HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-23-13 Special Common Council Meeting AgendaOFFICIAL NOTICE OF MEETING
A Regular meeting of the Common Council will be held on Wednesday, January 23,
2013, at 5:00 p.m. in the Common Council Chambers at City Hall, 108 East Green
Street, Ithaca, New York. Your attendance is requested.
AGENDA
1. SPECIAL ORDER OF BUSINESS:
1.1 Presentation from the Workforce Diversity Advisory Committee
2. NEW BUSINESS:
3. ADJOURNMENT:
If you have a disability that will require special arrangements to be made in order for you
to fully participate in the meeting, please contact the City Clerk at 274-6570 at least 48
hours before the meeting.
______________________________
Julie Conley Holcomb, CMC
City Clerk
Date: January 17, 2013
1. SPECIAL ORDER OF BUSINESS:
1.1 Presentation from the Workforce Diversity Advisory Committee
To: Common Council
From: Schelley Michell-Nunn, Director of Human Resources
Date: January 16, 2013
Re: Workforce Diversity Advisory Committee Presentation (WDAC)
Attached please find materials from WDAC in preparation for the January 23, 2013
Special Common Council meeting. There will be an opportunity for you to ask
questions regarding these materials at the meeting. You should also feel free to make
inquires before, if you would like more information.
The WDAC is looking forward to the opportunity to meet with you for an update and a
meaningful discussion.
Please feel free to contact me or the WDAC chair, Marcia Fort, if you have any
questions.
Thank you for your continued commitment.
Cc: Marcia Fort
City of Ithaca
Vision, Mission and Values
Vision
We strive to make Ithaca a Model Community: A great place to create,
dream, live, learn, work, and play.
Mission
We deliver high quality services to preserve and enhance the well being of
our community.
Values
For those we employ and those we serve:
People
Relationships
Excellent Results
We believe that:
• People are our greatest
asset
• Each person should be
respected, developed,
supported and valued
• Diversity should be
celebrated through
inclusion
We believe in:
• Teamwork
• Interdepartmental
Collaboration
• Responsiveness
• Sharing Knowledge
and
Expertise
We believe in:
• Continuous
improvement
• Streamlined
Processes
• Creativity
• Quality Service
• Celebrating Success
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City of Ithaca Diversity Statement
The City of Ithaca is committed to a work environment and community
governance that values and supports diversity and inclusion.
Collectively we will strive to learn about diversity; educate City
employees, members of boards and committees and other volunteers;
and promote acceptance of the differences of others within our
workforce and our community.
Our goal is to strengthen the City’s work environment, our
government, and our ability to serve our constituents.
In order to accomplish these goals, we will:
♦ Actively seek employees and volunteers with diverse backgrounds.
♦ Develop and maintain a work environment that supports and
nurtures every individual throughout his or her tenure with the
City.
♦ Continue to develop laws, policies and procedures governing our
workforce and the City of Ithaca that are mindful and inclusive of
our diverse community.
Workforce Diversity Plan Attributes
1. Attribute: Established Foundation for Diversity and Inclusiveness
Explanation: The City of Ithaca has a goal to reflect what Roosevelt
Thomas, Jr. defines as attribute diversity1: different personal
characteristics such as race, sex, national origin, religion, sexual
orientation, and disability status throughout all departments, and at all
levels of the City of Ithaca. The City of Ithaca recognizes that an effective
and successful diversity and inclusiveness initiative includes established
equal opportunity and affirmative action programs to ensure equal access
to opportunity in employment.
