Allegheny County Executive Innamorato has enacted her inaugural Executive Order to strengthen the workforce and set a new employee engagement and retention standard. According to Allegheny County, this ambitious initiative aims to bolster the conditions for the County's extensive employment roster, which boasts a 6,000-strong workforce. The decision underscores the administration's commitment to enhancing worker benefits and professionalism from within one of the region's most significant employers.
Reinforcing her administration's intent to prioritize workforce development, County Executive Innamorato remarked, "On my first day in office, I intentionally decided to set a tone for my administration about workforce and announced increased pay for workers at the bottom of our salary scale, increased vacation days, removed barriers to entry, and improved other benefits. But that was just the beginning." Allegheny County's official press release echoes that the Executive Order takes a holistic approach to workforce enhancement, directly informed by feedback from thousands of County workers.
The H.I.R.E.S. Executive Order includes several steps to improve employment standards. These steps call for an independent study on pay for non-union employees and aim to integrate contracted workers into the County. This approach is designed to benefit both the pension system and taxpayers. Additionally, Innamorato's order will assess hard-to-fill positions, enhance recruitment strategies, and explore creating a County Nursing Agency to help retain and recruit nurses.
Welfare extends beyond the office as well, with the Executive Order exploring the expansion of child and family care support. According to Innamorato, this could potentially grow to include more robust paid parental leave options. The plan reaches further, looking to foster professional growth opportunities through partnerships with academic institutions. County personnel could benefit from free or reduced-cost training, including advanced degrees for themselves and their families, while initiatives like an Advanced Training Program and a County Employee Leadership Academy promise to breed in-house leadership.
