Human Resources
Mission statement
To attract and engage the best workforce to serve our community.
Human Resources team members demonstrate the following professional qualities, competencies and behaviors:
- Strategic. Provide people strategies in alignment with the City’s vision and goals.
- Talent-driven. Recruit and retain great people to the City and help employees do their best work.
- Partners. Work hand in hand with leaders by providing innovative, value-added Human Resource solutions.
- Ethical and Respectful. Create policies, practices and processes designed to promote equity and fairness in employee decisions.
Our people
Programs and divisions
Purpose and context
The Minneapolis Human Resource Department (HR) spent time in 2021 to focus on our guiding principles. HR’s new guiding principles are:
- Champion Equity.
- Employee Health and Wellbeing.
- Leverage Technology and Data.
- Employer of Choice.
HR’s new guiding principles will guide our work and will be used to focus on the change initiatives we have outlined in our budget requests and our focus on projects going forward.
The purpose of the department is to strategically lead the Human Resource functions for the enterprise in an ethically and professionally and to support the other divisions within HR as needed.
Services provided
The Administration division supports and ensures compliance for many internal services including:
- ADH and R – Investigates all complaints regarding potential violations of the policy.
- Civil Service Commission (CSC) – The CSC ensures there is a fair and effective merit-based system for personnel administration as provided in the City Charter. Administration staff supports and responds to appeals and requests per CSC rules.
- COOP HR Enterprise Plan – Manages, updates and is the subject matter expect for the plan.
- Enterprise Policies – Updates, creates, and maintains enterprise HR policies. Some of these policies currently include; Alternative Work Arrangements, ADH&R, Background ChecksoDrug and Alcohol Testing (Reasonable Suspicion), Drug and Alcohol Testing (Pre-Employment) , Leaves of Absence
- Support for Strategic Racial Equity Action Plan – Provides data for the enterprise specific to strategic goals to create a workforce reflective of the community it serves. We provide enterprise employee workforce data and analysis to help with decision making on equity and inclusions policy decisions.
- Data requests – Respond to personnel data requests as required by the Minnesota Data Practices Act.
Race equity impacts
The Administration division focuses on many specific and strategic initiates for racial equity impacts in the enterprise. The division provides data, direction and a push for hiring and recruitment towards reaching the SREAP goal of the workforce reflecting the community it serves. The ADH&R complaints and investigations are followed up and completed in a professional manner. The CSC ensure a venue for appeals when employees need an independent review. The Administration division provides support and an infrastructure for HR initiatives impacting race equity within the enterprise.
Purpose and context
Business Partner Solutions (BPS) supports the City's goals and values by ensuring effective, value added, human resource services that align and support business objectives through collaboration and strategic partnership with City leaders. Services are focused on attracting, retaining, leading, and managing the City’s increasingly diverse workforce.
Services provided
Business Partner Solutions (BPS) provides City departments with qualified candidates to fill vacant positions. BPS helps recruit, select, and certify candidates so the City can hire, promote, and retain a highly qualified, culturally diverse workforce. BPS determines seniority, layoff and bumping sequences and ensures compliance with Civil Service Commission Rules and Charter provisions. The Human Resource Business Partners implement HR initiatives throughout the organization and act as internal consultants. Staff work closely with department managers to provide solutions to human resource issues while ensuring consistent application of policies and practices; works with departments on compliance-related matters.
The Business Partner Solutions (BPS) division manages relationships with each department within the City to ensure consistent, equitable, and efficient implementation of policies, procedures, rules, and practices. The BPS division encourages each recruitment process to look at the equity impacts of hiring for the enterprise. The ultimate hiring decision is that of each department and BPS works for equitable outcomes. The HR Department requires hiring panels be trained in unconscious bias under the leadership of BPS staff. The division works diligently for positive equity impacts and outcomes for the enterprise. A 2020 and 2021 priority for BPS is work on Trans Equity. The focus is on recruitment, onboarding, benefits and workplace experience. BPS staff sought input from the City’s Trans Equity Council and employees on these priorities. BPS staff will continue this work and focus on workgroups in 2021.
Purpose and context
The purpose of the Labor Relations Division is to develop a comprehensive and enterprise focused approach to labor relations. This approach includes long term strategies to achieve City goals while fostering positive relationships with the labor unions that represent the City’s unionized workforce.
The Labor Relations Division focuses on the following services:
- Negotiating collective bargaining agreements (contracts).
- Responding to grievances.
- Contract administration and interpretation.
- Labor management committees.
Services provided
- Collective Bargaining Negotiations – Negotiates terms and conditions of employment of 22 collective bargaining agreements focusing on maintaining management rights and the long-term goals of the City enterprise while being fiscally responsible and considering Department needs.
- Contract Interpretation – Interprets and provides direction to staff on details of labor agreements.
