2017-03 Performance Audit Report: County of Hawai'i's Department of Human Resources Hiring Practices

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Response to County of Haw i` is Department ofHuman Resources Hiring Practices Audit Page 2 of 2 . of the 18 selections, one of the selections (see the second finding), was continued on a temporary appointment after being in both a short term contract and atemporary appointment. This selection was for another teiliporary appointment. The work of the employee was known to vis and the employee was familiar with the duties. . Of the 19 selections, two were included in the fifth finding one in. bullet three and One in bullet five), for the sane reason. It has been our practice to combine interviews for the sage class of work whenever possible. In both of these cases, we had recently conducted interviews for the sane Mass of work. As has been our practice, if the interviews were very recent(within 30 days) we will use those results to select the next highest ranking employee for the current vacancy, as noted in Section II C I a of the Procedures Manual approved by the Director of Human Resources on May 18, 2009, Hmvcver, VN7hat we didn't realize at the time, was that the second referred list was different from the original referred list, since the Clerk 111 list was on continuous recruitment, so it was always changing. . Since all selections were from the sante class of work, we of course had repetitive errors, since we consistently applied our methodology without bias to any individual. The intent was never to exclude anyone or be unfair to anyone. It was to be able to fill positions in a reasonable amount of time ensuring favoritism did not play a role in our process. As you know, when we are short staffed, the lines at Vehicle Registration & Licensing and Deal Property 'fax continue to get longer. Our goal is to provide quality customer service to the public. I have the following recommendation: Now that the Department of Human Resources (DHR) performs the Clerk III and other large recruitments once per year no longer on continuous recruitment), DHR should work with each department to determine their potential skill sets that may be deeded during the upcoming year. Applicable skills could he determined and noted for departments as the applications are initially screened. In addition, instead of referring the entire list, DHR could determine applicants with the appropriate shills and refer only 5 or 10 names as done in. the past. This is similar to the process used by the City and County of Honolulu. Lacking this reduced list, the only fair method is the use of a random number generator. This could benefit the departments greatly as most departments only have one Human Resources Specialist that does the skill set evaluation. We do not have enough time to screen more than 200 applicants over and over again. In general, ffie skill sets do not vary greatly and for Finance, there are generally two skill sets used, one for Vehicle Registration & Licensing and one for Leal Property Tax. This would greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. By streamlining the process, the departments will have more time to ensure that a.11 reales have been properly applied. Thank you again for the opportunity to provide my comments. Please feel free to call me ifyou Dave any questions. Department's Comments 27 1 P a g e