BOARD AGENDA MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
Title
Diversity and Inclusion Quarterly Report for the Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2018.
End
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Receive information about diversity demographics for the Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2018.
Body
SUMMARY:
Per Board direction, this is the first quarterly Diversity and Inclusion Program report. As requested, the report will provide demographic data in conjunction with Human Resources. While the intent is to develop a standard format and compilation of comparative data sheets, this report is a prototype which will be refined in subsequent quarters based upon Board feedback/needs.
This report also contains information gathered in response to the Board member requests during the Human Resources’ Workforce Development report presentation at the November 28, 2017 Board meeting.
This first Quarterly Diversity and Inclusion Report will contain four sections:
(1) diversity demographics of the District employee workforce as compared to the workforce of the Santa Clara County;
(2) diversity demographics of all new hires in the quarter compared to the applicant pool;
(3) updates on Diversity and Inclusion Program activities; and
(4) responses to any request for information from the previous report. As stated earlier, this report will respond to information requests at the November 28, 2017 Board meeting.
I. Santa Clara Valley Water District Employee Demographics Compared to Santa Clara County Workforce for Job Categories
Each quarter, Diversity and Inclusion will present the ethnic demographics of the District’s workforce for each job category that the District has that correlates to federal categories with the workforce in those categories in the Santa Clara County. For example, if the District only hires in the job categories of Sr. Technician and Skilled Craft in a quarter, the County demographics used for comparison will only include the ethnic demographics in those categories.
The aggregate data indicates that the District is generally over represented in every ethnic group as compared to the workforce of the Santa Clara County except for Asians. The data shows an underrepresentation of Asian employees as compared to Asians in the job category workforce of the Santa Clara County by 11.45%. This underrepresentation of Asians accounts for the underrepresentation of minorities in general at the District by 3.56%. Please see Appendix A.
It is important to note that some job categories contain very few employees, an example is the “Office & Clerical” category. The percentages in categories with very few employees will appear to fluctuate significantly with the hiring of a new employee in that category.
II. Santa Clara Valley Water District Applicant Pool Compared to New Hires
Each quarter, Diversity and Inclusion will also compare the applicant pool of the positions that were filled to the new hires. The quarterly report will include data on all hires who began their employment with the District in the previous quarter.
The data indicates that in FY18 Q2 the District hired 20 employees including 1 African-American/Black employee, 5 Asian employees, 6 Hispanic/Latino employees, and 8 White employees. A comparison of the District applicant pool to the workforce with the Santa Clara County shows that for African-American/Black, American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, the percentage of candidates in the District’s candidate pool exceeded the percentage of workforce in Santa Clara County for those job categories. For the White and Asian ethnic groups, the percentage of applicants in Q2 was far lower than the percentage in the Santa Clara County workforce. In Santa Clara County, 37.91% of the population is White and work in occupations that the District hired for in Q2 but only 33.79% of the applicants were White. Similarly, Asians in job categories the District hired accounted for a bit over 40% of the workforce, and yet only about 25% of the candidate pool. Please see Appendix B.
III. Update on Diversity and Inclusion Program activities
Student Mentorship: In FY18 Q2, the Diversity and Inclusion program wrapped up the SPARK program which was a 10-week long mentorship program that paired District staff with students from underserved middle schools in San Jose. Eighteen District staff mentored 8th graders from ACE Charter School at the District. Students learned about the District, but also created connections to their mentors and role models. The program culminated in a “Share Your SPARK” event at the students’ school where they presented projects they worked on with their mentors over the course of the program.
Employee Engagement: The Diversity and Inclusion program also led the organization and implementation of the All Employee Meeting on December 5th at the Campbell Heritage Theatre. The theme was “Recommitment to Public Service”. About 500 employees came together to hear and get energized about the great work being performed by teams and employees throughout the District. The program ended with inspiring presentations by Kip Harkness, Deputy City Manager of San Jose and Pat Martell, City Manager of Daly City who shared their philosophies of public service.
Employee Resource Group Support: The ERGs also had several initiatives and programs around the holidays including, an Ability Awareness event on visual impairment, a celebratory event to commemorate Veterans Day, a Diwali lunch, participation in the Second Harvest Food Drive, and end-of-year potlucks and mixers. In collaboration with the Ability Awareness Group and the Green Team, the Diversity and Inclusion Program screened two documentaries to employees - the first was Blindsight and the second was Chasing Coral.