The City of Ithaca's senior staff recognizes that its equal opportunity
practices for employment must include well defined, effectively enforced,
and well communicated policies of non-discrimination and harassment and
sound complaint procedures for addressing discrimination issues,
including the use of prompt and appropriate corrective/disciplinary
measures to address instances of discrimination. The City of Ithaca’s
equal opportunity practices are based on obligations created by current
legal requirements, such as Executive Order 11246, the Vietnam Era
Veterans Readjustment Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. These regulations
provide that the City employ effective affirmative action principles in its
employment practices, including hiring and promoting women and
minorities.2 These principles include completion of an annual Workforce
Diversity Progress Report and the semi-annual Equal Employment
Opportunity-4 reports for the employment of women, underrepresented
groups, individuals with disabilities, and veterans; communication of the
annual goals to all individuals involved in hiring/promotion activities;
regularly monitoring the progress of achieving diversity goals, and the
active recruitment of employees and volunteers consistent with our
commitment to diversity.
The Mayor has reaffirmed the City of Ithaca’s commitment to diversity in
employment and services: {recent statement, then annual statement
hereafter}
The City of Ithaca’s senior management also recognizes the need to carry
out regular training for supervisory and non-supervisory staff on equal
opportunity, disability and religion accommodation, and workforce
1The term “minority” is based on the language used by the federal government in its equal opportunity
and affirmative action regulations.
2 The term “attribute diversity” is used by Roosevelt Thomas in his book’ Building a House for Diversity.
diversity issues. Success in this area will contribute to role modeling and
mentoring that will create a dynamic and engaging environment.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall be charged with implementing regular training for supervisory and non-
supervisory staff on equal opportunity, disability and religious accommodation, and
work place diversity issues.
2. Attribute: Demonstrated Commitment to Diversity and Inclusiveness
Explanation: The goal is for City of Ithaca employees and volunteers to
value different personal characteristics such as race, sex, national origin,
religion, sexual orientation, and disability status across all formal and
informal organizations, to recognize and respond effectively to differences,
and to identify and remove systemic and historical barriers to the goal of
diversity.
Plan 1: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall act affirmatively with regard to recruitment and retention of
employees and volunteers from diverse backgrounds.
Plan 2: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall make good faith efforts to review and implement programming that is
necessary to ensure that individuals from different religious backgrounds are
included within the work environment.
Plan 3: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall encourage diversity in the recruitment, interview and selection
process.
3. Attribute: Holistic View of City of Ithaca Community Members
Explanation: The City of Ithaca desires that all employees and volunteers
are viewed and respected as whole persons with identities and lives that
extend beyond employment.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall be flexible within organizational culture and address work/life issues.
4. Attribute: Accommodation for Individuals with Disabilities
Explanation: The City of Ithaca recognizes that it is critical to actively
recruit employees and volunteers with disabilities and that disability status
is not to be considered a factor in the denial of employment. The City of
Ithaca is committed to providing opportunities for individuals with
disabilities and recognizes the need for and benefit to offering effective
adaptations in the workplace to eliminate barriers to work performance and
participation. Therefore, the City of Ithaca recognizes the need to
implement a clearly defined and communicated system for addressing
disability accommodations and for providing “user-friendly" documents for
individuals with disabilities, such as employment applications, recruitment
materials, and other official materials. The City of Ithaca also realizes the
need to provide educational programs to employees and volunteers that
promote a better understanding of disability issues and to provide an
opportunity for employees and volunteers to learn communication modes
or languages that advance the inclusion of individuals with disabilities,
such as use of TDD/TTY or American Sign Language.
Plan 1: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall develop a clearly defined and communicated system for addressing
accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
Plan 2: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall implement training for the ADA Coordinators.
Plan 3: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall develop training for department heads and implement guidelines for
department heads to address disability issues.
5. Attribute: Recognition of Organizational Culture and Process
Explanation: The City of Ithaca has established a vision for its desired
organizational culture and will continuously work to align this culture to
support the organizational mission and values and the diversity vision,
including helping people with different views to cooperate together to
achieve these efforts. The City’s senior administration will regularly
assess its culture and how this culture impacts the City of Ithaca’s ability
to achieve its mission and objectives, and to provide guidance for the
organizational behaviors and practices that enhance its values, despite
divergent perspectives. The goal is to encourage organizational norms and
practices that support collaboration, learning from differences, and
incorporating the synthesis of divergent perspectives in decision making.
