City Of Fairbury Considering Employee Survey

By Gordon HopkinsThe City of Fairbury is looking into conducting a survey of current and former employees.Retention of employees has been a high priority topic not just for the city but for most industries, both public and private, due in large part to an ongoing workforce shortage.In recent years, both local governments and the private sector have increased wages in order to attract and retain employees. However, some have questioned if salaries are the only reason some workers have left employment with the city.Fairbury’s Personnel Committee met Tuesday, September 17. City Councilperson Kelly Davis attended the meeting and said there are, “A lot of different stories we’re hearing about what’s going on within the city and the employees.” Anonymous SurveyCommittee chair Doug Brown originally suggested doing internal interviews among employees. However, Davis pointed, “There’s people down there that are afraid to say what’s really on their mind. They’re afraid of repercussions. I’ve been told that by a lot of them.”Therefore, Davis said he is looking into an online survey platform called Survey Monkey, which would allow respondents to answer questions anonymously.Davis explained the advantage to this approach, “You can say what’s on your mind. You can answer the questions the way you feel you really need to answer the questions. And the people that will compile the answers are a third party. They don’t know anybody. It’ll come back. It’s all anonymous and then we just have a tool to work with about how our employees feel about where they work.”Davis said some example questions are, “You feel like you’re stressed at your job? If you make a mistake, are you encouraged to learn from it? If no, belittled for making the mistake?”Davis added, “And then, there’s always a place you can put comments.”Not everyone was supportive of the survey at the meeting. Electric Distribution Superintendent Nate Francis made his opposition clear, “Honestly, this survey has caused more controversy to me with any city employee right now, whether it’s my department, the water department, the office, that’s all that’s talked about right now, is this survey.”“You guys do what you guys want to do. I just feel like,” said Francis. “I think our culture right now is the best it’s been since I’ve worked here for 10 years.”Francis added, “I mean, I have zero complaints. We all work together fine.”When asked if he supported the survey, Davis responded, “Absolutely.” Former EmployeesDavid also recommended including former employees in the survey to determine why some have quit. Fairbury Wastewater Superintendent Curtis Arnold expressed concerns about surveying former employees, “I can see both sides of wanting to do past employees. But sometimes culture has changed. And we had our opportunity to interview with employee when they left to do an exit interview.”Francis also opposed surveying former employees, “One employee, it’s certain, that worked for me, it’s going to be all all negative on me. But he was one of those performers that, he’s a low performer. You coach up and you coach out.” UnionCity Councilperson John Ebke, who also serves on the Personnel Committee, agreed the work culture had improved and said removing supervisors from the union had a lot to do with the change. While most of the city staff are in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Union, employees in a supervisory position are not. Ebke said, “I don’t know what the deal was, but as soon as the union was gone on the supervisory role, those people were able to be better supervisors, and I think they worked together a lot better than what was going on before.”Ebke said, “I can see the culture is completely different from four years ago.”

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