With the launch of HR Insights earlier this summer, AWC created a space to focus on the needs of the dedicated public servants that handle city HR and labor issues across Washington. We also want to help you spread your city’s good ideas around so that every city in Washington can benefit from your experiences and adapt to the ever-changing HR landscape. In each issue we hope to highlight the work of city HR professionals in the “trenches” in a new section we are tentatively calling HR Field Notes.

In our first two issues, we’ve tried to keep you informed about the goings on of HR and labor relations policies and developments that will impact you and your city’s workers. However, we also want this newsletter to be a vehicle for city HR professionals across the state to share your experiences with your counterparts. Cities are facing major shifts in how they handle employee leave, police and labor relations, pensions, compensation and benefits, hiring practices, and equity issues. We at AWC feel that many of the best approaches to tackling (or even just beginning to address) some of these tough issues come from you, city HR professionals.

If you are a city HR professional and you’d like to share about something your city is doing in response to a major HR or labor issue, please send us a short essay of 500 words or less describing your city or town’s activities and we may publish your submission in a future edition of HR Insights. We hope to hear from cities and towns of all sizes across the state. Help us make HR Field Notes a regular part of HR Insights (similar to guest editorials in a newspaper) so HR professionals across the state may see how other jurisdictions are addressing some of the biggest challenges facing city employers.

Submissions for HR Field Notes can be sent to mattd@awcnet.org. Include your name, your city, your position, and contact information. Please add your essay as an attached Word document to your email. Currently we are especially interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies in hiring, but are open to submissions on all HR or labor relations topics. Thanks in advance for your contribution to the conversation, and we look forward to hearing your ideas!