New WM City HR director settling in

New WM City HR director settling in

Coleman meets with Personnel Committee

news@theeveningtimes.com

Employee representatives from West Memphis departments huddled for their first luncheon meeting with the new Human Resource Manager Janice Coleman.

While a box lunch including a big cookie filled the menu, the agenda had just two items making the Wednesday noon hour Personnel Committee a perfect time for city workers to get to know the new leader.

Last year a change in benefit providers and a three percent raise for full-time city employees topped off with a three percent annual bonus made for a busy time in city human resources.

Coleman used her first committee meeting to introduce herself, clean-up benefit questions, and begin plans for a city employee health fair in September.

Coleman came to the city at the end of March with related experience in human resources at FedEx and ASU-Mid South.

“I was a manager at FedEx for ten years,” said Coleman. “I helped with employee relations and HR issues at my facility like training and leadership development. I worked at the college as coordinator of career services there. I planned job fairs and helped companies recruit to fill their different open positions.”

Coleman expressed her own appreciation for the importance of a good on the job orientation for new employees.

“Now that I am here, my immediate goal is to learn about city government,” said Coleman. “I’ll be attending the Municipal League training in Little Rock this month. There is HR training geared toward the public sector and that is what I’ve been working on.

I’m getting to know the department heads and colleagues here.”

As far as the big issue left hanging with the departure of her predecessor Coleman promised to soon take up where he left off with the position by position wage and benefit benchmark study.

“That is in plan,” said Coleman. “I’ll be moving onto that and other pressing issues.”

By John Rech