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UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING <br />TO: FROM: <br />ERMU Commission Troy Adams, P.E. –General Manager <br />MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: <br />March10, 2020 5.4 <br />SUBJECT: <br />Workplace Culture <br />ACTION REQUESTED: <br />Approve reallocation of $5,000 commission budget toward organizationwide training. <br />BACKGROUND: <br />During the December17 special commission meeting, Chair Dietz shareda concern about <br />morale and workplace culture following the 2020 budget cost of living adjustment (COLA) <br />discussion, where the lineworker group received a different market adjustment from the other <br />pay groups. The concern was that lineworkers were perceived to be treated differently than <br />others within the organization. The commission directed the leadership team to further discuss <br />the issue and follow up with the commission with some analysis and possible solutions that <br />could be implemented to improve workplace culture. <br />DISCUSSION: <br />The leadership team held initial discussions withstaff immediately followingthe December <br />commission meeting. The leadership team then evaluatedthat initial feedback and analyzed <br />those comments. The leadership team also considered the feedback received during the 2019 <br />organizational effectiveness survey. <br /> <br />Feedback confirmed that compensation market corrections that are applied differently for <br />different paygroups does cause stress in workplace culture. Employees may have perceived that <br />there are inequities in process due to incomplete knowledge of the process. <br /> <br />The organizational effectiveness survey was conducted on employees in January 2019 by a <br />third-party to determine areas of opportunity for improvement, working from good to great. <br />This was a voluntary, internal initiative by the leadership team to create a culture of continual <br />improvement and to identify opportunities to make ERMU a better community asset through a <br />stronger and united workforce. <br /> <br />The survey did ask questions regarding compensation and benefits. Neither of these categories <br />indicated concern according to the consultant. The fact that there was not strongemployee <br />concern expressed in January 2019 regarding compensation fairness between paygroups may <br />be related to that year’s COLA and market adjustments. In 2019 the manager, office, and field <br />paygroups received a larger COLA than the lineworkers. Additionally, there were several office <br />______________________________________________________________________________ <br />Page 1 of 3 <br />75 <br />