Pismo Beach, California, received an ICMA Local Government Excellence Award for its Building an Employee of Culture, Service, and Pride program. The challenge? To develop a program to bring about cultural change rooted in service, innovation, and collaboration that would increase retention of skilled employees and attract the best and the brightest. The results: resident satisfaction is up, as demonstrated by recent passage of a sales tax initiative by 71.2 percent; city employees are empowered to provide service solutions that cut across department lines; and employee participation in events and professional development opportunities is higher than ever, the city is attracting stellar new talent, and retention is increasing.

 

 

Go Driver: Job-Driven Workforce Development in Charlottesville, Virginia, also received an award. The city's challenge was to develop a workforce training program geared to the needs of local employers that would give workers training and resources to become competitive candidates for jobs paying a self-sufficient wage. The city put its focus on job creating, business growth, and creating growing opportunity (GO) programs that align training with the needs of the local business community. The first, GO Driver, which trains city residents as relief transit bus operators with the Charlottesville Area Transit, has graduated more than 30 since its inception in October 2014. Based on the success of GO Driver, the city has designed additional job-driven training programs with more in the planning stages.

 

San Antonio, Texas’ Women’s Leadership Mentoring received an award this year. As a large portion of the city workforce nears retirement, the city was tasked with strategically identifying, developing, and retaining talent.  In 2013, group of female executives in the city began discussing how to bring down the barriers preventing women from advancing in the workplace. At the same time, the city was considering how best to do succession planning and leadership development to prepare San Antonio for the future. The Women’s Leadership Mentoring Program was created to address both of these issues simultaneously.

2017 Awards

ICMA’s Local Government Excellence Awards honor creative contributions to professional local government management and increase public awareness of the value of professional management to the quality of life in our communities. The Strategic Leadership & Governance Awards recognize the innovative and successful local government programs or processes that have significantly affected a local government organization’s culture or strategic direction.

Each year, ICMA confers awards in four program and five professional excellence categories. Nominations will be accepted beginning in early January for the 2017 program for awards that will be conferred during ICMA’s 103rd Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, October 22-25, 2017. Direct questions to Felicia Littky, awards program manager, at flittky@icma.org or 202/962-3656.