Kodiak’s City Manager Aimèe Kniaziowski is working to better employee relations with city workers she said at Saturday’s City Council planning work session.

This comes after the October ballot proposition regarding city workers’ collective bargaining (unionization) efforts which was voted down by 472 votes to 455. Had it gone through, city workers would have had the option of creating an employee union.

Kniaziowski is working on multiple ways to figure out all the issues and concerns from city employees in an attempt to fix problems.

“I have been working with the department heads,” Kniaziowski said. “We’ve talked about what works in the city, what’s in our toolkit, what doesn’t work, why people live in the city of Kodiak, what keeps them here, what we can do better, how can we reach out to employees and what are different ways to communicate.”

So far, she says it seems to be working out well.

“They’ve been very engaged and excited about that process,” she said. “They’ve really gotten behind that.”

This team effort also involves talking with employees to get a back and forth dialogue going to get more than one opinion and to make sure workers know their voices are being heard.

“I have it set up so I would go into each department, whenever it works for that department, and meet with employees just in conversation and say I’m here, and ask what’s working, what can we do better,” Kniaziowski said. “We plan on reaching out and letting them know we’re here.”

Council member Tom Walters said he appreciates workers’ concerns haven’t been tossed aside after collective bargaining was opposed by only 17 votes.

“I appreciate the fact that you and the council understand that it’s not over with,” Walters said.

There also was a suggestion from Walters to bring in a third party to help, such as a mediator if it’s needed.

Some historical issues need to be resolved, and council member John Whiddon agreed that an outside party with no vested interest in either side might prove to be helpful.

“In a year from now, if you don’t resolve those current issues, it’s going to be nothing’s been done and you’ve made no progress,” Whiddon said.

At this point, Kniaziowski would like to take some time to work with people and then see where she can pull in experts, if the need arises.

“If there are those big hot-button issues that come out of this process that I’m hoping to do, that might be the time to look at bringing someone in. There’s a process I’d like to work through first,” she said.

The City Council also discussed human resources issues. Kniaziowski is working on getting the types of training department heads would like to see offered for hiring practices.

“What I’ve heard is so far is, ‘We’d really like some training on how to interview and hire people,’” she said.

Other things that are being identified is how to do an evaluation, how to work with the employee on improving their performance and other issues such as safety having people come to talk to workers about improved safety practices.

Kniaziowski said she is investigating programs that are available for training and will determine what other issues need to be addressed to improve the current model.

Mirror writer Louis Garcia can be reached via e-mail at lgarcia@kodiakdailymirror.com.