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The City Council reviewed an update last week regarding the city’s efforts to develop a sustainable organizational culture that would help create an equitable and inclusive employment environment and make Pleasanton a more desired workplace destination.
The presentation specifically revolved around advancing the city’s diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) program and operationalizing that work by implementing a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Strategic Plan.
“Building a strong foundation of inclusion and belonging is critical to ensure that our city organization is well positioned to attract and retain top talent so that we can continue to deliver the high quality services that we know our community wants and expects,” deputy city manager Alexa Jeffress told the dais on Jan. 16.
“The inclusion of these really organizational focused goals and strategies in our strategic plan, which reflect the broad council staff and community input, really just again reflect how important it is to continuously improve our organization,” she added.
In 2022, the council authorized staff to complete a DEIB study that was customized to look into the specific needs and culture of the city organization. The assessment included surveying staff, holding focus groups and evaluating city policies to identify strengths and challenges regarding the city’s organizational culture.
Those study assessment findings and series of recommendations were then used to develop a DEI Strategic Plan, which was included in the city’s 2019-20 priorities work plan. The development of the DEI plan was put on pause due to the pandemic but restarted in 2022.
“I remember during our listening sessions in 2020, a lot of requests from community members asking us what DEI programs were being done and what we had planned. So this being on council priority really came from our community,” Vice Mayor Julie Testa said during the meeting.
“It took a while to get to it and I’m glad we’re getting it done,” added Testa, who led the night’s meeting with Mayor Karla Brown absent in Washington, D.C. “I think there’s a lot of value that comes from it and I do look forward to seeing how it then grows more into our community as well.”
Jeffress said that the DEI assessment and planning effort included input from an interdepartmental team that had more than 20 members from all city departments and was meant to serve as a comprehensive effort that reflects the input of the entire city workforce.
The DEIB work, she added, advances several key strategies in the city’s five-year ONE Pleasanton Strategic Plan by developing employee recruitment and retention strategies to “position the city of Pleasanton as an employer of choice for the region and expanding our efforts around onboarding professional development and performance management.”
Lamont Browne, a consultant who specializes in DEI work with his firm Triangle Advising Group, went over his work over the past year to advance the implementation of a DEI strategic plan and why this work is critical for the city to continue pursuing.
“Any diversity, equity, inclusion work is really to ensure that every staff member feels like they can be their authentic selves, which helps them be their best selves at work, which obviously is going to help the community, help their peers, help their teams and help the city really be the best they can be and truly an employer of choice throughout the region,” Browne said.
He also stressed the difference between equality and equity, saying that equality gives everyone the same opportunities while equity gives people what they need to be successful. He also said that equity isn’t just about race or gender; it is about a range of attributes applicable to people being able to be their best selves in the community and at work.
As for the actual work of implementing a DEI strategic plan, Browne said that the DEIB assessment was focused on internal staff and that he and his team spoke with more than 150 staff members throughout the process of gathering input and creating an action plan.
From all of the assessments and discussions, four main priorities were identified, which would be implemented into the strategic plan.
Those are embedding a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in the fabric of all city of Pleasanton work; creating and implementing a comprehensive DEI training plan with participation from all staff members; strengthening talent recruitment, selection, development and retention; and aligning external facing work with the city’s DEI mission core values and strategic plan.
“When you have a strong culture, it is easy to hire people, it’s easy to hold on to people,” Browne said. The opposite is also true. If you don’t have a strong culture, if people don’t feel valued, if people don’t feel like they can be their best selves at work, regardless of who they are, people won’t want to apply to work.”
Councilmember Jack Balch’s comments during the meeting revolved around hiring and retention, as he said the council should prioritize looking into specific needs current or prospective staff might have like housing affordability, childcare and any other barriers that might be out of the city’s control.
“Looking at recruitment and retention and the other barriers or challenges that achieving these results, and having a diversified workforce, typically comes down to the challenges people face in real life,” Balch said.
“Whether that’s being a single parent or not childcare, long commutes, affordable housing, sufficient adequate school resources after school care, things of that nature that I think that are within the purview of our land use policies of this city as well as budgeting and priority decisions … we should have an eye on (those) because they’re more systemic, in my opinion, that haven’t been able to be achieved,” Balch added.
Browne said that is why staff are working on developing a progress dashboard sometime in the spring so that they can tackle the most important goals one at a time and that the most important first steps will be developing DEI and DEIB task forces and having them identify what next steps the city wants to take to make sure that action plan becomes operationalized.
City Manager Gerry Beaudin said that as they move forward, there will be things within the city’s control and things outside of its control but right now, looking inward and making sure staff are comfortable in their positions is a crucial first step in being able to better serve the overall community.
“The market is shifting dramatically,” Beaudin said. “So culture and a sense of belonging, and that team camaraderie is going to be ever more important.”
He also said that the city wants to fairly pay people and have a workplace culture where everyone feels like they belong to a collaborative team.
“It’s not it’s not just about race; there’s so many factors that you can consider when thinking about belonging in an organization,” Beaudin said. “What I really want our employees to hear and our community to hear is when we’re thinking in this way, we’re delivering the services, programs and work that we do in our community at a higher level and meeting people’s needs meeting people where they are.”
