 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government working for you. My name is Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Roger Distruty. As you know every month we strive to bring a different department to talk about roles and responsibilities and this month we're focusing on the HR department and have with us Ms. Jean Gallimore. Welcome. Thank you. Jean, how long has it been now that you've been our HR Director? About a year and a half. About a year and a half. So it's still all new and exciting. She's bringing all these good ideas to the organization and we're pleased to have you with us today. We're going to talk a little bit about the roles and responsibilities of the HR department. A vast number of employees and programs and services and a lot of support and infrastructure in place. So I think by the end of this program you'll definitely have a better feel for the important roles that Jean has and the good worker staff does. Start by setting the stage a little bit. Give us a little snapshot or overview of the roles and responsibilities of the Human Resources Department. You bet. Our overall mission really in human resources is to create an environment that's inclusive to all employees and really encourage a positive working environment overall. So that being said we look at primarily policies so we need to establish a set of guidelines and rules that really pertain to all employees. We work very closely with employee benefits whether that be their health, their dental, their vision, benefits and so forth. We work closely with the recruitment process and hiring process as we continue to turn employees and have turnover making sure that we're hiring the best and the brightest. We also work directly with safety concerns and initiatives within the county wellness and making sure that our employees are along those same same tracks and positive environment. We also look at the job itself, job descriptions, position alignment and making sure that we're competitive within the marketplace. And for staff you and three other positions you want to just briefly touch on those? Correct. I have a Human Resources analyst who is primarily my number two who will do a lot of analyzing and report processing and employee relations type work performance management types of concerns. We also have a senior HR generalist Julie Kinney who works primarily in our benefits, employee wellness safety area but also brings to the table very solid HR generalist background in terms of policies and procedures and great things we can learn from her and work with her on. And then we have Courtney who is our Human Resources coordinator, kind of our front desk, the face of human resources. Our employees really get to know Courtney well. She does all of the day to day transactions with the department. And of course your support department to 18 other departments, 19 total in the county, somewhere between 825 and 850 employees, total of $127 million budget in the county. Yet there's four of you providing service to all these areas. Just what is your operating budget? Our operating budget currently is just short of $450,000. And so with that, what are you able to accomplish? Many of the things you mentioned earlier and there's been a lot more focus on professional development and wellness. Right, right. Primarily, a good chunk of that certainly is the benefit and wage portion of the budget. But our line item certainly is consulting where we have an employee assistance program that helps with all of our employees in the event that they have a personal and professional need that the workplace cannot address. We also have a benefit consultant that helps us within that consulting area. Training and development is a big portion of the budget and very important initiative for Sheboyton County as we continue to educate our leaders and managers. Right, right. There's been a lot of discussion in the state about Act 10. And in fact, I think it was just this week, this program era a little later that Wisconsin Act 10 was upheld by the state Supreme Court. And it's been about two and a half, three years now, we of course have made a number of adjustments as a result of Wisconsin Act 110. Please tell, or Act 10, please tell us what that meant to Sheboyton County in a snapshot. What is it? And how has it changed the HR department and how we interact or work with our staff? Right. What Act 10 really brought to Sheboyton County is we had a number of union contracts, collective bargaining agreements in place that as Act 10 approached us, we're no longer able to have those particular unions negotiate or bargain for workplace concerns, benefits, and so forth. We currently pre Act 10, we had a contract in place with our health care center Rocky Knoll. So any contract that was in place prior to Act 10 continued to be in place for the length of that contract. The deputy's union, for example, was not affected by Act 10. So currently we have two contracts in place. The health care centers is through 2016. And the deputies is to through to 2016 through through 15 and will be renegotiating with them. What does that mean to the other unions that were in place at the time? They at that point only had bargaining opportunity for wages. So each year how how this works is that in January, they have an opportunity to recertify those particular unions. If they recertify with us, they then have the opportunity to bargain wages. This past year for 2014, we had one of those actually recertify, which include the RNs community programs and public health. So prior to Act 10, we had eight different bargaining units. Negotiations was a it took a lot of time, a lot of time and it obviously could get heated from time to time. But there was a lot of investment in that. And it's really changed the playing field. Now, bargaining units can only negotiate wages. And even there, it's up to a certain threshold. So that their latitude has gotten much smaller. And I was just going to ask you that of those eight contracts, how many continue health care centers, law enforcement? And then what was the third? We've got the RNs at Rocky Knoll and our community health and public health. So there that is one. Okay, all right. So what approach do you take now when it comes to working with employees and still getting the benefit of their input, discussing opportunities for improvement, as well as determining what is fair compensation and what are appropriate benefits? Well, again, we have about 860 employees on our payroll about, you know, 25 of those certainly are county board members. And then we have about 30 of those employees as limited term or casual employees. So out of that 820, let's say, about 225. So about a fourth of our workforce is still governed under on your union contract. So I think that that speaks loudly that a, we certainly want to treat all of our employees on a fair