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Turnover in Palo Alto at City Hall

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The Palo Alto area is currently bracing itself for the departure of a large number of workers from the City Hall section of the area within the span of the next five years, specifically because habits are changing and employee benefits are as well. Palo Alto is also looking for innovative ways to attract younger employees and keep them working in the area. The city is already expecting to lose out on the vast majority of its workforce in the span of the next decade, especially as the Baby Boomers begin to retire and as other people choose to leave the area for better opportunities. The council for the city has been discussing the trend of losing out on workers while also trying to work on a plan to keep the employee morale together.

The director of the human resources department for the city, Kathryn Shen, recently told the council that a large portion of the workforce within the city will be able to retire in the next five years. With just about half of the workforce able to retire, it is possible that the city will lose out on a lot of the workers that it needs. Shen says she does not believe that every worker will choose to retire all at once but does feel that the city needs to be prepared for the large number of individuals who will be retiring, leaving open positions available for younger workers. Shen says, “Even if half of those (employees) retire, we’ll still be in a world of hurt if we don’t plan for that.”

The average age for an individual working in the city is 45 years of age. Shen says that within the next decade, the city is going to need to find younger workers to fill in these positions otherwise tons of position will continue to go unfilled, causing huge problems. The human resources department is working on different ways to deal with these changes and is planning to meet with a number of labor leaders to figure out some of the best tips and techniques for recruiting talent and keeping them, even though benefit reductions are taking place.

The city of Palo Alto has been dealing with a struggle for the past three years, specifically when the city started to work on the benefits packages, renegotiating benefits that were already available. A number of reductions ended up being made to the benefits provided to workers, which is something many workers were not satisfied with at all. A report from the human resources department shows a total of half of the employees working for the city have already retired and have also been replaced.

Turnover in Palo Alto at City Hall by
Authored by: Harrison Barnes