A Valued and Proud Service-Force: How Kannapolis Built Theirs

The institutional knowledge that streams through local government buildings is essential to the continuum of great public service. Government workers who’ve accrued career experience and wisdom are able to enrich newer generations of employees. That is, if it’s a workplace that lures and supports employee longevity, which many public employers have found challenging.

While private-sector employers can lure quality job seekers with any manner of perks, governments and public resources are easy to scrutinize toward limitations, which can afect employees, their connections to the work they do, and eforts to fll vacancies. At the same time, what applicants are looking for in their employers is a moving target; these days, it isn’t necessarily just about salary and health insurance.

“I think what’s so important is employees recognize when you want them to stay and grow in the organization,” said Heather James, the human resources director for the City of Kannapolis. More and more, municipalities are exercising steady eforts to understand and deliver what workers most appreciate now, with Kannapolis among them. Subsequently, Kannapolis's local government enjoys a remarkably low vacancy rate—hovering around two percent

“I think, overall, recruitment and retention is really difcult for local government,” said James, whose city has roughly 400 full-time employees and another 220 working part-time. Leaders there have been careful to preserve the marathon mentality, as opposed to the sprint, to build the kind of work environment that does lure and keep talented workers, enriching that base of dependable, institutional knowledge.

“I think the key is having support from elected ofcials in funding initiatives to keep folks, and funding to keep pay competitive in the public sector market,” James said. And though the word “funding” might fairly inspire scrutiny for frugality, what Kannapolis has seen suggests that it’s cheaper and more efcient to fund a magnetic workplace than deal with the turnover slog.

Numbers from the City of Kannapolis show how they’ve covered the pay component, with, among other things, the creation of a “developmental pay” policy over 2020-2024 that enabled new hires and longevity employees to receive percentages each year following successful evaluations. This has helped build the city’s compensation up to market levels.

Now meeting those levels, they’ve removed that policy, with its fxed-date annual reviews, to focus instead on a “pay . for performance” system. They’ve modernized training for supervisors and managers and have structured how they help their teams succeed today and grow into interesting careers. New-hire orientation isn’t just the old sit-down with bosses and immediate co-workers; Kannapolis has worked hard to make an event of fully welcoming people to the job with engaging frstimpressions, including bus tours of the area and a well-produced video (hosted by City Manager Mike Legg, who notes he’s enjoyed his diferent roles with Kannapolis’ government since he began in the mid 1990s) that essentially thanks and expresses excitement for recruits regarding the valuable work ahead of them. Good performance is honored through in-person feedback and staf communications, like their employee-focused newsletter, which has a high open rate. City Hall and other local government sites (like police and fre stations) include modern gymnasiums, among other kinds of amenities in the government space (like sports and events facilities) that employees can access. They also express it together as for the greater good; James said Mayor Darrell Hinnant routinely praises employees for their “service,” elevating the feeling from colder “job” acknowledgements that can make people feel like they’re merely doing what’s expected.

James noted the power of elected ofcials’ backing in this. “If your elected ofcials are supportive of your employees, the employees feel like, ‘I can do this job, and I’m doing it for the greater good,’” she said. “I think it takes a special person to be called to public service.”

As the details are specifc to Kannapolis, James during an interview about her city’s HR policies and values, was quick to recognize the diversity of resources that diferent governments of diferent sizes around North Carolina might have to ofer. But she noted generally the scalability of eforts to show appreciation and reward, looking at recruitment holistically, beyond the elemental pay-and-insurance piece.

Ultimately, taking the time to learn about and keep an environment meant to maintain talent and knowledge in government —although the standards may move with time—is demonstrably worth it.

“It’s so much cheaper to fund the initiative on the front end than deal with the turnover on the back end,” she said.