By Heather Graves
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – A tie-breaker vote from Mayor Eric Genrich at the Tuesday, Oct. 15, city council meeting approved the creation of an Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) policy.
ERGs are voluntary, employee-led groups, formally recognized by the city, compromised of employees who share a common background, focus area, set of interests and/or goals.
Beginning Jan. 1, the City of Green Bay will encourage and support ERGs among the city’s nearly 1,000 employees.
Human Resource Director Joseph Faulds said the ERGs reflect the city’s desire to be an inclusive place to work by creating a culture that values the contributions of all city employees.
“I think it is really so our employees can be heard, valued and engaged,” Faulds said. “If you look at the policy statement it talks about helping the city recruit a diverse workforce, create an open forum for people to exchange ideas so they can talk about the work environment, but can also talk about better serving the public and help empower employees and develop leaders.”
Membership in an ERG will be available to all city employees.
Applications are submitted through the city’s human resources department, and a roster of employees of an ERG is given to human resources on a yearly basis.
Faulds said after creating a resource group, employees will get together on a semi-regular basis to discuss how to make the city a better place to work.
Those in support of the policy said ERGs are a great fit for the city.
“There is a lot that the city can do with this,” said District 4 Alder Bill Galvin. “It is something we should pursue now and start getting it into place.”
District 1 Alder Barbara Dorff said she sees the ERGs as a basic and inexpensive way to grow the diversity of city’s employee base.
“I like how the first line of the memo starts – ‘the city’s vision is to be a model municipal employer by leveraging diversity and fostering inclusion to deliver the best public service,’” Dorff said. “Anyone who has been a part of an organization, worked in a large organization, knows that there’s more to just coming to work, sitting at a computer and doing your job. There’s the climate, there’s the cultures, there’s working in a place where you feel welcome and accepted, and I believe, strongly, that people who feel welcome and accepted and cared about for who they are do a better job.”
Not all alders were on board with launching ERG policy at this time, concerned it would interfere with employees’ daily job responsibilities.
“It (the policy) says participating in an ERG or an ERG-sponsored activity during the employee’s regular scheduled work hours is permitted, provided that such participation doesn’t conflict with the employee’s work responsibilities or the service delivery needs of the department,” said District 12 Alder Jesse Brunette. “I would argue that by participating in an ERG and not doing the job for which they were hired to do does in fact take time away from their job responsibilities.”
District 9 Alder Brian Johnson supported delaying the policy approval until the new year.
“The vote in support of holding this isn’t saying no – I think it’s, let’s give ourselves some more time to explore this a bit more,” Johnson said. “I do agree with Alder Dorff that this is a great vision to have for the city, we should aspire to that. Where my questions come into play is whether or not this is the policy that is going to deliver that for us. I don’t know if it is or not.”
Faulds said initially ERGs will be encouraged to meet over lunch hours or before or after work.
“And then from there, the benefits of the ERGs to improve the morale, even improve the processes of the city, I think will outweigh the one or two hours every few months that they are putting into this,” Faulds said.