La Verne cited among 2025 Best Places to Work in Tennessee after staff survey

The City of La Verne was presented a plaque recognizing it as one of the 2025 Best Places to Work in Tennessee after a third-party employee survey, officials said at the Jan. 30 Board of Mayor and Aldermen workshop.

Human-resources staff member Andrew Patton told the board that 118 city employees completed an anonymous survey administered through the vendor Dayforce and that La Verne was the only municipality named among this year’s winners. "The data from their survey showed that 83% of respondents were having a favorable work environment working here at the city," Patton said. He also said 86% reported favorable relationships with supervisors and 81% reported being engaged in their jobs.

Patton highlighted category-level results included in the packet handed to aldermen: 81% said leaders care about employee well-being; 83% said safety is a top priority; 87% said the city enables a culture of diversity; 91% said they like the people they work with; and 87% said they feel physically safe in their work environment. He also called out areas for improvement: 66% of respondents said their computer or other hardware is dependable, and 56% agreed that good performance would bring rewards.

Leah Presley of the city safety team and board members praised the staff and the survey process. Patton said all raw survey data were included in the packet for transparency and that the vendor provided aggregated results without city-level visibility into individual respondents.

Patton presented the plaque to the board and urged aldermen and residents to review the open-ended comments in the packet; those comments repeatedly named benefits, career stability and workplace atmosphere when asked what makes the city a place where people want to work.

No formal action was taken during the workshop: the presentation served as information for the board ahead of the regular meeting.