- Grievance Process – Reviews grievances appealed by the unions to ensure compliance with contract provisions and discipline processes.
Race equity impacts
The Labor Relations Division impacts race equity by working towards the equitable treatment of employees in the following ways: interpretation of collective bargaining agreement language, reviewing grievances for consistent treatment of employees by management, advocating for recognition and support of equity initiatives with the City’s labor partners, and providing leadership in the development of new racial equity contract language. The division has negotiated the inclusion of racial equity language into many of the labor agreements. . Labor Relations will continue to strive to make collective bargaining agreement language more inclusive as well as advocate for equity impacts during each contract negotiation.
Purpose and context
The Learning and Development Solutions Division's mission is to transform the City into an enterprise that values and prioritizes ongoing development. We help City employees engage in continuous learning to optimize performance.
Our team of Human Resource Development professionals offers a range of services, including consultation, program design, facilitation, and measurement. To align with City values and priorities, we hold up the lens of equity to every program and service we offer.
Services provided
Learning and Development Solutions (LDS) - Learning and Development Solutions helps City employees develop their knowledge and skills to accomplish the City’s key strategic initiatives while growing their careers. We engage and retain employees by offering a variety of programs and services, including:
- Leadership Development – LDS provides leadership development for all staff within the enterprise from the top level to the frontline.
- Perform Minneapolis – Performance appraisals and annual evaluations process.
- Learning and development – Provide mandatory and voluntary programs for all employees at each juncture of the employee lifecycle, including customized programs based on City priorities and the needs of individual staff, and mandatory programs on essential policies and expected practices.
- New employee orientation and onboarding – Orient new employees to the City as their employer. Includes an overview of the City’s mission and strategic priorities, structure and functions within the City, the City’s workplace culture and expectations for employees.
- Change management - Change management incorporates tools and practices to help individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the successful adoption and realization of change. Our change management consultation and services are offered in partnership with the change sponsor/champion.
- Organization development - a planned, structured, outcome-driven set of programs, conversations or activities designed to increase organization effectiveness and healthy functioning. Includes needs analysis, consultation, brief coaching, and design, development, and delivery of a custom programmatic intervention.
- Employee engagement - Employee engagement measurement, programs, and tools, including our MyMinneapolis Mini employee engagement survey.
- Succession planning, workforce planning, and knowledge management – This service consists of consultation and facilitation to departments as they plan and document the future state of their workforce.
Race equity impacts
The Learning and Development Solutions (LDS) divisions provide programming to increase cultural agility and intercultural development for leaders and staff at all levels of the enterprise. LDS looks to continue shaping the development and learning of all employees to more equitable outcomes in the services the City provides. The following learning opportunities incorporate diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) into their content.
Purpose and context
Total Compensation Solutions administers benefits and compensation and ensures compliance with state, federal, and city-specific laws, ordinances and requirements.
Services provided
- Benefits – Develops, designs and administers competitive, equitable and affordable employee benefits plans including: Medical, Dental, Flexible Spending Accounts/HRA VEBA, Life Insurance, Long-Term Disability Insurance and Employee Assistance program; communicates benefit plan information to employees, Administers Family and medical leave, COBRA, and Sick Leave Donation program.
- Human Resource Technology - Provides HR technology for the enterprise, including HR system implementation and maintenance , strategy and application security; maintaining employee data; employee reporting; manager and employee self-service; time keeping; benefit plan maintenance; position management; electronic employee records; application security; and HR system training.
- Employee Wellness and Wellbeing – Develops and implements initiatives for City of Minneapolis employees so they can lead healthier lives, improve productivity, and reduce health care costs. The initiatives focus on the greatest areas of risk: nutrition, physical activity, stress and mental wellbeing and weight.
- Classification - Maintains descriptions of all City jobs, including job duties, minimum requirements, and qualifications. Properly evaluates and classifies new positions and evaluates existing positions to ensure grade assignments for all job classifications accurately reflect relative knowledge, decisions and actions, supervisory responsibilities, relationships, working conditions and effort.
- Compensation – Provides salary analysis and administration; updates and maintains salary schedules; assigns appropriate salary structures to job classifications; determines compensation for employees in jobs that are reclassified; conducts pay equity audits and addresses areas of concern; and consults with HR and managers regarding compensation related matters.
Race equity impacts
The Total Compensation Solutions division focuses on required compliance for compensation and classification. Classification ensures positions are valued relative to each other based on objective criteria. It also responds to appeals to the Civil Service Commission. Compensation ensures internal pay equity for all classification in the City.
Purpose and context
The HR Self Insurance Fund is a single-employer, self-insured medical plan reserve fund that collects revenues and provides resources to pay for medical claims and related claims and plan administration expenses for employees and their covered dependents. The Fund includes provision for the employee wellness program and stop-loss insurance for protection against large claims and allowances to establish adequate claim reserves. Fund dollars are used solely for expenses related to the employee medical plan.
