Oh my God.
I can’t think of anything better to really say as the HR Liaison issue came up a third time, and for a third time it was like wading in a pool full of absolute muck.
I’ve never encountered brick-think on such a scale as I witnessed Tuesday night at the Renfrew Town Council meeting.
These people seemingly have a huge degree of difficulty when it comes to determining how Stage 3 grievances are to be heard. It’s not the most complicated of things, but you’d never know it from sitting in this room for what seems like hours talking about the same thing over and over and over again, all the while cancelling out options with votes as the back-and-forth debate rages, and heads shake.
All of the very worst things that come to mind when criticizing Council come to the forefront on this particular issue. Add to that the usual ambiguity and imperfection from certain staff by way of explanations that don’t address the question.
It’s like watching a blind-folded kid swinging wildly at a piñata, only there’s no piñata. Or if you prefer, taking a bunch of cats for a walk without a leash. Walking through a cornfield?
Prior to this meeting, two previous options had been put forward and defeated, meaning they could no longer be considered as options as per the sacrosanct rules. So the debate, if that’s what this was, raged over three additional options put before the room, and two of them were the primary focus of the discussion.
For the purposes of a Stage 3 grievance — the stage before arbitration — the main point of contention appeared to be over how many councillors would be ideal to sit on any panel hearing a Stage 3 grievance. It was universally accepted that the County HR Specialist would be part of the process, but that’s where the rubber left the road.
The easiest of the options would be to have a single councillor present, since having several councillors means that, all of a sudden, the panel would become an official committee subject to all the requirements and procedural rules that govern committees. Meaning that a quorum would need to be established to even convene the meeting in the first place, and the meeting would need to be public initially, and therefore live-streamed. In other words, the meeting would have to begin in the open, then voted on to go closed, just to satisfy the requirements of the committee process. And the meeting would almost certainly be closed, each and every time by virtue of the fact that the person who is the subject of the grievance would be identifiable, which is kind of a no-no in these sorts of things. Not to mention the list of other reasons why such a meeting would go behind closed doors, meaning the whole charade of starting publicly is just that, a needless charade, all to satisfy the pointy heads that make up the rules of procedure. There was a reason people like this got picked on in high school.
If I was a union rep, I’d love my chances, watching the other side fall all over themselves in institutional disarray.
The main argument against the single councillor was that it would be, well, a single councillor, and as such, not representative of council at large. This, in my opinion, is not a strong enough argument since it’s entirely unworkable for any complete representation of council to be affected in any event. The point behind a single councillor is that council has a representative on the panel, not to achieve complete and total representation. It’s to ensure that there is an element of council involved in the process, and that a single councillor, with the CAO and the County facilitator, is more than enough to responsibly process a Stage 3 grievance.
An entire cohort of councillors would present the poor employee filing the grievance with a jury-like group of humans facing them across the table, which I’d assume would be a pretty intimidating optic. I understand that the grievance process has the feeling of being adversarial, but honestly, at its core, the entire venture is an exercise in conflict resolution, and not a bare-knuckles attempt to pound out the employee. That said, many companies and HR departments don’t understand this, and get it wrong.
It’s interesting that the option involving a single councillor didn’t include the CAO as part of the panel, unless the CAO was specifically requested by the Council HR to attend and participate.
Why, in the name of God ,would there be no CAO involvement? It’s an employee issue.
The CAO is the Chief Administrative Officer, which means that person is the highest ranking municipal staff member, and is responsible for all employees in the Corporation. If this person isn’t qualified to be involved in the process, then with respect, who is?
The CAO is there to represent the town. The councillor is there for staff accountability. The County facilitator is there for expertise. The three together are more than enough to handle the grievance at hand. Stacking the panel with additional members makes the process too onerous, too unwieldy, and makes things a lot more complicated with all the possible divergent opinions and all the procedural mechanisms that go along with a larger group of people.
There’s absolutely no reason why a relatively simple process needs to be needlessly complicated by the thinking that having more people involved makes the process more just and proper. More often than not, it results in the complete opposite.
It can also lead to a situation best described as a “hung-jury,” a situation where the panel can’t decide among themselves which way to go. It’s a lot easier to form a consensus with a single person, or a couple of people, then it is with a whole busload of campers, all with potentially different views on the merits of the case before them.
I believe council is trying too hard here to do the right thing, and in so doing, are sleep-walking themselves into a potentially poor decision. They should really bear down to get their act together before they vote away more options and paint themselves into a corner of futility.
Twice already I’ve proposed a solution, but I suppose they’re not interested in anything coming from the outside, let alone from a voice that tends to lean on the critical side. I guess that’s fine, albeit a tad petty.
A grievance doesn’t have to devolve into the Nuremberg trials.
If I were Council and relevant staff, I’d offer a prayer and light a candle at church in hopes that nobody out there in the community is witnessing this on the YouTube channel. And if there are such people out there, we should at least scroll across the bottom of the screen the number for a self-help hotline.
Though I’m 100% certain he wouldn’t care one jot, I’m with Councillor Legris, with one caveat: don’t let them push you into agreeing with the multiple councillor option. Your initial position is, for the most part, the correct one. Don’t let them persuade you with flimsy arguments to water down your initial instincts.
On this issue, continue to be the clear head in the room.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 