7.5. SR 10-03-2011Item # 7.5.
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MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Robert D. Thistle~~
DATE: October 3, 201 I
SUBJECT: Council Employee Recognition Program
BACKGROUND
The Ciry Council has agreed to finance an employee award program through donations from
the Council from the compensation they receive as Councilmembers. I was directed to
review how other communities are handling such programs and report back to the Council.
DISCUSSION
I queried the MCMA list serve site, the League of Cities, and Tina queried the Ciry Clerk list
serve site regarding employee reward/recognition programs. We got a number of detailed
responses. A number of cities indicated that they originally began with a monthly
recognition program and then went to quarterly or annual award program because either the
effort became administratively burdening, interest and support for the program dissipated
after the initial startup, or the program became contentious and more of a liability than asset
to employee morale.
The City of New Hope, however, has had a long standing employee of the quarter program
and an employee of the year program that has worked very well for them.
A number of cities only do an employee (s) of the year award program and include it in their
annual employee appreciation luncheon or dinner.
A number of Elk River division and department heads, in talking with their staff, found that
their employees would be interested in an expanded summer picnic for families sponsored
by the Ciry Council, if all of the Council was involved.
Our Police Department has an internal awards program that they run every year and the Fire
Department is exploring one for their department. So this could raise the question as to
whether a City program should be Ciry-wide or just for employees excluding Police and Fire.
We have a number of sample processes that other communities use to nominate candidates,
review and recommend candidates, and reward recipients that we can use as templates
should we decide to proceed with a program.
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COUNCIL DIRECTION
Before we proceed further in designing a process, I would like Council to discuss and give
staff direction on how they would like to proceed. Do you want a monthly, quarterly, annual,
or combination of programs taking into consideration some of the experiences of other
communities? Would an annual picnic be more effective?
My inclination is to go with either an annual award (s) program at the Employee
Appreciation Day or have aCity-wide picnic for employees sponsored by the total Council.
I think it is important to not create an additional yeax long administrative task for an already
over-stretched staff.
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