To achieve this goal, all employees and volunteers commit to respect and
carry out the organizational values through their behaviors and work
practices. This includes seeking to develop leadership capability at all
organizational levels to promote and reinforce these expectations,
providing formal opportunities such as meetings and informational
sessions to allow every member of the City workforce to learn about and to
appreciate stated values and expected behaviors as shared in relevant
documents. The City also desires to provide networking opportunities that
enable members of the workforce to engage in mutually beneficial,
continuous learning regarding their own identities, worldviews, and life
experiences and the impact of these on the culture of the organization.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall develop systems (policies, procedures, rules, regulations, laws, etc.) that
are aligned with City statements (i.e. Diversity Statement, Vision/Mission/Values
Statement, etc.)
6. Attribute: Development and Implementation of Programs to Promote Diversity
and Inclusion
Explanation: The City of Ithaca recognizes that there is benefit to having a
workforce that includes broad based diversity attributes, including race,
ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, sexual orientation including
bisexual employees, veteran status, ex-offender status, as well as other
bases both protected by federal and local law and generally represented in
the community external to the City. Therefore, the goal is for the Human
Resources Department to work with the departments to develop strategic
recruitment plans to aggressively increase the representation of
Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic and Native American employees.
The City also aims to expand the representation of women in non-
traditional positions and to increase outreach to individuals who are
veterans, people with disabilities, gay/lesbian, bisexual, transgender and
individuals of different religious backgrounds throughout the City of Ithaca.
Plan 1: Human Resource personnel would develop relationships with
organizations on a local and national level addressing the employment needs
of these groups to use as recruitment resources.
Plan 2: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall participate in organizations that support employment interest of
individuals of diverse backgrounds or organizations that are committed to
increasing diversity in the community.
7. Attribute: Demonstrated Commitment to Continuous Learning
Explanation: The City of Ithaca recognizes the need to create a flexible
organizational culture that prioritizes continuous, collaborative, cross-
organizational learning. This goal needs to include effective and ongoing
formal and informal educational programs for employees on issues of
discrimination, harassment, and conflict resolution/problem solving. The
educational program should also include skills development programs
through mentoring, newsletters, networking, and community service. The
City’s goal is to employ both a participatory decision-making process that
reflects the value of the input and expertise of employees and an
established system for reflecting upon and learning from positive and
negative experiences and translating this learning into action.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall dedicate the resources, create an inclusive environment and develop
programs designed to retain diverse hires and incorporate diversity education into all
levels of training.
8. Attribute: Access to Opportunity/Succession Planning
Explanation: The City of Ithaca is committed to creating a professionally
nurturing environment in which employees have access to opportunities
for personal and professional growth. The City of Ithaca recognizes the
need to develop and implement formal and informal coaching and
mentoring programs for its employees. To promote an environment for
professional growth, all staff needs annual performance reviews. This
involves developing performance evaluation criteria for individuals in
supervisory roles that include advancement or career development and
demographic tracking of promotions within that supervisory responsibility.
This environment includes holding supervisors and other City of Ithaca
leaders, who have responsibility for performance, achievement and
succession planning within their groups, accountable for professional
development.
Plan: Each department shall develop annual organizational goals
consistent with the mission and goals of the City.
9. Attribute: Systems of Recognition, Acknowledgement, and Reward
Explanation: The City of Ithaca understands the need to recognize and
reward diverse contributions and achievements of all staff and to evaluate,
recognize and reward diverse forms of work excellence and achievements
and to emphasize accountability of those who assess the achievement.
