The City of Franklin will soon hire a dedicated human resources employee for the first time.
Franklin’s Board of Public Works and Safety approved with a 2-0 vote an agreement with New Focus HR, LLC to provide human resources consulting services which will eventually lead to the city’s hiring of an HR generalist. The 2-0 vote was unanimous among the members present.
New Focus HR, headquartered in Indianapolis, will develop a new employee handbook and help officials hire the city’s first dedicated employee. Both of which have been talked about for some time.
First, the company will tackle the manual, which was last updated in 2014, said Steve Barnett, mayor.
“It is certainly time to update our employee manual,” said Lynn Gray, city attorney. “There are many small things that we have adopted individually through resolution that have to be incorporated in.”
New Focus HR will take the city’s current employee handbook, HR-related policies and procedures and complete a questionnaire with Clerk-Treasurer Jan Jones to use as the foundation for the upcoming employee handbook draft, according to the proposal.
Once the handbook is complete, the HR consulting firm will continue to provide Franklin with ongoing support and guidance related to various human resource-related initiatives including the writing of job postings, new hire on-boarding procedures, employee relations issues, job descriptions, terminations and workers’ compensation issues, the proposal shows.
The design and development of a legally compliant employee handbook comes with a fixed rate fee of $5,000. The annual employee handbook update subscription service will cost the city $150 per year, Jones said.
The board of works also unanimously approved a job description for the HR generalist position. New Focus HR helped create the job description and will help find an ideal candidate, Jones said.
The HR generalist will provide guidance and recommendations when it comes to recruitment and staffing, HR compliance, benefits, coaching, compensation, employee relations, payroll and training and development, according to the job description.
Once officials are ready to hire the HR professional, it will be advertised on industry job boards as well to the general public.
“We are going to require a bachelor’s in HR management or related field plus five years of related experience or training, and then a certification from [the Society of Human Resources Management] or from the Human Resources Certification Institute,” said Jones. “We are looking for that right person for the position, not just whoever applies.”
The salary range for the HR generalist position is set from $55,000 to $68,000, alongside the city’s competitive benefits package, Jones said.
She compared the salary range to other Indiana cities with a similar population that have a human resources employee.
“Brownsburg was very similar,” Jones said. “They have a population of around 29,000 and they have an HR senior manager that makes $60,000.”
Goshen, with a population of about 35,000, has an HR manager with a $79,000 salary, while Seymour, with a population of about 31,000, pays their HR manager a $55,000 salary, she said.
Hiring an HR employee caps off years of discussion.
“This is something we have talked about for a long time,” said Barnett.
