Norco Workers: The Facts About Hay, They'll Raise Your Pay

The Hay Group, an organization hired to conduct a comparative pay study in Northampton County, is simply the best in the business, representing over 7,000 clients with 88 offices in 47 countries. Of course, the county could simply rely on information from CCAP about what is paid for similar jobs in similar counties, but who is to say they are similar? So the county is spending $115 thousand for a salary study of its 2,000 person workforce. It is widely agreed that, once this is done, nearly everyone who works for the county will be making more money.

As a first step, a questionnaire was mailed to every county employee with a due date of December 28. Although I am no county employee, I remember this very clearly because I heard people from many different offices talk about it.

Last week, I told you that a new deadline of February 28 has been set because many county workers simply had no time to complete these forms. At the time, I mildly made this observation to county workers. "Are you out of your frickin' minds??? Fill out the damn forms and get them in. Forge if necessary. Ask me to fill them out. But if you like a living wage, get them in."

Like a dripping faucet, the complaints began to pour in.

1) The questionnaire is totally unnecessary.

2) The Hay pay study is bogus.

3) Department heads are not letting employees complete these questionnaires on county time.

4) They are only late because HR did not even send them to some departments until February.

5) John Conklin, Director of Administration, failed to submit his own report by December 28. It's all his fault.

The Facts

As I mentioned at the time, neither the pay study nor the questionnaire is bogus. Hay is very real, and the first thing it asked for was something that would describe what each worker does and how long it takes for her to do it. I also mentioned, and the Human Resources Department confirmed, that these periodic reviews are required. Monday I actually sat down with Director Connie Falk-Sutton and Personnel Analyst Linda Markwarth. As Connie explained to me, "We're trying to do it right and completely ... to make sure we're competitive."

Instead of whispers and rumors, here are the facts.

On November 15, a memo and questionnaire was sent to every county worker. It was up to each department head to decide how many employees should fill out the report. If five or six people in one department do the exact same thing, it would only be necessary to get a representative sampling. At the time the memo was sent, a return date of December 28 was established. The Hay group would begin its work once it started receiving the paperwork.

On December 28, roughly one-third of the questionnaires were returned. They were immediately forwarded to Hay.

On January 4, Linda Markwarth contacted each department that had not returned its questionnaire and stressed its importance. She believes there was and remains a "lot of anxiety." In the meantime, her own office has undergone training for this evaluation. As questionnaires have been turned in, they've been forwarded to Hay.

As of yesterday, questionnaires have been completed for only 232 out of 286 different job classifications.

Supervisors have been instructed that these questionnaires are to be completed on county time. If an employee is unable to do so because of work demands, OT must be offered. Sutton-Falk tells me in one instance, she did get a phone call from a union rep who reported a supervisor demanding that employees fill out these forms on their own time. "It took me all of three minutes to resolve that issue," she said.

Director of Administration John Conklin did fail to fill out his own report in a timely fashion. "I blew it," he admitted. "I made sure everyone under me had theirs in, but I didn't think mine was that important."

As it turns out, he's right. Sutton-Falk explained that the Hay study really has no application to cabinet level officials, whose roles are set by the executive and who serve at his pleasure.

Conklin turned his report in a few days ago, and apparently likes gladiator movies. Stoffa shot him.

Yesterday was the first time I sat down and really talked to Sutton-Falk. She's got a rep as a person who can be acerbic, and maybe that's why we hit it off so well. She's very sharp and answered every question.

I liked her.

She and one of her top deputies met me with just one day's notice. Halfway through the meeting, I learned that Linda's son was in the emergency room with a medical emergency, and it sounded serious. She was obviously upset, but wanted people to know the truth.

When she finally did leave, I turned to Sutton-Falk and asked, "She stayed for this?"

Falk shrugged and said, "I could not keep her away. She cares too much."

Finally alone, I asked Connie, "So, what's your sign?" She threw me off the courthouse roof.

With people like them in human resources, Northampton County employees are in good hands. That's my assessment as an outsider. As far as those questionnaires go, git 'er done. You'll only be hurting yourself by letting things go.