Ashley Hillyer, a grant accountant with the Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department, was one of 12 members of the county’s Asian Connections Employee Resource Group who worked on a Habitat for Humanity project earlier this month. Here, she chipped and scraped windows at a house in Minneapolis. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

To draw and keep employees, Hennepin County is taking a cue from the corporate sector's playbook.

For a second year, the county is sponsoring employee groups — ranging from veterans to millennials — that do everything from professional development to volunteering, social activities and advocating for county changes.

While the corporate sector long has cultivated internal groups as a way to engage employees and improve workplace culture, Hennepin County is the first public jurisdiction in Minnesota to start the groups, county leaders said.

It's a way, they said, for employees to have a say and feel like they belong in the large county organization.

"Once you're here, how are we going to hook you?" said Michael Rossman, the county's chief human resources officer. "If the culture inside isn't where they want to stay, that isn't good."

With Hennepin County anticipating a loss of 32 percent of the workforce by 2020 through retirements, the county is looking for new ways to attract and retain new employees.

When county leaders heard about employee resource groups in 2013, they decided to try it the following year to better engage employees.

The groups since have grown from two to seven with about 650 employees, or nearly 8 percent of the county's 8,400 employees.

They meet at least once a month over social and volunteer activities, and they host speakers, book clubs or other events. Veterans started a mentoring program, while a group of women in science, technology, engineering and math areas talk to high school girls about STEM careers.

The groups also help craft policy and spur bigger changes in the county. A transgender and gender nonconforming group met with county leaders to change how prescriptions were covered and to push to train security guards in transgender issues. Other groups have advocated for the hiring of more women and people of color.

Millennials, the biggest group, have pushed the county to offer more learning opportunities and to outline ways they can move up the ladder.

"Being in a large organization, it's so easy to get stuck in your own world or your own work," said Amanda Koonjbeharry, who helped start a people of color group that now has 150 workers from departments as varied as Corrections and the library.

The groups, she added, help connect people of different backgrounds.

"You'd never cross paths with them otherwise," she said. "This is an opportunity to have different eyes, different voices at the table."

Kelly Smith • 612-673-4141

about the writer

Kelly Smith

Reporter

Kelly Smith covers nonprofits/philanthropy for the Minnesota Star Tribune and is based in Minneapolis. Since 2010, she's covered Greater Minnesota on the state/region team, Hennepin County government, west metro suburban government and west metro K-12 education.