When we first implemented our Affirmative Action Program in January 1999, we employed 1547 people of which 325 were Minority employees or 22%, and 457 were females or 29%.

While our total net population has increased since January 1999 by 48 employees, our total minority population has increased by a net number of 32 and our female population has increased by a net number of 16. Please keep in mind that these are net numbers and our recruitment and hiring efforts of both Minority and Female candidates has been more successful than these numbers would indicate.

For the period of January 2000 to date we have recruited and hired 30 people. Of this number 13 are Minority candidates or 44% of the new hires for this period. Within this group, we were able to fill two of our more senior positions with Minority candidates. These positions were Director of Health and Deputy Corporate Counsel. The other positions, which were filled with Minority Candidates, were Nutrition Aide, Custodian (4), Laborer, Office Support Specialist (3) and Traffic Violation Officer.

Our Affirmative Action Plan had called for a very aggressive hiring schedule of Minority employees. The Plan required that we increase our Total Minority Population from 22% (325 employees) to 24% (385 employees) by April 2000. This assumed that we would hire 4 Minorities each month for the 15 months between January 1999 and April 2000 or that we would have hired a total of 60 Minority candidates.

Although our Minority percentage has increased from 22% to 23%, our total population percentage is less than what we had targeted. During this Affirmative Action period we have hired:

• January 1999- June 1999 we hired 23 Minority Employees
• June 1999- December 1999 we hired 28 Minority Candidates
• January 2000- To Date we hired 13 Minority Candidates

Cumulatively we have hired 64 Minority Candidates as employees of the City of Stamford. This represents 4 more hires than what we had targeted as our objective and goal although we have taken an extra 2 months beyond our target date to get there.

So now the question remains that if we have met our hiring target employment goal, why is our target percentage lower than what we have set as our goal?

The answer is twofold; we are still experiencing a retention problem. For example, during the period of January 2000 to present we hired 13 minorities. During this same period, we lost 7 Minority employees. The reasons we lost these employees is as varied as the positions which they vacated. Regardless of the reasons they left for, nonetheless they are gone and the impact of their leaving effects our overall employment percentage. This problem has existed throughout our Affirmative Action Period. We have been successful in our hiring goals but our percentage has remained relatively stagnant.

The other obstacle that adds to our difficulty in achieving our numbers and percentage is that the City of Stamford has not had the need to do the level of hiring that would normally support these efforts and goals. While this is good for the City as a whole, since it shows a level of stability, it is not necessarily good when your have set goals dependant upon certain hiring numbers.

When this Plan was first introduced, this was designed to be a living document subject to change and adjustment. Now that we have passed our initial target date, we will need to revise the Plan to highlight areas that we have identified as requiring attention, namely retention. Retention is a more difficult goal to achieve that our Plan was. The reasons that people leave are not always under our control. Terminations/ Discharges are handled through the Labor process; Retirement is something we all look forward to and obviously cannot affect; Poor Performance is an area that there is little we can do since this usually happens within the first 6 months of a new employees employment. The only area that intervention may help would be with resignations.

Regardless, our next goal will be the revision of our Affirmative Action Plan to set different goals and objectives and to address issues that have prevented us from being totally successful. Since we now have a much clearer and a better defined level of hiring objectives, we can also set more realistic and attainable hiring goals as it relates to our Minority/ Diversity hiring.

Further information contact Fred Manfredonia at: Fmanfredonia@ci.stamford.ct.us