Concord HR reports Munis migration, launches Inclusion Chronicle and strengthens exit interviews

Town of Concord human resources staff told the Personnel Board on Jan. 8 that the department is advancing several internal systems and communications efforts intended to improve hiring, tracking and employee retention.

Department leaders briefed the board on the planned Munis enterprise resource planning (ERP) migration, which staff expect to go live on April 1; a pilot internal newsletter titled the Inclusion Chronicle; work to collect and consolidate employee goals; and the rollout of an electronic exit interview form for departing employees.

The Munis migration was described as the primary change that will provide “position control” and automated reporting that HR currently pulls and compiles manually. Staff said the change should make vacancy reporting, recruitment metrics and position histories easier to produce. HR staff also said they have built an applicant form in Munis and intend to use Munis’ applicant-tracking module once the system is live.

On communications and engagement, HR circulated the first issue of an employee one-page newsletter called the Inclusion Chronicle. The newsletter is being piloted in print copies placed in municipal buildings and via email. Staff said the item is intended to promote diversity, equity and inclusion topics and to provide links to short explanatory resources and videos.

Board members asked HR to add more recruitment and retention detail to the annual and status reports, including: the number of seasonal recruitments versus permanent hires, promotions-from-within counts, typical length-of-service for separations, and an ongoing vacancy count. HR reported year-to-date raw totals from calendar 2024: 45 hires (designations), 34 resignations or terminations and seven retirements. Staff cautioned that the 12/31 headcount numbers in current reports do not yet show real-time vacancies and said those fields will improve after Munis goes live.

On exit interviews, HR said it created a Microsoft Forms-based exit survey and is conducting in-person exit interviews when possible. Completed forms can be exported and analyzed. HR staff summarized results using a generative summarization tool for internal analysis and said they will continue to encourage qualitative comments while keeping the detail of individual exit interviews in confidential personnel records. The board suggested the format of exit interview questions be shared for comment and recommended protecting individual-level responses under personnel-record confidentiality while publishing aggregated themes.

Board members also recommended adding a brief communications protocol to HR outputs stating how promotions and internal hires will be announced to staff, and suggested the Inclusion Chronicle could carry links to lists of recent promotions or HR communications (while respecting employees’ privacy preferences).

Staff said they are tracking several open recruitments at the time of the meeting, including an HVAC technician, a customer service assistant in Recreation (vacancy created by promotion), assistant chief financial officer, procurement manager, and other regularly recruited seasonal positions. HR emphasized that some recent position changes were funded from enterprise or revolving accounts and that vacancy-to-FTE accounting has created confusion in public discussion; staff said better reporting will clarify how many truly “new” FTEs were added versus repurposed slots.

The Personnel Board asked staff to continue improving transparency in the status/hire/termination reports, to add more detail in the annual report about seasonal versus permanent hires and promotions, and to arrange a future briefing from the staff member who administers benefits.