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Atlanta Watershed reorganizes leadership and makes hiring its top priority
Summary
Commissioner Greg Eierly told the City Utilities Committee the Department of Watershed Management has reorganized its executive team, set hiring as its top priority and launched expanded training and recruitment partnerships to address a high vacancy rate and workforce needs.
Greg Eierly, commissioner of the Department of Watershed Management, told the City Utilities Committee he reorganized the department’s executive team and made hiring the department’s top priority.
“It’s my first quarterly update,” Eierly said. “When I got here, I think I had 14 direct reports. So what I did is consolidated our executive team, and and now I have about 8 direct reports.”
Eierly said he repurposed one executive role to create an assistant commissioner over engineering who will oversee engineering, the consent decree and watershed protection. He also consolidated operations oversight under a single assistant commissioner and centralized personnel functions under a chief of staff.
The reorganization accompanies an aggressive recruiting push. Eierly said about 120 positions were slated to go before the vacancy review board this month and that the department carries a higher vacancy rate than he prefers. “Our top 3 priorities this year,” he said, “is hiring, hiring, and hiring.”
To expand the applicant pool and develop pipelines, the department plans to work with Atlanta Technical College on commercial driver’s license training, host facility tours for high schools and the technical college, and expand internships and certification-prep workshops. Eierly said employees completed 2,466 individual soft-skills trainings across 108 separate courses in the most recent reporting period.
Eierly also signaled a stepped-up role for the department in professional associations and technical conferences. “We are the largest utility in the state. We should have the largest presence in the state,” he said, describing plans to increase state- and national-level technical presentations as a recruitment tool.
Committee members welcomed the changes and asked for follow-up details. Council member Howard Shook said it would probably take several quarterly reports to adjust to the new comparative metrics the commissioner is using. Several council members asked for timelines and confirmation that interviews and postings for key assistant commissioner and deputy commissioner slots were underway; Eierly said interviews were in progress and that some hires should occur in weeks rather than months.
Eierly also emphasized safety and field engagement: the department has increased safety and security inspections and said injury claims and vehicular accidents were being tracked and addressed. He noted a command center is operational and that a June 30 exercise was planned to test incident response ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
The department will return to the committee with details on open positions (including how many are entry level), progress on filling senior roles, and summaries of recruitment partnerships and training outcomes.
