Recent third-party report found that Hamilton has a ‘weakened competitive position as an employer compared to other municipalities.’ Photo credit: EXP
The City of Hamilton is taking significant steps to improve their labour shortages amid struggles with staff recruitment and retention.
The city initially put out a release on April 18 detailing a new city-wide strategy to improve the situation. While the strategy released involved several recommendations, it completely ignored the then-ongoing new hire vaccine mandate in place by the city.
However, on May 3, in a separate move that was a dramatic turnaround from previous positions, Council finally voted to pause the new hire vaccine mandate for all city workers, removing perhaps the largest staff recruitment barrier.
The Hamilton Independent will detail the circumstances leading to the removal of the new hire vaccine policy in a future article.
In terms of the new recruitment and retention strategy released in April, the City of Hamilton has been facing a staffing shortage, particularly amongst non-union staff which are more specialized positions.
Non-union positions include directors, managers, lawyers, planners, IT specialists, auditors, and engineers.
Overall, according to an August 2022 report, 10 per cent of all city positions are unfilled. That translated to 664 empty positions of 6,712 municipal jobs at the time.
Those vacancies are causing delays to policy work and development approvals.
The new recruitment and retention specifically applies to these non-union positions of which there are 1,110 jobs with the city.
Compensation and benefit conversations for unionized employees take place as part of union bargaining processes.
The new strategy comes after a 2022 third-party analysis commissioned by the city.
Recruitment and retention issues have been compounded by the ageing population, Canada’s low fertility rate resulting in fewer candidates to replace retirees, and a changing work environment where workers are favouring work-from-home jobs.
Indeed, the city saw 66 non-union employees retire in 2022 and 118 voluntary departures (both over 40 per cent increases compared to 2019).
The official analysis, which was completed by Optimus SBR, cost the municipality $107,000.
It included “an analysis of the City’s current state of operations, a market analysis, a municipal recruitment best practice scan, discovery interviews with key staff members, and 11 stakeholder focus groups,” according to a city press release.
Key amongst the findings is that the city has compensation that is “no longer competitive” when compared to Hamilton’s “economic conditions” and high workloads.
It also states that “the City of Hamilton has a weakened competitive position as an employer compared to other municipalities.”
Additionally, the report notes that the city has a lengthy recruitment process with the average time to fill a position measured at 87 days.
Amongst the recommendations that will be adopted by the city are a corporate organizational structure review to improve the manageability of workloads and an update to human resources technology to streamline the application process.
To improve salaries, the city will be increasing salary bands and will be making it easier for employees to seek promotions, with the maximum salary increase for an existing employee going from eight per cent to 10 per cent at a time.
The city will also be undergoing a “tailored marketing campaign” to ensure that the “benefits of working in Hamilton are well understood.”
It is unclear how much money the city will be spending on the marketing campaign.
Also, to make their hybrid work policy more “equitable” the city will be requiring non-union staff to work a minimum mandatory two “anchor days” in office. That policy begins on September 11, 2023.
Currently, some employees are working entirely at home while some are working four to five days in city offices.
Janette Smith, Hamilton’s City Manager commented, “We have understood for years that the labour market was preparing for a significant demographic shift as more baby boomers opted to enter retirement.”
“That shift is well underway and was hastened by the pandemic and ability to work virtually, which has led to municipalities across Ontario and Canada, including Hamilton, to review what they are offering current and potential employees and how that compares to other cities seeking the exact same talent.”
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
