County floats idea of ‘half-day Fridays’

By Kevin O’Brien

As a way of providing more flexibility to employees, Marathon County administrators are considering the idea of closing county offices to the public on Friday afternoons.

The topic came up during a discussion last week about retaining county employees, nearly half of whom have been with the county for less than five years, according to human resources director Molly Adzic, who provided a quarterly update to the Human Resources, Finance and Capital Committee at its May 27 meeting.

County administrator Lance Leonhard said the number of people coming into the courthouse and other county buildings on Fridays is low enough so that he’s comfortable with entertaining the idea of allowing employees to close their offices earlier so they can focus on other work.

“I don’t think our service to the public will be compromised in any way,” he said. “Quite honestly, they’re not coming in, and it would be an added benefit to staff. It doesn’t mean they would work less.”

Adzic said about 40 percent of the 48 counties and local municipalities she surveyed have already implemented “half-day Fridays.” Both Leonhard and Adzic have suggested similar ideas in the past, but no formal proposals have ever been recommended by the HRFC.

Even though the turnover rate among Marathon County employees has decreased in recent years, Adzic said the HR department continues to see far more resignations than retirements every year, which she called “a sign of the times.”

“It’s not a significant cause for concern,” she said. “It’s just recognizing that employees are not staying with us – or really any employer – as long as they historically have.”

In the past three years, over half of the employees who quit (54 percent) had been with the county less than five years, including nearly a quarter of whom left after less than a year on the job. Adzic said this presents challenges for the county and also means that not as many employees are sticking around long to be vested in the retirement program after five years.

“So, we do have employees leaving quite a bit of benefit on the table,” she said, noting that employment with the county is “ending sooner than I would otherwise like to see.”

As a result, nearly a third of all existing employees have been with the county for less than three years, and 45 percent have been employed there for less than five years. The average length of service at this point is eight years, according to data presented by Adzic.

As of 2021, the average age of Marathon County employees was about 42 years old, which is slightly below the national average. Adzic said having a younger workforce provides “fresh perspectives” and the ability to adapt to changes in technology, but the relative lack of experience creates a need for more training.

Among county departments, the sheriff’s office accounts for 24 percent of all “separations” (resignations, retirements and terminations), followed by social services at 13 percent and highway at 12 percent. Those most likely to leave their county jobs are corrections officers, administrative specialists and assistants, social workers and dispatchers.

Based on exit interviews, a strong majority of resigning employees (72 percent) cited dissatisfaction with their salaries as their top reason for leaving, followed by dissatisfaction with their workload and “work/life balance” (63 percent).

When it comes to salaries, the county increased its pay rates in 2022 based on a compensation study, and it is currently in the process of updating that study. However, in lieu of salary increases that not all units of government can afford to offer, Leonhard said some public employers are experimenting with shorter work weeks.

Leonhard is not suggesting at this point that the county reduce the number of hours employees are expected to work, but he does see some potential benefit in giving administrative assistants and other public-facing staff more time to work on duties without interruptions.

“We deliver services; that’s what government does,” he said. “We deliver services and we need good people to do it. That said, some of the times interacting with the public can be challenging, and we’re not always delivering news that people want to hear.”

As a follow-up to Adzic’s presentation, committee chairman John Robinson relayed information from a webinar called “The Future of Work” put on by the National Association of Counties (NACO), which looked at various ways county governments across the country are recruiting and retaining workers.

Robinson said he would like the committee to look at ideas such as offering more paid holidays or shortening the work week in order to curb the number of employees leaving after only a few years.

“If you’re losing people after two years, you’ve sunk a lot of money into them in terms of training and development,” he said. “As a supervisor at the DNR, we thought it was five to six years to really get somebody up to speed in the context of understanding the job and nuances of it.”

Lance Leonhard