It’s our pleasure to be a resource answering questions that come to us. What I’ve found is that often the questions are similar so it led to this idea to share the questions and answers here as they might be relevant to what you’re going through now, too.
Check this one out from a City Manager in Iowa. If you have a question, email it to info@PeopleService.com. If your question is selected for this enewsletter, we will send you a cup of poo. Well, not really “poo” but a coffee mug and poo emoji.
We are currently using a competitor of yours for our water and wastewater operations. For a variety of reasons, we are looking at our options as we approach renewal. In our discussions, maintaining current staff has been brought up repeatedly as we like them, and they are a part of our community. What does PeopleService do in these instances concerning existing staff if we issued an RFP and you were awarded the contract?
Excellent question and I appreciate how you value the existing staff. I’ll first state that at PeopleService we are not in the business of kicking folks to the streets. As you know, we value people and prefer to hire existing staff when applicable. Shooting straight: this will be an emotional rollercoaster for the staff. There will be fears and anxieties which is normal. Understanding this, if PeopleService was awarded the contract, we would meet with existing staff as soon as possible. Even while the contract is being ironed out, we would want to meet with the staff to keep the ball rolling. When working with communities with larger staffs, we find a place, such as a hotel, rent the conference room for a week to meet with everyone outside of their shifts – all at our expense. Our goal is to communicate the PeopleService values, culture and benefits. We encourage existing staff members to apply for the open positions and do our best to secure the staff as soon as we can.
In our experience and candidly, it’s rare that everyone will come over, but what’s important is to identify the right people for your system and to give everyone the opportunity to know their next steps as soon as possible. Fear does a lot of things. Some folks will jump ship early, whereas the more experienced folks understand that this is all part of the business. If we can secure a staff early, then we know what holes we need to fill and have them filled by the start of the contract. Whether the employees are from another contract management company or if they are city employees, we value people and understand the human impact of these decisions. This is why we do all we can to identify the very best to meet the terms of our commitment to the community – and to ease the fears and anxieties of all as fast and as compassionately as possible.
Chris McMillen
Director of Sales
PeopleService Inc.