No ‘magic bullet’ to solve City of Hamilton staffing woes

A staffing crunch is hampering city operations as Hamilton struggles to recruit and retain employees amid stiff competition from other employers for talent.

Losing workers and finding new ones across the organization is increasingly a challenge since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

The rise of remote working, eliminating the need to commute to offices, is just one factor making it harder to land and keep employees.

Higher pay, lower workloads and opportunities for career advancement are where other employers, in the private and public sector alike, may enjoy an edge, despite some of Hamilton's selling points, senior city staff say.

We are a large, ambitious city, for sure," Lora Fontana, executive director of human resources, told council recently.

But the city also has a reputation for high" workloads, one issue to be analyzed in a structural review of the organization in an effort to solve labour woes and avert employee burnout.

There's not one magic bullet. There's a number of issues that we need to consider," Fontana added.

In 2020, the city had an attrition rate of 5.95 per cent, which increased to about nine per cent in 2021 and 11.2 per cent in 2022. Last year, retirements accounted for 3.7 per cent of that overall churn and resignations or terminations were 7.5 per cent.

City auditor Charles Brown says higher pay played a role in the resignation of two senior auditors.

Our comparables tell us that we're not compensating for example what Toronto pays or what Ottawa pays for the same skill set."

When the one staffer left in July, the city tried to recruit another but wasn't able to fill the vacancy, he said.

The city's job posting notes the full-time position pays between $54 and $63 an hour, but the whole thing has to move up for us to be able to acquire the talent that we want," Brown told The Spectator.

In addition to pay, the skyrocketing housing market in Hamilton, once an affordable option for many workers, is another obstacle, he suggested.

Look at house prices," Brown said. Can you blame people? As oriented to community services you might be, you've got that mortgage to pay."

Brown's office is tasked with a number of important functions, including following up on tips from the city's fraud and waste hotline, and conducting money-for-value audits into such municipal services as road work.

Another investigation, for instance, focused on Hamilton's DARTS transit service, which pointed to safety issues. Probes into the problems with the last municipal election and a sewage leak are on the agenda.

With the second senior auditor giving notice recently, Brown is left with two - down from four - working on the sophisticated, time-consuming investigations.

It backs up our audits and just makes them take longer, and council, I think, needs this information."

Throughout the pandemic, the city has struggled to recruit and keep workers in a wide variety of positions.

In August, a finance report noted the vacancy rate across the organization was nearly 10 per cent - or 664 of 6,712 positions.

In the building division, 14 full-time positions were open out of roughly 100 due to difficulties in finding qualified applicants" (apart from three temporary vacancies).

And in planning, 18 out of 96 posts were vacant, affecting the ability to do policy work in a timely fashion" and spurring delays in development approvals.

With 19 out of 126 positions open in IT, the vacancies affected a number of fronts, including daily maintenance for security and transit operations." Those positions have been difficult to fill due to market conditions ... and to staff turnover," the report noted.

In public health, 196 of 736 positions were open, leaving part-time staff to pick up more hours, managers to fill supervisor vacancies and crucial programs delayed amid the pandemic.

Increasingly, people are looking for balance" between their home lives and work, city manager Janette Smith said during her budget presentation last week. So it's that blending of things."

The city must foster an environment that makes it an employer of choice," inspiring workers to take risks, be creative and pursue new ideas, Mayor Andrea Horwath said.

Staffing is a hurdle for other Hamilton employers, too, suggests a local chamber of commerce survey, noted Cassandra D'Ambrosio, marketing and communications manager, via email.

One of the questions asked about the greatest issue facing their business right now, where an overwhelming 75 per cent selected: Access to reliable, skilled talent and talent retention and workplace culture support."

The dynamic isn't about to change with an aging demographic heading for retirement and remote working here to stay, says Wayne Lewchuk, a McMaster professor emeritus of labour studies and economics.

I think what that has done is it has empowered workers to bargain better for themselves."

Employers, meanwhile, will have to change their mindset" from You know, we could always get workers at the price we wanted and the conditions we wanted."

Rather, decent pensions and benefits, which have eroded, must be part of the package, Lewchuk suggests.

The employers are going to need to find some way of tying workers to them other than just putting money into their paycheque every month."

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com