2022-10-27 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

Home

Merit Appeals Board October 27, 2022 MR. LEOPOLDINO: And they're a great resource because they have access to a huge population looking for work. Thank you. CHR. CABANAS: Are there questions? Mel, do you have any questions or comments for Waylen? MR. VENTURA: No. Just that I appreciate these struggles with recruitment. We go through the same thing here. And I have the same kind of discussions here with my board. In the last 18 months nothing really moved the needle for us until we started paying bonuses. So, we pay both a referral bonus and a recruitment bonus. So the employee that refers the qualified applicant will get a bonus and then the actual applicant will get a bonus also. And that seems to have moved the needle a little bit, as well as increasing the starting pay. Yeah, like you alluded to earlier, what they want is pay. So, we had to do that. And also that Kona Village here is going to open up in a few months and we're all competing for the same employees. So, that's going to make things even more challenging in West Hawaii. And when that resort opens up because I heard that the number that they're looking for is in the hundreds. So, more—yeah—so, potentially, more challenges to come. But, again, I appreciate the work you're doing and it's not easy. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Thank you, Mel. I do want to say that Kona has been especially hard for our departments to fill, especially in our finance department with our vehicle registration and licensing. It's very hard to compete with hotels. So, I do feel your pain over on the Kona side with competing to try and get—it's just an added layer, right, on the Kona side to try and get people in the door. But it's—what I remind our department heads, it's not just the County—everywhere you go you'll see stores, restaurants cutting down their hours—and I'll ask why. It's because of staffing They just can't keep staff. So, I'm hoping to get through this. CHR. CABANAS: So, where is everyone going? Are they unemployed? Are they used to working from home because of the pandemic? MR. LEOPOLDINO: It's all of those things. People are trying to start their own business businesses. Instagramif you go on Instagram you'll see all these people having pop-ups— they're selling anything, right, on Instagram. So, I think COVID really changed the workplace in a sense that it really made people realize—or re -prioritize, right, what's important to them. And so, we probably lost a lot there. I also heard that a lot of people are moving out-of-state. It's just too expensive to live here for what people get paid and the cost of the goods—in the marketplace it's very tough. I mean, I Page 18