TYLER, Texas — The City of Tyler provides training and certification to city employees, but the city has seen an increase of employees leaving after they're trained.
"So once they're trained, developed and they have these certifications we're finding that we're losing them to competing cities," said ReNissa Wade, the City of Tyler managing director. "The city has been suffering actually I guess for lack of a better word from the loss of great talent."
On Wednesday, the city council unanimously approved a contract with Springsted Inc. to conduct a classification and compensation study.
"It'll help the city to really analyze what we already have, what works well for us, where we're actually lacking, and be able to implement strategies to maintain and retain employees," Wade explained.
The city previously did this study in 2010, but because of a lack of funds was not able to implement the results until three years later.
"However, we really didn't build in the retention process," said Wade. "And so we're really going to focus on on-boarding, actively engaging and retaining employees with this one."
The classification and compensation study will take place from three to six months. During that time titles of city employees will be reviewed.
"And the amount that we pay as well as any other benefits that we offer to just see where we are in competitiveness to our other surrounding areas," she said. "As well as taking into consideration how we can maintain it for the future."
Unlike in 2010, Wade said that the city has found a way to pay for the study.
"We've identified cost savings in the budget that we believe will be able to cover the entire cost of the actual cost of the study as well as implementation."
When asked if the results of the study will be implemented after the study is complete, Wade said "that is the hope."