and consistent basis, as I said earlier, an inclusive environment, making sure employees, whether they're in the union or outside the union know that we have an open door policy, we welcome their ideas, we want them engaged. We have a workforce that that we encourage everyone's input and want to make the right decisions with all employees involved. And you did also take a lot of time through your early tenure and also prior to being our HR director as a limited term employee or consultant helping us with the policy and procedure, the HR policy manual. And that has been updated quite a bit since Act 10 and certainly has changed the playing field a little bit. Though I think it was done in a very thoughtful manner with a lot of input from employees. How have, how's that been working? How are you feeling about that? I think the process was, was very well done. The approach was again to engage a number of employees in all departments with the rewrite of those policies. So that was a process of the Human Resources Committee was involved in and really a voice of the team from across the county. That makes effective effective policy handbook. Some of the major changes were again, having to address the fact that we had a number of our employees no longer able to bargain for wages and benefits and working conditions. So we wanted the employee handbook to expand and make sure that we had a thoughtful and meaningful process with those policies involved. A couple of those specifically were relative to, again, benefits, making sure that across the board we treated the employees fairly and consistently. Right. Very good. All right. Turn it over to you, Roger. Good to have you with us today, Gene. And we, the county always strives for improvements and to make things better for the, for everyone in the county and our workers also. What, let's talk about in particular the, the employee benefits and safety and wellness. And I know every fall or going into the fall, we try to establish our budget and what are some of the things, the new initiatives that we're planning on doing this coming year. You bet. The employee benefits is an important part of our overall $127 million budget, certainly. So annually, and I would say consistently, on a monthly basis, we meet with our benefit consultant and continue to analyze, really, and monitor the plan design and usage of the benefits. We want to ensure that we, as an employer, provide a competitive total compensation plan to include the benefits and making sure that we're in line with industry standard, both public and private sector as well. So our process is ongoing throughout the year, but in a nutshell, at the beginning of each year, we want to take a look at really what happened the prior year, what is our usage and our experience. With health care, health care reform concerns, we certainly work with our benefit consultant early in the year. And he guides us and provides us reportability that helps us take a look at what might next year's standards be. So we meet with him throughout the first few months of the year. We, HR, HR committee, as well as our finance director. So we're looking at what is physically important for both the county as well as the employee. Following that and those recommendations typically in mid-summer, we go to our Human Resources Committee and make sure that they understand and they have buy-in and then from there go to county board with recommendations. For 2015, we're still in the process of looking at, you know, some potential changes. I can tell you one thing that the HR committee is looking at would be to increase our orthodontia benefit, for example. And again, we're not doing that just because we can. We're doing that because our industry, comparatively speaking, is indicated that it's lower than standard. So we want to make sure our employees are getting a benefit. And I know that we've been striving to improve our overall safety program for all of our employees. What progress has been made and what are we planning on doing or what is already in place? Very good. Safety again, another very important initiative for both the county from a risk standpoint and making sure our employees are safe and thinking that way in their daily interactions and their job. Really, what we've done last year, Roger, is we've introduced our first-ever annual all-employee safety training. And we focused last year on fire safety, active threats, weather safety concerns, and so forth. Received very well. We had almost nearly 100% participation at that training. So very well received and presented. This year, what we've done is we've made sure that our committee is meeting on a monthly basis and now may go to quarterly. But they took a look at our policies and our procedures and our processes in the event that we have an action that we need to respond to that relates to safety, that we're consistent, that everyone is proactive versus reactive on those types of policies. So meeting and continuing to improve that process and we'll once again this year have annual training. And that will be more of a focus on personal safety for our employees. Just interjecting real quick. I know that recently we have the initiative of now we have the emergency medical, what's the terminology for all the different locations throughout the courthouse and campus where you can go if someone's having a heart attack or is unconscious. Our EMTs, our CPR, our AED training. AED, right? Yes, yes. We have those located throughout the facilities and then every department has what do you call it an emergency go bag where it has the essential emergency response type, whether it's a medical kit or a flashlight or what have you, if the power all goes out or a tornado hits. And I really appreciate Jean has really picked up in this area. I think most of us and our viewers, you often take our own personal safety for granted. We go to our work environment. The last thing we're thinking about is our tornado or a bad storm or maybe someone coming in the building brandishing a weapon. And how are you going to respond to that? And Jean and her team have done a great job pulling our management managers together and others and made sure throughout the organization people are better prepared. It's a good thing. And one of the things in the last few years we've done is we have our in health clinic established a few years back and all we have partnered with the city of Sheboygan and the Sheboygan school district. And we've had quite a bit of savings for our employees and the taxpayers. Would you explain some of that and how that's working? Certainly. The probably the best thing we do at the clinic is invited the Sheboygan area school district in the city to join us. It's a collaboration in terms of wellness for the community. So it's been a great opportunity for us to learn from each other and work together as municipalities