Marin County struggling to recruit, retain employees

Like many local businesses, Marin County is struggling to recruit and retain the employees it needs.

In June, three of the county’s top managers — Assistant County Administrator Angela Nicholson, Budget Manager Bret Uppendahl and Ken Shapiro, chief operating officer and assistant director of the Health and Human Services Department — all announced they were leaving.

Nicholson had been filling in as the county’s personnel director since the previous director, Mary Hao, resigned in March. None of these employees was of retirement age.

As of April 15, the most recent date for which the personnel department supplied data, 14.1% of the county’s 2,437 budgeted, full-time positions were unfilled.

During a budget workshop in March, Marin supervisors decided to designate recruitment and retention as one of the county’s top priorities, along with addressing homelessness, fostering racial equity, disaster preparedness, investing in county infrastructure and addressing climate change.

The supervisors received a report on the county’s high job vacancy rate and steps being taken to improve the situation on June 20 during public hearings on the 2022-23 budget.

“All counties are experiencing this theme point around the great resignation,” County Administrator Matthew Hymel told supervisors at the time. “This is a top priority for our county team over the next two years. We recognize that the foundation of being able to achieve our priorities is having talented and dedicated employees.”

Other Bay Area counties are experiencing similar employee vacancy rates. Santa Clara County has a 14.7% rate. San Mateo County has a 14% rate. In Contra Costa County, the vacancy rate is 13%, and in Sonoma County it’s 11.79%.

The vacancy rates of some Marin County departments are far higher than 14%. As of April 15, 10 departments had rates of 15% or higher.

The Marin County Department of Cultural Services had a vacancy rate of 54.5%; Marin County Child Support Services, 26.9%; Human Resources, 18.8%; the County Administrator’s Office, 18%; the Community Development Agency, 17%; and Information Services and Technology, 16.7%.

The Health and Human Services Department had a vacancy rate of 15.5%, accounting for more than a third of the county’s 343 vacant positions.

The Department of Public Works had the second-most vacancies, 42 of 252 budgeted positions.

“We currently have 10 civil engineer positions unfilled in our department,” Public Works Director Rosemarie Gaglione said Friday.

Gaglione said many government agencies in the Bay Area are facing similar situations.

“It might have something to do with the cost of living in the Bay Area,” she said. “There’s a shortage of qualified civil engineers across the state, and they can pick and choose where to go.”

Between July 1, 2021, and April 15, the county hired 179 employees but lost 194, a net loss of 15.

“It’s important to note that these separations are regular hires only and do not include temporary contingent hires,” Angie Fong, a county employment analyst, told supervisors.

The county hired 245 temporary workers during that period.

Fong cited Bureau of Labor statistics for March that showed there were 11.5 million jobs available across the U.S. and only 5.5 million unemployed workers to fill them. Fong said that since early 2021, 3% of the nation’s labor force has quit their jobs.

“So what we’re experiencing here in the county is really a nationwide phenomenon,” she said.

Nicholson, who lives in Corte Madera with her husband and two teenage daughters, said she isn’t leaving because of any grievance.

“I loved the organization. I worked in six different jobs when I was there,” said Nicholson, who joined the county in 2007 as an equal employment officer.

Nicholson said the pandemic served as the catalyst for her decision. During much of that time, she was on call 24 hours a day.

“Over the last couple years, I worked a lot,” Nicholson said, “and so I just decided now is the right time to take some time with my family this summer. I’ll retool in the fall and figure out what is that next step in my career.”

Fong told supervisors that a number of changes have been made already to streamline and improve the county’s recruitment process.

“We’ve really worked to try to promote the telework and hybrid schedules with departments,” Fong said, “knowing that many of our candidates are either not wanting to come back to the office or are looking for more flexible schedules. We end up losing many quality candidates due to this.”

In addition, Fong said the county has started offering employees a $500 bonus if they notify the county of their plans to retire three months in advance and a $1,000 bonus if they provide six months notice.

The county is also no longer requiring managers to get permission to hire a new employee to replace a departing employee before the departing employee leaves, unless the process takes longer than six months.

“Despite all of the enhancements that we’ve made and the work that we’ve done to try to speed up the process, there is more to come,” Diane Ooms, a county personnel analyst, told supervisors.

Managers seeking to replace an employee must first fill out a hiring review form and get it approved by the county administrator’s office to ensure there is money budgeted for the position.

“We’re going to get rid of that,” Ooms said.

The last several years the county has realized significant savings because of vacant positions. During a budget briefing in April, the budget manager estimated the county would save $9.5 million from unfilled budgeted positions.

Ooms said the county is negotiating with employee unions regarding the possibility of providing a signing and retention bonus for hard-to-fill positions. She said the county is also exploring the possibility of other employee incentives such as assistance in renting or purchasing a home.

During the public comment that followed presentation, Rollie Katz, executive director of the Marin Association of Public Employees, told supervisors, “You’ve got to pay people more money. That doesn’t mean it is the only answer, but it is part of the answer.”

As of 2020, the county’s difficulty retaining employees doesn’t appear to have impeded its efforts to make its workforce more ethnically diverse.

According to the county’s equity and diversity dashboard, between 2013 and 2020, the county’s percentage of Latino employees grew 83.3% to 19.23% of the total workforce. During that same period, the county’s percentage of Black employees increased 52.48% to 6.73% of the workforce. The county’s percentage of Asian employees increased 38.27% to 9.79% of the workforce.

During that same period, the county’s percentage of non-Latino White employees edged up 3.3% to 60.18%, down from 71.9% in 2013. All ethnicities showed steady growth from 2013 to 2020, with the exception of White employees. The county’s percentage of White employees dropped by 4.13% in 2019.

As part of the county’s equity initiative, the fiscal 2022-23 budget approved by supervisors last month included an allocation of $350,000 for job training, outreach and other support services to promote equitable access to county jobs, and $200,000 to provide an ombudsman to counsel employees with workplace issues.