack equipment, we could just try to get some simple swing-sets, teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds, thinking that they should be relatively inexpensive. But, to ensure that we are following all the rules, it appears it is a much bigger process.

During the two days there were four opportunities to select from a variety of training sessions. I attended "Ethics for Cities: Angels in the Outfield", "Your Staff is Leaving: Who Can Step Up To The Plate?", "Calming the Crowds: Working Constructively With Concerned Citizens", and "Challenges of Handling Very Public Problems: It Ain't the Heat, It's the Humility". Along with these classes there was one session titled "LMC, City - State Conversations". This was an hour of 15 minute segments on different topics. Kind of like speed dating, I guess.

I was fortunate to be asked to speak at one of the training sessions, which was the "Your Staff is Leaving: Who Can Step Up To The Plate?" session. This session was headed by Kathy Hagen from Intellectual Capital Strategies. Kathy specializes in going into situations in which employees are leaving their positions, and capturing all of their institutional knowledge and the actual processes that they used to do their jobs. This is much more in depth than a simple job description. Two council people, including myself, were asked to contribute. Renee Symanietz, a council member from St. Joseph was billed as a good example of how transition can be handled. She related how they handled the retirement of their public works director of 30 years. I was billed as the example of how things can go completely wrong. Both of us spoke for 12 minutes and then there was a question & answer session. I posted what I said in my 12 minutes below.

Although there were great opportunities to further your knowledge in the training sessions, some of the best information came forward in the networking opportunities. Approximately 800 people attended, many of whom I have met before at other seminars or conferences. It is interesting to hear what is going on in other cities and how they are handling different situations. You may have to be a political type, like me, but I would list it as a fun time.

Update; John Nephew reports on his thoughts about the conference. On his website.

Good afternoon. I am Will Rossbach. I am a council person in the city of Maplewood, and am currently serving in my fifth year as an elected official. Prior to running for office I served for fourteen years on Maplewood’s Planning Commission, for a total of nineteen years of service to my city. I am President of the Ramsey County League of Local Governments, a Commissioner on the St. Paul Regional Water Service Board, a member of the Rush Line Corridor Task Force, and a member of the North East Suburban Transit Commission. I work for several different charities, and I volunteer for a number of different city organizations. On the business side I am an owner of a small remodeling company with 15 employees and I am on the board of directors for the Builders Association of the Twin Cities. What does all of this involvement make me? Other than over extended and very tired, in my opinion it makes me a standard elected official.

When I was asked to speak at this conference, and told that the topic was about employee departures, strategies to retain institutional knowledge, and replacing those employees, my first thought was “why would they ask me to speak?” I don’t have any training in the area of human resources. I am not a professional speaker. But then I thought about it. Maybe this is why they asked me. Take out poster. (I had a poster of the City News Paper cover from the issue where they declared Maplewood the Most Dysfunctional City in the Twin Cities.) Yes I am from Maplewood, and we are or at least were the most dysfunctional city in the Twin Cities.

This afternoon my goal is to let you know that you cannot plan for all situations, but that good planning will pay off in the long run.

The Maplewood case is sad because we had a superior staff and a model business retention and continuation plan. The past City Manager was dedicated to an involved team approach to managing the city. He allowed the department managers to actually manage their departments. Those managers in turn worked with their assistants to involve the department employees in an opportunity to be involved in decisions about operations. Being creative and innovative was encouraged. Your job did not hinge on making a mistake. It was fun to work at Maplewood. Most Departments had Assistant Managers who were trained to know the inner workings of the department. They were the people who were ready to step in in the event of an unexpected situation that removed the department head from their position. The team approaches, ability to use their skills, involvement in decisions, opportunities to be creative, training and fun, are all good retention policies, and the team approach, having assistant department heads and training are good continuation policies.

I remember my first impressions after I was elected and had the opportunity to walk the halls at City Hall, to talk to the employees, to just observe what was happening and how it was happening, were that of being impressed at the high morale, the dedication, the willingness to do more than was required, and the high caliber of people that we had working for the city. Those impressions lasted for two years. Then we had one general election and shortly thereafter a special election due to an existing council person moving out of the city.

