Outlook
FW: Item 3.5, Employee Turnover Audit Report - September 22, 2026 Agenda From City Clerk <[email protected]>
Date Fri 9/18/2026 7:31 AM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
From: brian darby
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2026 12:44 AM
To: City Clerk <city.clerk@sanjoseca .gov>
Subject: Item 3.5, Employee Turnover Audit Report - September 22, 2026 Agenda [External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn morel Dear Mayor Mahan and Members of the City Council,
I am writing regarding Item 3.5, the Employee Turnover Audit Report, and I simply want to take a moment to thank City Auditor Joe Rois and his staff- Gitanjali Mandrekar, Michelle Mallari, and Katrina Gutierrez - for the work behind this report.
This is a quieter, less headline-grabbing audit than some of the Office's other work, but it matters just as much. Understanding why employees leave, and whether the City is prepared when they do, goes directly to whether departments can keep delivering services to residents without interruption. The finding that the City hasn't run a Citywide employee engagement survey since 2019, and that some departments don't have easy access to their own retirement eligibility or turnover data, are exactly the kinds of practical, fixable gaps that a good internal audit is supposed to surface. The recommendations are modest, reasonable , and clearly achievable, which is often the mark of a well-scoped audit rather than a weakness of it.
I want to recognize how much the City Auditor's Office does across the board, not just on this item. Between this report, the Status of Open Audit Recommendations report also on this agenda, and the many audits behind both, this is an office that keeps showing up, year after year, to do the unglamorous work of checking whether the City is actually doing what it says it's doing. That kind of sustained, professional accountability is easy to take for granted precisely because it's done well and without drama, and I don't want it to go unnoticed.
I support accepting this report as recommended, and I appreciate the Human Resources Department's cooperation during the audit process as well. Thank you to the Auditor's Office for this work and for everything else on their plate this year.
Respectfully submitted,
Brian Darby
Outlook
FW: Employee Turnover Audit Report - Item 3.5 Council 9/22 From City Clerk <city.clerk@sanj oseca.gov>
Date Mon 9/21/2026 4:33 PM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
From: Jordan Moldow
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2026 4:09 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Employee Turnover Audit Report - Ite m 3.5 Council 9/22 [External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn more] For my entire professional career, my employers have conduc ted organization-wide employee engagement and satisfaction surveys, on at least an annual basis. In many cases, the surveys were conducted semi-annually.
With San Jose's funding and workforce already stretched way too thin, minimizing turnover by ensuring high engagement and satisfaction is of utmost, mission-critica l importance . This is too important for the City to not be measuring regularly. I fully support all the audit recommendations, but especially recommendation 1.2 "re-establishing a Citywide employee survey." The survey should be conducted at least annually, with consistent questions so that progress can be measured.
I fully agree with the audit's statements that "Following Up on Survey Results Is Important" and that "Lack of communication on follow-up actions can harm employee trust and engagement." Those are exactly my own sentiments in my career. When my employers have dragged their feet on publishing/discussing survey results, or have dismissed pieces of bad feedback without an actionable plan, or when a commitment was not followed through on, my trust and satisfaction decreased. When employers have followed up candidly and transparently in a timely manner and fully committed to their proposed improvements, my trust and satisfaction increased.
The process I have encountered goes something like this :
• The survey contains many [Strongly] Agree/Disagree questions and/or 1-to-10 scale questions
• The survey also allows for free-response on all of those topics, or on "other". • The questions are kept consistent across survey periods so that progress can be measured ; though new questions can be added over time, questions can be re-worded if necessary in order to address ambiguity , and questions can be retired if they are not relevant.
• A Net Promoter Score (NPS) or something similar is computed for each non-free response question, and for each category of questions.
• The results are presented to the organization, with a focus on:
o Biggest strengths and weaknesses (for individual questions, as well as for categories)
o Biggest improvements and declines (for individual questions, and categories) from the previous survey, as well as focus areas from the previous survey results that did not change as much as hoped
o Themes from the free responses
o Proposed focus areas for improvements, and action items to be implemented that are hypothesized to improve on weaknesses, cement strengths/improvements, and/or be proactive about warning signs for declines.
• Scores, analysis, and action items are also created and disseminated for each department (and, in large departments, in sub-departments), by that [sub-]department's leaders. (In the context of the City, it may also make sense for the City Manager's office to lead an analysis and discussion with each bargaining unit.)
That model has seemed to work well in the organizations I've been in, and I think it would work well for the City as well.
Given that the buck ultimately stops with City Council, I think it would make sense to also present the results and action items with Council in open session. But only after results have been presented and discussed bi-directionally with staff and bargaining units.
Best,
Jordan Moldow
D3 resident, Japantown
This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources.