TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to direct all City of Long Beach employees to participate in the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy "State of the Service" public employee survey, to be completed within the next 45 days.
DISCUSSION
The greatest asset to the City of Long Beach is its employees. City of Long Beach employees work hard every day to address our city's most pressing needs including keeping our city safe, maintaining economic stability, providing access to parks and beaches, protecting public health and the environment, and ensuring our roads, sidewalks, and public spaces are clean and well maintained. Despite the hard work exemplified, public sector employees are seldom given the recognition they deserve.
In a time when public employee bargaining power is under threat, public perception is increasingly cynical, and overall trust in government is low, it is up to City leaders and administrators to ensure they are continually acknowledging the hard work produced by employees and examining the ways in which improvements can be made.
Over the past decade, diminished revenues and increasing expenses have hit local governments especially hard. At the same time, local governments face state mandates, mostly unfunded, and experience increased demand from the public to provide efficient public services. These challenging dynamics commonly contribute to low morale and increased burnout.
Given that human capital remains the most important capital for local governments to deliver their mission, it is in the best interest of the City to take proactive steps in ensuring we are creating the best possible conditions to ensure employee satisfaction and productivity.
Recently, USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy, with funding from the Haynes
Foundation, designed a survey titled, "State of the Service", that seeks to assess how local public servants fare a variety of critical concepts in public management, including different citizen engagement a...
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