2022 Mayor's Recommended change items
Human Resources - Core Service Rebuilding
Program: Total Compensation, Administration, Learning and Development Solutions
Fund: General
FTE: 0
Proposal detail and background
The Mayor recommends adding $95,854 ongoing to the Human Resource budget to build capacity in various divisions of the department that will assist with job classification, labor relations, data analysis, an additional MyMinneapolis survey (employee engagement), and trans equity work for the enterprise.
Job Classification ($20,000)
To mitigate the economic impacts that COVID-19 had on City Revenues HR laid off two positions and had two positions frozen in the 2021 budget. These budget reductions meant HR had to reassign positions, to critical needs areas such as Anti-Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation (ADH&R) investigations. The reassignments created capacity needs in our classification and compensation service area where we have seen significant increases in service needs. Class maintenance studies, which are required by collective bargaining agreements, and job analysis questionnaires (projected to see a 50% increase compared to 2019) have been delayed. In 2021 HR hired a consultant to help with this work and will need additional help in 2022.
Labor Relations & Data Analysis ($35,854)
HR has had two labor relations directors leave in the past year. The City is currently in negotiations with the Minneapolis Police Federation and we have contracted with the top labor negotiator in Minnesota to help with this process and provide advice to our labor relations team as we negotiate agreements. The cost for this consultant may be up to $50,000 for 2021 and possibly more for 2022.
The HR department provides enterprise employment data. Currently, the City is experiencing a large increase in data requests on employee information. This includes requests from the media, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights review, the Justice Department review e.t.c. This work goes to the data analyst in HR and we need additional capacity to do enterprise data analysis.
Employee Engagement & Trans Equity Work ($40,000)
Employee engagement is a needed priority for HR and the enterprise currently. HR cut funding to complete two (2) MyMinneapolis mini-surveys for 2021. We need to engage, get feedback, and listen to our employees now more than ever. Adding funding for one (1) mini-survey will provide data to help the enterprise respond to employee concerns. HR also needs funding to continue the trans equity work that was paused because of budget reductions. This is a priority for the HR department and a need to provide resources, training, and leadership on this priority issue.
Description of the change
Job classification
HR will add $20,000 to the general fund line item of professional services for the Total Compensation Division. This funding will be used to hire consultants to assist with classification, job maintenance studies, and job analysis questionnaires.
Labor relations & data analysis
HR will add $35,854 to the general fund line item of professional services for the Administration Division. This would be used to cover the costs for outside advice and consulting on labor relations and for additional data analytics work.
Employee engagement & trans equity work
HR will add $40,000 to the general fund line item of professional services for the Learning and Development Division. This funding will be used to cover the costs of adding one additional employee engagement survey and to continue our trans equity work.
Equity impacts and results
The City of Minneapolis is in a delicate position with employees and it is important to listen, take feedback, and follow-through. This holds especially true for our BIPOC employees and as an employer, we need to listen and respond. Trans people are under attack in our country with many laws being passed targeting them. Minneapolis is a leader on this issue, and we need to continue our equity work for trans people.
Having the capacity to complete classification studies to ensure all people are paid fairly will have an equitable impact on women and people of color. Human resources were impacted with capacity for classifications and reassigning of employees to cover other compliance functions. Providing additional funding will provide some capacity helps to ensure staff is paid fairly.
The City of Minneapolis is negotiating a contract with the Minneapolis Police Federation. There are many items that could help impact the equity of policing in the City of Minneapolis during this negotiation. Providing this funding will provide funding for expert advice on negotiation strategy for the best equitable outcome possible for the negotiation process.
The result of the adoption of this change item would be a small increase and help in the capacity needs for compliance-related (classification & compensation) and labor contract negotiations. Results would also include analysis work to provide data on enterprise goals such as the HR nine-block for departments allowing them to focus on data. It will increase the training and work for trans equity within our City giving employees and departments additional resources for this work. We would also add more specific data on employee engagement so the enterprise can respond and change to our employee's needs.
Human Resources - Anti-Discrimination Harassment and Retaliation (ADH&R) Re-organization
Program: Administration
Fund: General
FTE: 1
Proposal detail and background
The Mayor recommends adding $120,060 to the Human Resource, Administration Division to hire a HR Investigations Specialist & upgrade the Manager of Investigations position to an appointed position, to supports the needs of the ADH&R function in the City.
HR contracted with a consultant to study the role and review the investigative capacity needs of an organization the size of Minneapolis in 2019. The recommendation included adding one (1) administrative support position to help organize, schedule, communicate, and follow up with supporting this work. Additionally, the number of ADH&R complaints and investigations have increased by 60% in the past two (2) years. HR believes creating an appointed/director level position will ensure an equal playing field while conducting sensitive investigations potentially involving enterprise leadership. This position would also be responsible for new responsibilities including ethics and fraud investigations.
