A hiring and training model to build a diverse government employee base

Abstract

City government organizations located in large urban areas have experienced difficulty in recruiting and hiring diverse populations that reflect the community populations being served. The population is not prepared to assume responsible professional positions within those organizations. Across the nation, an employment goal of city and government organizations is to develop and retain a diverse workforce that reflects the community being served. City and government organizations have attempted a multitude of recruiting strategies to achieve diversity in the employment setting. Ethnically diverse populations living within communities studied desire and have demanded a meaningful stake and active participation in the decision making, management and administration in governance in the communities where they reside. A key hiring constraint facing the large diverse cities studied is reflected in nationwide data pertaining to high school graduation rates of diverse student population residing in these cities. In a report on nationwide graduation rates, diverse populations residing with the cities studied have graduation rates of approximately fifty percent for African American and Latino students. Proactive laws and policies such as "Affirmative Action" were developed as an attempt to influence societal practice to achieve community reflective goals and outcomes and assure equality to community access, housing, education and employment. The passage of constitutional amendment or legislative act will not alone assure cultural change in attitudes and practices that negatively impact disaffected populations. This study will review hiring, population and educational data for diverse populations that is focused on government employment in six (6) major cities throughout the United States. This study will identify and examine government employment hiring disparity that exists for ethnically diverse populations that reside within the cities studied. It will also examine the benefits and successes of an existing pilot hiring model, developed in the City of Minneapolis, which facilitates diversity in hiring. This study suggests that the existing Minneapolis model could be duplicated in government settings throughout the country. This study also suggests that the developed model, if implemented, could identify, prepare, recruit, select and place culturally and ethnically diverse groups of persons into responsible government employment opportunities and thereby overcome the existing identified hiring constraints.