{"id":734,"date":"2021-10-13T16:01:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T16:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wyomingtraining.com\/subject-matter-minute-blog\/?p=734"},"modified":"2021-10-14T16:20:47","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T16:20:47","slug":"subject-matter-minute-episode-51-wyoming-workforce-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wyomingtraining.com\/subject-matter-minute-blog\/subject-matter-minute-episode-51-wyoming-workforce-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Subject Matter Minute, Episode #51 – Wyoming Workforce Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The below post is taken from the Video Blog, the Subject Matter Minute. If it’s a little hard to read, it’s because it’s taken from the spoken word. You can view the episode on YouTube if you would like. Find it here:\u00a0Episode #51 – Wyoming Workforce Report<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If YouTube is blocked for you or your agency, you can scroll to the bottom of this post to view it from Google Drive. (I would prefer you view on YouTube, so I know how many people have watched)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You can also listen to an audio version<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Welcome to another episode of the Subject Matter Minute. Before I get started I just need to say something from the heart. State of Wyoming employees are the best. I swear I was NOT fishing for compliments when I asked you all to email me and tell me how much you love the show. It was honestly kind of a joke. Well, I\u2019m overwhelmed by your kindness and your humor! I don\u2019t know what more to say, but thanks\u2026 So many emails and kind words in the show notes that really made me feel good. Specifically, I need to thank the officer, a highway patrolman, that caught me coming out of Subway in Laramie. He pulled up and rolled down his window, so naturally, I immediately got nervous. But, he just told me that he appreciates what I do. First of all, I\u2019m sorry but I immediately forgot your name\u2026 like I said, I got a little nervous\u2026 but I also want to say that was extremely nice, and honestly, I should have been thanking you. What you do is so much more serious and dangerous. But again, another example of the folks that work at the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So\u2026 I did the swag drawings! If you didn\u2019t hear from me, I\u2019m sorry, but you didn\u2019t win. I got my wife, Tanna, involved and if you are curious, I made a little video of the process that you can find in the show notes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ok, as I was saying\u2026 You guys work hard, and, as you are going to see illustrated quite well today, you do it for less money than most everyone else in the region. And that brings us to the topic of today. Today we are going to talk about the Wyoming workforce report. (music)<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I dive into all the numbers, I want to say thanks to this episode\u2019s subject matter expert, Meghan Connor of HRD. The report is huge and Meghan broke it down into the most important and interesting parts for me to talk about today. Thanks, Meghan!<\/span><\/p>\n

So, first of all, what is this workforce report\u2026 At the end of each fiscal year, HRD puts together this report. It has 4 main sections: A compensation update, a section on employee counts, a service and retirement eligibility section, and a turnover and recruitment section. The report is created and given to the Governor and the other branches of our state government. It\u2019s used to assist with decisions that relate to pay or other workforce issues. And we have a few of those right now, right? As does everybody. This is the data provided by Human Resources Division when recommending salary increases for employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ok, let\u2019s take a look at this report. The first section is the compensation update. Each year, HRD conducts an analysis of our current pay tables compared to the relevant labor market. To do this, they find jobs that are common throughout all industries and use these jobs as a reference point to make pay comparisons throughout our geographic region. The states compared to are Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Salary information of these states is purchased through professional compensation survey providers. (you can see that here) The info is reported by the states and not individuals. We use these 5 companies to get this information. There are more details about this in the report if you are interested, ok? This part of the report shows how much our pay tables lag behind the market. As you can see, we are consistently behind the market. These are the numbers that HRD takes to the Governor and the legislature when recommending salary increases. (peruse the charts) You can see that we are consistently behind in nearly every chart.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second main section of the report is employee counts and interesting statistics about who we are. It\u2019s broken down by agency, occupational family, pay rate, gender, county, and more. (screenshots of these sections) Some interesting highlights in this section include the \u201cAverage Span of Control\u201d page which details, on average, how many employees report to one supervisor by agency; the \u201cAverage Pay Rate by Agency\u201d which details, on average, what classified employees are paid per hour, and the \u201cAverage Employees by County\u201d which shows where everybody is throughout the state. Dig through this section, it\u2019s pretty interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next section shows our ages, our length of service, how our pay relates to market, and our retirement eligibility. Here\u2019s our average age and length of service. And, here it is again, but broken down by ethnicity. And then it also goes into pay as a percent of market by gender. Lot\u2019s of stuff in here.\u00a0 The main emphasis in this section is retirement eligibility \u2013 and this is broken down by agency and class code, it looks at current retirement eligibility as well as eligibility in 3 years, and again in 5 years. This can help management in training and planning for the future gaps in their workforce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The last section, turnover and recruitment, looks at where the State is losing employees and how long it takes to replace them. Last fiscal year\u2019s turnover was 18.1%, for the classified workforce… that\u2019s including in-state transfers. Individual agency turnover rates are detailed, as well as turnover by age, length of service, and classification code. One thing I notice is that the longer you are here, the less likely you are to leave.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The recruitment section looks at the average time it takes to fill a position as well as how many<\/span><\/p>\n

applications were received, how many candidates were eligible for an interview, and how many<\/span><\/p>\n

candidates were actually hired. An interesting stat in this section is the number of candidates eligible for an interview, which was down significantly from past years. This section also details how long each agency takes to fill a position as well as how long, on average, individual class codes take to fill.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alright, I know that was incredibly quick and probably hard to follow, but I just wanted to give you an idea of what is in this report. Perhaps it\u2019s more useful to managers and directors, but I still find it very interesting. I put a link to it in the show notes as well as to the page on HRD\u2019s website that has past year\u2019s reports if you want to compare or something. It\u2019s cool to look through this and see who we are and what we do. Unfortunately, we also get to see how we are paid less than most, but\u2026 whaddya do?<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for watching this episode, I\u2019ll see ya next time.<\/span><\/p>\n