The Diversity and Inclusion program also hosted the Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet in early October where the District’s CEO Norma Camacho was the keynote speaker. In November, the Diversity and Inclusion Program facilitated the annual District-wide Service Awards.
IV. Responses to Inquires from the Board at the November 28, 2017 Workforce Development Report presentation
This portion of the Diversity and Inclusion Report will provide responses to requests for information from the Board. In this report, responses to information requests from the Board at the November 28, 2017 Workforce Development presentation is provided below.
A. Board Question/Information Request: How many family members were hired at the District? How are interview panels monitored for diversity/conflict of interest?
i. Data on Related Employees at the District
It is in the District’s interest to hire the best qualified individuals to further organizational priorities and in some cases the best person for a position may be a family member of an employee. Questions have been raised about the number of relatives and the appropriateness of the recruitment process resulting in the hire of relatives.
The following provides information regarding the hire of relatives at the District. Firstly, it is not permissible to prohibit a spouse from working at the District regardless of the chain of command reporting structure since doing so would constitute discrimination based on marital status. However, the District’s Nepotism Policy prohibits a family member from reporting to a relative directly or indirectly. The District’s 17 married couples who currently work at the District conform to this policy.
Historically, Human Resources has not tracked data on relatives at the District and estimates that there are 61 District employees (8%) who are related to each other. HR will begin to track relations besides marital, including brother, sister, daughter, son, mother, father and in-laws.
ii. Interview Panels
The recruitment supervisor is responsible to review and approve all interview panels prior to the interviews being held. The recruitment supervisor has final approval on all interview panels to ensure there is no conflict of interest, panels are diverse, and that the selection process is in compliance with District policies and best practices.
When applicants apply for positions, HR ensures that family members of the applicants are not involved in the recruitment process. Interview panelists are required to read and sign Interview Panel Guidelines statement prior to the interviews. In this statement, they acknowledge that they do not have a family relationship as defined including, but not limited to: all blood relatives to self or spouse, domestic partner, and children (biologic, step, adopted, or foster). Panelists acknowledge reviewing the list of candidates and having no conflict of interest that would compromise their ability to be objective in the interview process.
iii. Temporary Employees
Over the past two years, 7% of the of the 201 temporary employees at the District were related to District employees.
About 15% of the temporary employees hired by the District were related to District employees. On average, White and Hispanic temporary employees seem to be hired as temporary employees, and then as full time employees, at a higher rate than other ethnic groups. While the District benefits from finding very well qualified temporary employees to hire as permanent employees, there appears to be an element of advantage that temporary employees have in the recruitment process. Please see Appendix C for more data.
B. Board Question/Information Request: How does the number of applications the District receives per year compare to comparable agencies?
A benchmark survey was sent to the District’s comparator water agencies to gauge the volume of applications the District receives. Since the types of positions that the District hires will differ from these agencies, the method used to compare the information requested is a comparison of approved headcount to total applications received.
The District has 813 approved positions and in FY 17, the District received 5,400 applications equating to 15.1%.
The Metropolitan Water District has 1,886 approved positions with 24,500 applications equating to 7.7%.
The Marin Municipal Water District has 244 approved positions with 1,707 applications equating to 14.2%.
The San Diego County Water Authority has 255 approved positions with 4,168 applications received equating to 6.1%.
By the metric used above, the District appears to be receiving a higher percentage of applications per approved position than any other comparator agency who responded to the survey. But many factors do contribute to the number of applications an agency receives which includes the type of positions being advertised (some are more specific with a limited number of qualified candidates than others), local pool of qualified candidates, transportation systems, total compensation offered, brand of the agency, personnel policies, etc.
C. Board Question/Information Request: What is the role of Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources?
The Diversity and Inclusion Program and Human Resources are partnering in the following ways:
A. Summer College Interns
The Diversity and Inclusion Program will be partnering to review all the summer intern applications in an initial screening process to ensure that the District’s pool of intern candidates is qualified and well-rounded. The collaborative process will include a screening for candidates who seem to possess the levels of emotional intelligence that lead to success in the workplace. This will be the first year that Diversity and Inclusion will participate in the selection process of summer college interns. This year, the application included a question related to the candidate’s understanding of the value of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
The question was: The District values diversity and inclusion. How has your background and life experiences helped:
a. shape your identity?
b. prepare you to be effective in an organization that champions these values?