This recognition system needs to provide a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic
benefits.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads shall 1) establish an annual formal performance evaluation/feedback tool that
uses commitment to diversity as a competency for evaluation; 2) highlight and
publicly acknowledge behaviors in newsletters and at council meetings and
exemplify an appreciation for and a commitment to a diverse and inclusive
workforce, and exhibits an ability to enable each individual to add value from her/his
diverse experiences and backgrounds while maximizing their potential; 3) develop a
city-wide incentive program to support diversity related initiatives in the community
(i.e. First Fridays, Diversity Consortium).
10. Attribute: Shared Accountability and Responsibility for City of Ithaca’s
Mission
Explanation: The City of Ithaca recognizes that staff must share
responsibility for upholding organizational values and achieving clear
organizational goals and objectives in a mutually respectful work and
educational environment. Achieving success in creating a diverse and
inclusive work environment rests with all City employees. Therefore, the
City of Ithaca desires to provide orientation for all new employees to
explicitly describe organizational goals and values, and describe and
define the organizational institutional statement on diversity and
inclusiveness. This orientation is not limited to full time employees but
extends to temporary employees, elected officials and volunteers. In
addition, customers and clients, business partners, vendors, suppliers,
subcontractors, and visitors will be advised of the City’s commitment to
diversity and inclusiveness.
Plan 1: The Diversity Plan component will be added to the new employee
orientation program.
Plan 2: The Mayor will reaffirm the City’s commitment to diversity on an annual
basis.
Plan 3: As strategic plans are developed, one part of the plan would include how
departments will meet the overall diversity goals.
11. Attribute: Commitment to Community Partnerships
Explanation: The City of Ithaca recognizes the need to function as a
responsible citizen and neighbor by forging constructive alliances with
local colleges/universities, businesses, neighboring municipalities,
schools, and community-based associations, expanding outreach
to diverse communities, widening opportunities, enhancing access and
promoting understanding to overcome bias and discrimination, and
fostering principles of diversity and inclusion.
Plan 1: The City of Ithaca will continue to have a representative serve on the
Diversity Consortium.
Plan 2: The City will partner with community agencies that support and serve the
needs and interest of individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Plan 3: The City will ensure that, when possible, information is presented in a
way to accommodate different languages and different abilities.
Plan 4: The Mayor and Common Council will monitor policies and decisions to
ensure alignment with the City’s Diversity Statement.
Plan 5: Official documentation will follow National Braille Association’s
recommendation.
Plan 6: The Mayor will issue a proclamation declaring support for the diversity
months.
12. Attribute: Collaborative Conflict Resolution Processes
Explanation: The City of Ithaca recognizes the need for a progressive
conflict resolution procedure that empowers all employees at all levels, and
across all departments to work collaboratively to solve problems, to
resolve interpersonal conflicts, and to achieve mutually satisfying dispute
resolutions. The City of Ithaca ’s goal is to establish a system of
progressive conflict resolution procedures that begins with collaborative
problem solving, encourages exploration of issues from multiple points of
view, and culminates in a clear and accessible grievance process.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and
department heads shall conduct training on conflict resolution and make it
available for all City employees.
13. Attribute: Participatory Work Organization and Processes
Explanation: Work is completed in a collaborative environment where all
individuals are expected to contribute. All those with supervisory
responsibilities shall encourage team involvement.
Plan: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and
department heads shall provide training, including but not limited to, team
building skills, project management skills, dealing with conflict, etc.
14. Attribute: Communication and Information Sharing
Explanation: The City of Ithaca supports the need for systems of
communication and information flow in all directions and across all levels
of responsibility for all employees, including encouraging input into City of
Ithaca policies. Once decisions have been made, the policy decisions will
be communicated clearly to the City of Ithaca workforce and community.
This communication includes informing employees of organizational goals,
operating environments, and expected performance outcomes.
Plan 1: On an annual basis, all those with supervisory responsibilities will at a
minimum provide feedback to individuals on their strengths and developmental
needs and share department goals and objectives.
Plan 2: The City of Ithaca’s Mayor, Common Council, its officers and department
heads will implement the City-wide communications strategy that will take into
account diversity.