to make good things happen within the county and for our employees. It really as we look at the mission of the clinic it is a very good thing for employees. We're focusing very much on wellness and really personal accountability for your health and your wellness. We have the opportunity to schedule appointments. Our healthcare providers have a ratio of two visits per hour where if you go to a typical clinic they're seeing many more patients within that hour. So we're able to take more time with our employees and the district and the city's employees. Focusing on health coaching and wellness overall. Typical appointments might include you know your routine lab testing, your immunizations and really those preventative you know concerns that we that we do have. From a taxpayer standpoint from the employee standpoint it's no cost to the employee and other than for a chiropractors visit we currently have a ten dollar copay. But from a taxpayer standpoint the reason it's advantageous is that the billable rate for these services is much lower than the industry standard or retail price. And the employee wellness program has been in place for a number of years now also has that been paying some dividends and what in particular do we screen for and how does that help people. Employee wellness is we've brought it a long way but there's a long way to go so we're excited about the initiatives we've already undertaken. The county has for several years performed HRAs which are health risks assessments for our employees on an annual basis again through our employee clinic or in the in-health clinic which can save us dollars. What are those they do kind of a biometric read on your condition of your health. So each employee is receiving now that participates a report in fall that says here are some things you might want to look at and concentrate on for the upcoming year. By doing so we allow a discounted rate for our employees on their health benefits so it's encouraging them to again look at their personal health and as we as a county want to look at our our future fiscal impact of health benefits we want healthy employees or healthier employees. So again encouraging that wellness and making sure that employees own their health. The committee meets monthly they're doing some great great events we participated recently in in healthy Sheboygan County and received as one of the larger employees first place in the trophies our employees are very proud of that and that's a walk again focusing on healthy eating and exercise diet and exercise. We've got a cancer walk coming up and Alzheimer's walks things of that nature we're encouraging our employees to think about their mind body and soul when they talk about wellness. So we also do an employee a wellness newsletter monthly which again is an education piece that really talks to the issue again of whether that's mental health physical health and so forth education is key here and taking the initiative and really becoming active taking care of yourself. I remember when I served on the HR committee a few years ago then there was one lady an employee that had thanked us for having the health care clinic in place because she had been able to lose some weight and she felt so much better and how things had improved her life. Has it been able to change a lot of habits in people's lives you have other examples and what's the success rate. We do we have what we call a disease management program within the in health clinic that provides an opportunity for us through the health risk assessment screenings and or the preventative testing that we can identify whether that's diabetes hypertension kind of the three or four main health concerns early. So again it's about prevention. So when we identify something like that we're working the clinic is working directly with the employees and they'll reach out following their appointment and coach them and make certain that they're taking the right steps. So somewhat hard for us to measure in terms of you know that success rate but the more we can do whether it's inch by inch or day by day to encourage and educate and put materials in front we definitely feel it's a value to the county and the employee and their families. Well thank you for the good work that you and your staff do for the employees and all of the citizens of Spokane County. Thank you. I want to return to Act 10 a little bit and just what a sweeping change that made going from eight bargaining contracts and a lot of specifics on do's and don'ts and how things operate and as you know Jean it's really changed the landscape where now managers have to manage more so than in the past. We we have our department head level and folks like you and others are predominantly managing or or supervising non-bargaining staff but then you have a lot of middle level supervisors that are predominantly overseeing or supervising staff that were subject to contracts and before one could run into an issue and say well what does the contract say? How am I going to handle this? Now there isn't that necessarily that language and people have to be more engaged as a manager, more responsive, more in tune to developing good management skills. What are you doing? What's the organization doing to provide more professional development and opportunities for people to improve their management skills? What we've done starting last year late fall we were able to focus on bringing in the Department of Labor and talked had a session for all of our management team on Fair Labor Standards Acts which important because as we look at again the risk for the county and how we pay our employees and and adopt those practices we want to ensure that we minimize the risk for Shavuane County. So very eye opening opportunity for us and the Department of Labor came in and we talked through that. In spring of 2014 we talked to our management team about SMART goals and we wanted to talk about as we talk about the Changes Act 10 brings or brought we had many contracts that governed standard pay increases. If you were here for six months you received an increase. If you're here a year you received an increase. Performance was not tied to that compensation plan at all. Post Act 10 we certainly had to take a look at our policies and procedures and our training to make sure that our managers knew how to tie performance into compensation. So SMART goals are important establishing goals. We taught courses on how to complete a performance evaluation. An effective tool. How to look at next year. How to wrap up last year. How to coach and counsel employees if things aren't going well. So a lot of very good initiatives there. Just a couple of months ago we did some customer service or guest service training. Very important to us whether we have internal or external guests. How we treat and how we interact with each other and or our county constituents. So