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09/18/2019 09:15 AMAmong Old Saybrook’s summer projects, such as completing sidewalks and installing a culvert on Old Post Road, the town conducted a “top to bottom” human resources (HR) overview, according to First Selectman Carl P. Fortuna, Jr.
Old Saybrook, like most small towns, doesn’t have a separate HR department, Fortuna said. To conduct the review, the town hired a lawyer, Robin Kallor of Rose Kallor LLP in Hartford, who specializes in advising employers on labor and employment issues.
Kallor reviewed the town’s employee handbook, which was first created five years ago, explained Lee Ann Palladino, the town’s finance director.
“Of course certain laws [referred to in the handbook] were outdated,” Palladino said. The town needed to update its social media policies, for one thing, and “make sure we’re consistently applying all of our policies across the board.”
In addition, a supervisor’s handbook was created as an addendum of sorts to the employee handbook, said Palladino.
“When an employee comes to work and says, ‘I’m being harassed or I need [family or medical] time or I have a disability,’ the supervisor should be able to go to the handbook,” Fortuna said. “It’s an instructional manual for a supervisor to do what they need to do to make sure that those employee’s needs are heard or met. And if it needs to come up to my level, it does.
“That was a really unique tool to give the supervisor info and tools for them to handle their employees’ needs,” he added.
Kallor presented a training session to supervisors, complete with role-playing activities, Palladino said.
“It really raised the bar: Here’s the new laws, here’s the training on those laws, here’s the employee handbook that you should be very well aware of,” she said.
Kallor “made sure that from employee to supervisor to HR administrator, we were all rowing our oars in the same direction and reporting things properly,” she continued. “It’s like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval: putting a solid, strong HR program in place. That’s important because 50 percent of our budget is associated with HR resources,” including salaries and benefits.
“We really feel like we’ve pulled everything together,” she continued. “It’s important to us because our employees are a great asset to the town.”
“We spent a little bit of legal money, but we had it in the budget,” Fortuna said. “At the end of the day, this reduces our long-term liabilities by insuring our risk management is top notch, where it should be. Because that’s where a lot of towns fall short: What could lead to lawsuits is not having a lot of their HR materials up to date or not educating their employees as to how certain things should be handled when an issue arises.
“It’s not necessarily the most tangible product,” he added, “but it’s probably as important as worker safety in terms of managing your risk.”