A new council was formed and with it came a long history of conflict with the city and with the employees. One new member told people that they had gotten elected to fire people. A list of people to be fired was quoted in the paper. The city manager was fired. A replacement manager was hired who had questionable qualifications. A list was published that indicated that most the department heads were overpaid and included a listing of their salaries in comparison to the average salaries in the metro area. A decision was made to reorganize the city and in the process eliminate several management positions. A civil service commission ruling was ignored and a police captain was eliminated. Employees were publicly criticized. Unions were publicly criticized. We were sued, and then we were sued, and then we were sued some more.

All of this was chronicled in the papers or in the courts. Morale plummeted. In less than two years Maplewood went from a sought after place of employment, a city that was running at its peak, with high morale, and with dedicated innovative employees, who were well compensated for their work, to an employer who has trouble attracting experienced and skilled people to apply for open positions. It will take Maplewood years to rebuild our workplace reputation and replace the knowledge lost in this process.


People started leaving, or were fired, or were reorganized out of a job. The manager was fired, the assistant manager left. The head of human resources was fired. The finance manager took early retirement. The assistant finance manager left, two other finance employees left or retired. The assistant fire chief left. The assistant police chief was fired. The managers of our community center were fired. The Parks Director left. Both the Chief of Police and our Public Works Director made the semifinal cuts in job searches in other cities. To date we are just below fifty people who are no longer in the employment of the city, out of a work force of 170, or about a 30% departure rate since the beginning of 2006.

The managers and supervisors tried to form a union to protect themselves. It did not work. Nine of those people had their jobs eliminated.

Almost no effort was made to extract the knowledge and experience of the people who are gone. I can not emphasize enough how important it is to have the transfer of knowledge from the people who are leaving a position. The longer their tenure in their position the more important this process is. In Maplewood we thought that we had that covered. But if the assistants also leave you are left in the dark.

Our finance department was particularly hard hit. Every person that had a role in directing the activities of the department was gone in a three month period of time. The City Manager, the department head, the assistant department head, and two out of six technicians all were gone. This resulted in a period of about a year where funds, budget numbers, and accounts were not tracked, and during that time, no one knew that they were not being tracked. These discoveries lead to more negative newspaper stories. It is difficult to imagine that Maplewood in currently going to be the first choice of the best and brightest job candidates.

So what do we do now? Maplewood must return to the basics of employee hiring and retention combined with transferring employees to different departments to cover the largest holes in staffing. We must also build a new continuation plan.

Up until 2006 Maplewood was known as a good place to work. We used the average salary surveys in the metro area to determine the pay ranges for the different management positions in the city. We intentionally set our ranges to be 25% higher than average. I realize that pay is not generally the top reason for staying with an organization but it can be incentive to make the initial hire and it ranks higher as a retention issue for management staff.

Allow your employees to do their jobs. In local government the elected officials are generally not professionals in the areas needed to run a city. In Maplewood we currently have a remodeling contractor, an insurance sales person, a family practice lawyer, a retired school teacher, and a game publisher. Respect the staff’s expertise. I am not talking about letting the staff run the city. That is the elected officials' job. But determine where you want to go and then get out of the way.

Let the employees contribute to how work gets done. They want to be and should be part of the process. Whether it is flexible hours to proper training, to implementation, the employees should be involved.

Train your employees. Maplewood has a program to pay for tuition for classes which relate to an employee's field of work. But regular training on the job or through seminars is essential. Cross training so that you have people that know their co-workers' jobs well helps provide job security for employees and save you money. It also helps to provide a replacement if a worker leaves a position.

People like to be “in the know”. There is no reason not to have an informed work force. Employees want to know that their efforts are paying off or helping to increase the bottom line. Keep them in the loop and they will be more determined and happier in their efforts.

Even with all this turmoil Maplewood still has a base of good employees. The employment practices that were in place in Maplewood had become an employment culture and even though many of the lead employees were lost in the turmoil, the seeds of that culture were ingrained in the entire work force. With some well planned reconstruction and nurturing Maplewood’s or your city’s workforce will flourish again.