Description of the change
This change to an existing function would help HR meet state, federal and city compliance requirements, and show how seriously the City of Minneapolis responds to complaints of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and ethics violations. There are currently two (2) positions in the HR investigations unit, an investigator, and the investigations manager. Ethics and fraud investigations would overlap with both the City Attorney and Internal Audit departments and HR would partner with them on investigations. We are proposing adding an HR Investigations Specialist and upgrading the manager of investigations to a director level/appointed position. HR would like to implement this change in 2022 with the approval of the budget. This would require additional funding in the HR budget of the administrative staff, for 2022. To upgrade the Manager of Investigations to a Director level would require $18,149 to the personnel budget and $101,627 for the HR Investigations Specialist position.
Equity impacts and results
This change will ensure the City of Minneapolis continues to comply with all federal, state, and local requirements regarding complaints concerning bias towards protected class in a timely manager. This change will add credibility to the City as an honest step towards responding to complaints of bias and show support for staff who may feel they aren’t heard when they file a complaint.
The result of the adoption of this change would allow for quicker, and potentially, more effective ADH&R investigations in response to complaints from employees. Additionally, it would expand investigations into ethics and fraud complaints in partnership with the City Attorney’s and Internal Auditor’s office—as well as provide more enterprise-wide leadership accountability by identifying systemic issues that need to be addressed and corrected. HR believes this change will help to stabilize the required compliance related work for the City and be a commitment towards the seriousness we view ADH&R complaints.
Human Resources - Metamorphosis Leadership Development
Program: Learning and Development
Fund: General
Proposal Frequency: One-time
FTE: 0
Proposal detail and background
The Mayor recommends adding $120,000 on a one-time basis to the Learning and Development Division to develop and implement a required program for top-level City administrators, designed to help create an anti-racist internal City culture.
In 2020, Minneapolis declared racism a public health emergency. Combating it should be our top investment priority – both externally with Minneapolis communities and internally, as an employer. To be successful in providing true systemic change, City leaders must have the skills, capacity, and passion to deliver what our communities and elected officials are requiring. Without all three elements, the City will continue to perpetuate harm against our communities, especially people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Asian-Pacific Islander, Latinx, and other people of color.
In listening sessions with employees from across the organization, it was clear that culture change is required internally as well as externally. Many employees reported a work culture that fails to actively value them or their contributions, and that dismisses their ideas and concerns about equity and inclusion. With few exceptions, employee engagement survey results are middling to low in the items relating to equity and inclusion. Department head-level turnover has significantly increased in the last year. Complaints of harassment and discrimination and investigations have increased. Significant stressors due to community unrest have de-stabilized our workforce. All these data points are clearly indicating that our workforce is traumatized and struggling to heal itself. This trauma is invariably impacting Minneapolis residents, businesses, and visitors as well.
Centering the voices of those who are impacted, especially voices of culture, in this budgeting process is an act of dismantling white supremacy. The City of Minneapolis should expect all leaders to be capable of enacting changes that advance equity and the commitment to overturning the harm of racism.
Description of the change
For the past several months, the Learning and Development division within the HR Department has been facilitating a discussion with a diverse group of City leaders around how to better support employees by creating an anti-racist internal City culture. This work has led to the development of the Metamorphosis learning program for which the group is now requesting ongoing funding in the amount of $120,000. The program consists of dedicated investments for:
- Individual work: Assessments, learning goals and culturally based executive coaching
- Cohort-based work: Learning partners and immersive learning
- Department-level work: Outside training and immersive experiences that are customized to meet the needs of individual departments
The City would also create accountability metrics for leaders based on the program. The metrics would be incorporated into the leader’s annual performance evaluation.
Equity impacts and results
System change requires leadership that is committed, skilled and has credibility within the affected communities. Investment in this program is an investment in the anti-racist system change and workplace culture we want in place along with creating a level of accountability to dismantling racism and white supremacy.
Making senior leader behaviors and skills an explicit expectation, and providing learning and support to attain them, are key levers in creating the equitable and anti-racist workplace culture we desire. We also anticipate indirect impacts from this programming, including more favorable employee feedback in future listening sessions, increased engagement measures in future employee surveys and a reduction in turnover of leaders and employees who bring much needed diversity to our City workforce.
Human Resources
Expense and revenue information
General Fund expenses
Special Revenue Fund expenses
Internal Service Fund expenses
Special Revenue Fund revenues
Internal Service Fund revenues
Human Resources
Expense and revenue visualizations
Human Resources staffing information
See detailed information on department staffing in Schedule 5