What the Employees Had to Say…

What the Employees Had to Say…

October 26, 2015

As a new City Manager, my first few months were a whirlwind of meetings. After meetings with each of the City Council members and Department Heads, I sent out an invitation to meet with City employees. About 25 staff members took me up on the offer.

Here are the questions I asked:

Why did you join the City? There were a wide variety of answers to this one, but a lot of employees appreciated the stability and benefits the City has to offer.

What do you like about working for the City? The overwhelming response to this was the people. Staff members enjoyed working with their teammates and residents.

As an employer, how could the City improve? I’ve got to be honest – I expected to get an earful on this one given all of the changes the staff have been through…but I didn’t. Most (but not all) of the staff seemed pretty happy. As has been the case in every organization I have worked for, they felt that communication could be improved. They expressed appreciation for my efforts to reach out them. They didn’t not like the previous cut in hours and want to stay at 40 hours a week. And they expressed some concerns about different pay for people holding similar jobs.

What are you doing to improve our organization? How can we help you with those efforts? There were also a lot of different answers to this question. One employee talked about the effort she makes to turn around upset customers. Another talked about recent software upgrades to provide better service. A street department employee talked about cross training to provide better service. The commonality in the answers was the emphasis on service – Platteville employees truly understand why they are here!

How can we make the City a better place to live, visit, attend college and do business? Number one answer: more sit down restaurants. Other responses included dealing with nuisances related to college drinking and rentals, improving streets, lowering taxes, adding clothing stores, attracting younger families with amenities like the Rountree Branch Trail, attracting new employers and better paying jobs.

What advice do you have for me? Again, there was a lot of emphasis on communication. Staff felt that it was important for me to make an effort to connect with people both inside and outside the organization. A lot of people talked about having a thick skin and not taking things personally. Staff also talked about not pushing change too hard and working to bring people along through transitions.

I was grateful for the time and insights of these folks. They know this town. They love this town. They want what is the best for the community and work hard every day to make that happen. I feel fortunate to have them on my team t and I hope that I can serve them well.