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Town reports modest gains in diversity among hires; retention and time‑to‑fill remain challenges
Summary
Brookline HR presented a 2024 employment report showing small improvements in diversity among mid‑manager and technical professional hires, a roughly 13% turnover rate, and ongoing recruitment challenges for hard-to-fill roles.
The Town of Brookline presented its 2024 employment and diversity update to the Select Board on Jan. 28, reporting incremental gains in diversity among hires and continued recruitment and retention challenges.
Anne Braga, Brookline’s Human Resources Director, said the town’s applicant tracking system shows a mix of self-reported demographics among applicants, and that full‑time hires in 2024 totaled in the mid‑90s depending on the counting method used. Braga told the board that 94 hires across 16 departments were still employed at year‑end in one slide; elsewhere she reported 97 new hires in 2024 compared with 92 in 2023. She also reported that 18.8% of Town employees live in Brookline, a figure she said has been consistent across recent years.
Braga highlighted gains in mid‑manager and technical professional (MMTP) roles: the number of MMTPs rose modestly and, for the first time in her tracking, women slightly outnumbered men in that category. She reported increases in representation among Asian and Hispanic employees in some categories and said the town saw an increase in hires identifying as Black/African American for 2024 compared with exits.
Lloyd Gellineau, the town’s Chief Diversity Officer, said the town has made "light years" of progress compared with two decades ago and that the town still benchmarks against a metropolitan statistical area for target diversity levels. He noted particular gains in Black/African American representation but said Brookline remains below metro benchmarks for Asian representation despite recent increases.
Board members asked for additional context in future reports, including: (1) comparisons of staff demographics with the broader metropolitan area from which Brookline recruits; (2) clearer treatment of summary slides so readers can see individual racial/ethnic group numbers (not only aggregated "BIPOC"); and (3) tracking of resident‑employees and of how newly budgeted positions were filled. Braga said staff will add municipality/zip‑code analysis of employee residences, provide more accessible summary pages and share vacancy‑to‑fill timelines for hard‑to‑fill roles.