Diversity and Inclusion and HR gave a joint presentation at the Management Leadership Team meeting on the value of hiring a well-rounded summer intern.
B. Interview Panel Review
The Diversity and Inclusion Program will receive a bi-weekly report from Human Resources on the ethnic and gender compositions of the interview panels for the proceeding weeks. If there is a pattern of lack of diversity on interview panels, Diversity and Inclusion will inform the Chief Operating Officer of Administrative Services and consult with the Recruitment section to ensure the diversity of panels.
C. Diversity and Inclusion Goal in Staff Workplans
Beginning in FY18, all staff at the District have a performance evaluation goal in their workplans related to diversity and inclusion. Human Resources and Diversity and Inclusion staff will review the metrics after the close of mid-year evaluations and assess the effectiveness of this new goal.
D. Quarterly Metrics
Each quarter, Human Resources will gather and share with Diversity and Inclusion the demographics data featured in this report.
E. Career fairs
Diversity and Inclusion will participate with Human Resources at career fairs. Diversity and Inclusion will also enlist the help of Employee Resource Group members and leaders to participate, as well. Diversity and Inclusion has also been working closely with representatives from Human Resources and Graphics to create recruitment marketing material.
D. Board Question/Information Request: Why is the Rotation Program on hold? What were the challenges?
After the conclusion of the Pilot Rotation Program for EA, HR staff conducted a survey, analyzed the results, and crafted a plan designed to institute a program that was effective and easy to implement for all stakeholders including managers. During the interim, the EA Rotation Program was on hold pending negotiations over the terms of the program. The negotiations have been completed and the program will be implemented shortly.
The current Rotation Program includes a twelve-month Rotation Program for EA positions designating four rotations - one per division with a backfill option. A proposed policy has been drafted and provided to the union for their input.
Challenges: The rotation program was intended to allow employees to rotate into another unit as a career development opportunity that was tied directly to their career development plan. During the 12-month Rotation Pilot Program there were six rotations with at least one backfill for each person leaving on rotation. As a result, the program veered in an unexpected direction since several employees were on rotation or backfill in different workgroups, resulting in disruption and productivity issues in the home workgroup. The program deviated from its intended purpose and morphed into a temporary staffing method to address project needs and peak workloads. By the end of the program, approximately 70 rotations (about 10% of the entire workforce) had occurred impacting workload priorities and vacancies in units.
With new protocols in place, this program will benefit employees by letting them take-on stretch or new assignments while minimizing disruption and operational difficulties.
E. Board Question/Information Request: Are there any plans to bring trainings on the finances of the District to employees?
The District’s CFO will conduct training regarding the District’s finances on April 5, 2018 to the Emerging Leaders participants. Additional employee brown bags on the District’s budget will be scheduled for the larger employee population.
F. Board Question/Information Request: Are there plans to invite Board members to leadership program trainings, events and activities?
A listing of leadership trainings and activities have been developed. HR will partner with the Clerk of the Board’s Office to seek Board member attendance at these activities.
G. Board Question/Information Request: How is Human Resources working with External Affairs?
HR has partnered with the External Affairs division staff to obtain contact information for community groups along with additional local community organizations. The intent is to attend community events and actively engage in recruitment efforts.
H. Board Question/Information Request: Are there plans to offer Emotional Intelligence training?
Human Resources believes that Emotional Intelligence (EI) is important for all managers and recognize that such trainings can be particularly valuable for managers who come from technical fields. As a result, Emotional Intelligence Training was held for the Unit Manager Academy on October of 2016 participants and for the Emerging Leaders participants in May of 2017. A third EI training is scheduled for March 8th for the Emerging Leaders participants.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
There is no financial impact associated with this item.
CEQA:
The recommended action does not constitute a project under CEQA because it does not have a potential for resulting in direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1: Workforce Comparison Matrix
Attachment 2: Applicant Matrix
Attachment 3: Temporary Employee Data
Attachment 4: PowerPoint
UNCLASSIFIED MANAGER:
Manager
Anil Comelo, 408-630-2470