Employee Engagement Survey (EES) - Council Employee Meeting (CEC)Today
Kin Coulee Park 2021. May the work conditions for our City employees become as serene.
Last night, Closed Council got the results of the EES; it is on the agenda of today’s CEC.
From what I heard during the campaign; I’m guessing administration will not be pleased with the results. I’m guessing they will put the pressure on to keep the results private. After all they’re spending a lot of money trying to recruit employees rights now, lots of pretty pictures making it look as if Medicine Hat is a serene, calm, fun place to work.
As I said before, even if the results are made public, they are worthless unless meaningful change happens. So what does that mean?
You start with an apology, a real one. Not an
“I’m sorry you feel that way” or
“I’m sorry if you didn’t understand me and that you took it the wrong way”
No
A real apology is
“I’m sorry for making you feel that way. You’re absolutely right, what I did was wrong. I’m going to do better by doing x, y and z. I can fix X right away, to fix Y I need to figure it out but I will do that by Z date.”
(I tried using I/we but it was too cumbersome)
My Thoughts
Our new City Manager must come from outside the organization, better yet, the city. I’m normally a big fan of hiring from within unless the organization is too toxic to be redeemed. I think we’re there.
We need someone who can come in with a clean slate and no loyalties. No family members, no friends working for or with the City. They should also have the experience and the education necessary to run a city. A Civil Engineer would be at the top of my list of minimum qualifications along with a background check.
Not just a police check but talk to former coworkers, employees, check out their past businesses. A lot of stuff can be found online.
I decided to look into our former CAO, what I found astounded me. I discovered just by looking online that after he left the CAO position at the City of Medicine Hat to head up Enmax, that they unceremoniously removed him. Enmax used the Without Cause clause and paid him nearly two million to go away.
Former Medicine Hat CAO Resume
After that he went from job to job and had a string of failed startups, one went bankrupt owing over $32 million in 2016. The Receiver was working with them until they tried to license a technology in April 2017 without permission from the Receiver and got spanked for it. They said “the Holder had lost faith or trust in the Borrower and Guarantors and their representatives including management of the Borrowers and the Board.”
January 2017 Grande Prairie hired him as their CAO while the bankrupt company was in receivership and later pissing off the Receiver in April 2017.
October 2018 he was rehired by the City of Medicine Hat as our CAO.
Either past council didn’t bother to look into this stuff or they knew about it and hired him anyway. Either proposition is equally disturbing.
I expect better from our new council.
Our employees deserve better. I think they’re paid well and get good benefits. Now we must make our city a desirable place to work, with a City Manager who is worthy of respect. Pretty advertising won’t cut it.
It’s a seller’s market right now, employers must compete. Sometimes an employer is so bad that no amount of money would be enough to make it worth it.
Council Employee Committee, thank you for all the good work!
Take a bow ladies!
Chair Shila Sharps
Councilor Alison Van Dyke
Councilor Ramona Robins
Mayor Clark
Now it’s time to make some meaningful change happen.
I’ll be watching.
#kasosumh #shilasharps #alisonvandyke #ramonarobins #linnsieclark #CEC #yxh #medicinehat #EES