moving forward we are going to offer recruitment and hire the best training in fall. And that will be interesting because again our hiring practices with having 19 departments. We're trying to again provide a consistent approach and some additional education and tools and resources for our management team to do things you know legally responsibly. So and then at the end of the year we'll be looking at team leadership. Moving into 2015 again we look at quarterly providing opportunities for managers to continue to learn and develop as leaders in the organization. As well as so people can move up the move up the chain take on additional responsibility. You know SMART goals some people might be thinking well what's a SMART goal. You know a specific measurable one that when you include it in someone's performance evaluation they know what's expected of them and they can be held accountable to it. And as Jean and I both know during that training process there were there were a few managers that hadn't completed a performance evaluation before because as part of the contract that just wasn't part of the annual process. All non bargaining were receiving an annual performance evaluation but not necessarily all contract employees. So now organizationally all employees are going to be subject to an annual performance evaluation which is a good thing. People want feedback they want to know where they're doing well. They want to be coached and they certainly from time to time need to be told that they need to make some improvements. So real big change with our organization and as part of the budget as chairman to Strudy is well aware. We've actually built in this year that rather than everyone receiving the same across the board increase now there might maybe this is subject to county board approval a one percent across the board and then you can get perhaps up to a one percent more or a half percent more based on performance. So and it's been good to hear from some of our line staff not necessarily managers but line staff share with us Jean that they welcome that they don't want to be treated like everybody they don't want the same across the board if they know they're outperforming or doing a better job than the person next to them. So good things happening in your department and real good initiative there. Comp and speaking of initiatives compensation study. What's in play with the county wide compensation study. Right. We currently have a compensation study underway and we have an organization who this is their specialty. What they're going to do is in there in the process of reviewing our job descriptions and our compensation structure across the organization. Every single position will be reviewed back to the fairness and consistency. We currently have eight or 10 compensation plans that were again from the old bargaining the contracts and really taking a look at decision making abilities within those job descriptions and measuring those against our comparables which would be both private and public sector data local information and making sure that we're both from a total compensation standpoint whether that's benefits and or wages that we are paying competitively. When we look at Sheboygan County and we say we want to attract and retain the most talented employee base we need to make sure that we're kind of living and walking that walk. And so this compensation study will review job descriptions will review our benefit plans will review a total compensation plan and present to us a recommendation by fourth quarter that will look at our implementation potentially in January of 15 that will speak to one compensation plan for the county absent. Certainly we have the two collective bargaining units with the health care center and deputy that still would remain separate. But the value again is pulling it all together and making sure people are being paid fairly competitively so we can attract and retain. And on that note we only have a couple of minutes left with 825 employees or so and diversity of roles and responsibilities from law enforcement to an airport to planning and land and water conservation or you know whether it's clerk of court positions or accounting positions the list goes on and on. I've been seeing more and more new faces Courtney has sent out new employee and health and human services or how do people find out what's available in Sheboygan county for open positions and how do they apply. You bet. Well the best way they can play is come and visit human resources office 508 New York Avenue here in Sheboygan and we welcome them to come and visit we can show them a list of open positions and have them apply right on the spot. Although today it's very popular to go on the internet so very popular way is to visit our county website www.sheboygancounty.com and visit the human resources page and actually complete an online application and submit that way. We also have a complete list of openings with the local job center within Sheboygan county so several ways that we'd like to have them take a look at joining our winning team. I think we just had an what was an administrative assistant position and finance that had 120 applications or something like that. It was about 250 applications we received for one job. So a lot of interest out there depending on the position. Right. Any others that come to mind that you know are currently open that people might want to keep an eye out for or look into. We've got a couple in health and human services certainly finance has an accountant and administrative assistant. So again just checking out that website. A couple highway. Highway and I think Rocky Null we're always looking for good CNAs at Rocky Null because of the importance of that position so please check it out if you're looking and want to learn more about opportunities go to the county website or stop in and seeing Jean Gallimore or her staff in our HR department in the county administration building. Jean thank you for spending some time with us today and given us a quick snapshot of all the important roles and responsibilities of the HR department. You have been a breath of fresh air the last year and a half and we're pleased to have you on board and part of our team. So thank you. Thank you. Good to be here. And thank you for joining us. Next month we're going to bring another department head to you and I'm going to take a look here to remember it's Laura Henning Lorenz our county treasurer she's going to talk about the roles and responsibilities of the treasurer's office real property listing. And until then if you have any questions or suggestions don't hesitate to contact myself or chairman Roger Distruty or your elected county board supervisor. And if you don't know who that is check it out on the website because that's important as well. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next month.