This article make it seem bad that people are leaving government employment. They believe it harms public service needs. Actually, those leaving are the honest ones—they understand that government service is twenty years and a pension. Most of the time making life difficult for citizens and costing taxpayers money.
“The city of Berkeley has a people problem.
Between 2018 and 2022, more people voluntarily left city employment than were hired, and the citywide vacancy rate of 19% was the second highest in the Bay Area last year, according to a new report from City Auditor Jenny Wong.
Vallejo claimed the top spot with a 28% vacancy rate, while Oakland and Richmond tied for third with 16% vacancy. On the opposite side of the spectrum, only 13% of jobs with the city of San Jose remained unfilled, while 11% of positions in Fremont are vacant.”
Is this a sign that even the scammers have no love for government?
Report on staffing vacancies in Bay Area cities reveals how turnover has left Berkeley in crisis
More than half of current employees surveyed started looking for another job in the past year
By KATIE LAUER, Bay Area News Group, 6/22/23 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/06/22/report-on-staffing-vacancies-in-bay-area-cities-reveals-how-turnover-has-left-berkeley-in-crisis/
The city of Berkeley has a people problem.
Between 2018 and 2022, more people voluntarily left city employment than were hired, and the citywide vacancy rate of 19% was the second highest in the Bay Area last year, according to a new report from City Auditor Jenny Wong.
Vallejo claimed the top spot with a 28% vacancy rate, while Oakland and Richmond tied for third with 16% vacancy. On the opposite side of the spectrum, only 13% of jobs with the city of San Jose remained unfilled, while 11% of positions in Fremont are vacant.
In a survey of 771 Berkeley employees, the audit reported that only 44% of the respondents felt their workload was manageable, while just 55% said they were satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their job; that job satisfaction rate is lower than the 73% polled from federal government agencies.
Based on those numbers, perhaps it’s no surprise that more than half of the current city staff surveyed started looking for another job in the past year.
Berkeley has not hired enough employees to address the gap left by voluntary resignations and retirements. (Courtesy of Berkeley City Auditor Jenny Wong)
While the pandemic and Great Resignation contributed to challenges retaining workers across all sectors, Wong said they are not solely responsible for Berkeley’s citywide woes.
As the total 2,094 active full-time, part-time and temporary employees continue facing problems with organizational culture, workload and staffing shortages, Wong said city officials need to start analyzing what’s going wrong with recruitment and retention if they want to improve both the quality of municipal services for Berkeley’s roughly 124,000 residents and morale inside City Hall.
“While staff turnover is inevitable in any organization, the retention challenges Berkeley has faced over the last five years are concerning,” Wong said in the report. “In the past few months, city management has begun to focus more on this issue, but in order to ensure the City recruits and retains staff over the long term, a comprehensive plan needs to be implemented and this focus needs to be maintained over time.”
Dissatisfied employees cited issues related to workloads, outdated internal systems, limited professional development opportunities, pay and inadequate support and communication from city management.
Wong emphasized that not only is it cost-effective for Berkeley to improve its ability to retain employees — particularly by minimizing overtime burdens — but a robust staff roster is also essential as more public employees begin to retire without enough job applications coming in to fill those roles.
Other recommendations included conducting more robust exit interviews with employees who leave their roles, expanding telework policies and conducting an analysis of staffing needs for different city services.
One of the biggest challenges was a significant exodus from Berkeley’s Human Resources department.
While the department’s 22 positions are now almost fully staffed, in October there was a 45% vacancy rate within its staff, which had worked under four different directors within five years. Between 2018 and 2022, a total of 26 HR employees left; Wong said the average tenure of HR staff was only 3.1 years, compared to a citywide average of 10.4 years.
In 2018, it took an average of 4.9 months to hire new employees. By 2022, that timeline increased to 7.7 months.
In addition to hindering hiring efforts, that revolving door of staff also meant that a large number of Berkeley employees did not receive up-to-date sexual harassment training, exit surveys or performance evaluations.
In December, City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley told the City Council that several departments had been operating at two-thirds of their capacity, requiring mandatory overtime that further strains workers.
She said applications for city employment had dropped nearly 40% compared to pre-pandemic figures, and significant potential departures were still looming, as up to 28% of the current workforce will be eligible for retirement within the next three years, Williams-Ridley reported.
She also said that understaffing stalled more than two dozen projects and plans for the Transportation Division within the Public Works Department. In May, the hyper-local news outlet Berkeleyside published allegations from community members and organizations that several former staffers departed because they felt their work was being micromanaged and undermined by the city council. In particular, ire was pointed at Sophie Hahn’s involvement in controversial plans to install protected bike lanes along Hopkins Street; Hahn rejected the accusations.
If hiring efforts for city positions do not improve, Williams-Ridley said Berkeley residents will continue to feel the brunt of the staff shortages. The vacancies have already contributed to reduced services at clinics and senior centers, temporary closures of some fire stations and delays to major transportation projects and traffic safety initiatives.
“This is just a highlight of what we believe is a hiring crisis,” she said.
