Leisure Services Temporary Employee Recruitment & Hiring UpdateCity of Dubuque
City Council Meeting
Action Items # 04.
Copyrighted
April 17, 2023
ITEM TITLE: Leisure Services Temporary Employee Recruitment & Hiring Update
SUMMARY: City Manager providing an update on the recruitment and hiring of
temporary staff with the Leisure Services Department.
SUGGESTED Suggested Disposition: Receive and File
DISPOSITION:
ATTACHMENTS:
Description
MVM Memo
Staff Memo
Type
City Manager Memo
Staff Memo
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TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
SUBJECT: Leisure Services Temporary Employee Recruitment & Hiring Update
DATE: April 12, 2023
Leisure Services Manager Marie Ware is providing an update on the recruitment and
hiring of Temporary staff with the Leisure Services Department.
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Mic ael C. Van Milligen
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Attachment
CC' Crenna Brumwell, City Attorney
Cori Burbach, Assistant City Manager
Marie Ware, Leisure Services Manager
THE CITY OF
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Masterpiece are the Mississippi
TO: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
FROM: Marie L. Ware, Leisure Services Manager
Dubuque
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SUBJECT: Leisure Services Temporary Employee Recruitment & Hiring Update
DATE: April 12, 2023
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this memorandum is to provide an update on the recruitment and hiring
of Temporary staff with the Leisure Services Department.
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Since 2019, the park and recreation industry began to notice a decline in seasonal
staffing. This decline was accelerated once the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the spring of
2020. Due to the pandemic, Leisure Service Department operations and programs in
the summer of 2020 (especially in the Recreation Division) were either frozen, altered or
cancelled all together offering extremely limited job opportunities for the community. The
Park Division temporary position hiring was frozen.
The total number of seasonal positions needed to operate the Leisure Services
Department at full capacity is currently 244 along with 59 AmeriCorps members. Over
the past 2 summer seasons (2021 and 2022), the Leisure Services Department has
struggled to fill these summer positions. The Department was only able to fill 50% of
the needed temporary workforce in 2021 and 72% in 2022. This decrease in the
needed workforce has resulted in the altering of program offerings and services. The
most recent, high -profile impact to the community was the inability to open both pools
for this past summer.
These challenges resulted in the City Council 2022-2024 High Priority goal of Sutton
Pool Staffing and Operational Needs. In a true collaborative effort, the Leisure Services
staff along with the Public Information Office and Human Resource Departments
worked to develop a recruitment strategy as well as to improve onboarding processes to
make the hiring process more efficient and engaging for the prospective employees.
Additional funding was provided for advertising and marketing efforts in the community.
DISCUSSION
The recruitment efforts have been much stronger than the last two years and much
earlier. The multitude of advertising methods has generated an increase in community
awareness of job offerings resulting in the Department receiving applications early in the
process and significantly higher in quantity based on the last couple of seasons. The
improved onboarding process with the help of the Human Resource Department has
also allowed supervisory staff to engage the prospective temporary employees earlier in
the process. This has resulted in the return of position acceptance letters much earlier
than any other years prior. Overall, the Leisure Services Department is seeing a return
on this recruitment investment. As of April 11, 2023 the department has received 367
applications for the 237 open temporary positions. The following chart provides a
summary of the current data.
Classification Position
Leaders
2023 Season
Number of (Accepted Remaining
Staff for Full Current Apps Offers To Staff to
Operation 4/11/2023 Date) Recruit/Offer
Pool Manager
6
10
6
0
Marina Manager
2
6
1
1
Concessions Manager
1
1
1
0
Playground Coordinator
1
2
1
0
Tennis Coordinator
1
1
1
0
Assist Golf Pro
1
1
1
0
Assist Golf Operations
1
4
1
0
Park Patrol
3
10
3
0
Direct Impact
Lifeguard
80
84
62
18
Playground Leader
40
38
24
16
Tennis Instructor
6
3
2
4
Neighborhood Rec & Roll / Site Supervisor
6
11
6
0
Customer Service
Pool Cashier
6
16
4
2
Concessions - Pool
8
23
7
1
Concessions - McAleece
4
10
4
0
Temp Clerical Assistant
1
0
1
Toll Booth
4
28
3
1
Dock Attendant
14
12
6
8
Pro Shop Staff
6
26
3
3
Snackbar Staff
12
6
1
11
Labor
Ballfield Laborer
3
3
3
Pool Laborer
2
5
2
Golf Laborer
6
19
6
0
Parks Groundskeeper
15
21
10
5
Landscape Crew Member
5
14
2
3
Forestry Laborer
2
8
2
Sanitation Driver
1
5
1
0
Total
237
367
156
81
2
For each position, the full complement of staff needed is based on operational needs
and/or staff availability (meaning how many hours they are available to work in a pay
period). A change in operational needs or that availability can alter the needed staffing
levels. As an example, a lifeguard could be scheduled for 40 hours a week but if the
candidate is only available 20 hours per week it would take two people to fill that one
lifeguard position.
The "accepted offers.." column represents those applicants who have been interviewed,
moved forward into the offer process, and have responded with a signed offer letter
which then starts the background check and other onboarding processes through the
Human Resources Department. This does not account for any offer letters that have
been sent but not returned, nor any verbal commitment from prospective employees.
From conversations with the supervisory staff, each position highlighted in green in the
chart above will confidently have a full complement of staff based on their interactions
with the applicants in their prospective programs.
While the total application numbers look high, there is still a lot of work to do to fill many
critical positions. The chart shows great needs remain for playground leaders, tennis
instructors, golf snack bar staff, marina dock attendants, parks groundskeepers,
landscape crew members and forestry laborers. We cannot and are not letting up on
our recruitment efforts and need continued assistance from the entire community to
meet our goals. Not every person who applies for a position ends up being hired. The
goal in recruitment is to recruit as many applicants as possible to ensure that all
positions can be filled.
Recruitment does have its challenges in this tight job market. Through the interview
process as an example, parks staff has only been able to hire 10 parks groundskeepers
and 0 forestry laborers. They have exhausted the applicant pool listed as 21 and 8
respectively as they have completed interviews, had no shows to interviews, and have
had offers not accepted. This means that the recruitment push has to renew again as
the applicant pool is reset to 0.
This list also does not contain the recruitment numbers for AmeriCorps. Currently there
are 22 AmeriCorps member positions that need filled for the summer. As of today there
are only 3 accepted offers accepted, 2 offers out to the applicant, and 3 offers in the
process of background checks. This currently leaves a great gap in filling the
AmeriCorps positions this summer.
Staff continues to work closely with the Public Information Office and Human Resource
Departments to recruit and onboard for the remaining positions which need additional
applicants. We thank them for their extra efforts that have assisted us to date. It is truly
a team effort to achieve the goal of full staffing.
3
RECOMMENDATION
The purpose of this memorandum is to provide an update on the recruitment and hiring
of temporary staff with the Leisure Services Department and is for information purposes
only.
Memo prepared by: Dan Kroger, Recreation Division Manager
cc: Shelley Stickfort, Director of Human Resources
Randy Gehl, Public Information Officer
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