Patty Hoppenstedt
The city of DeKalb has hired Patty Hoppenstedt as assistant city manager to replace Rudy Espiritu who resigned from DeKalb government earlier this year, according to a press release issued by City Manager Anne Marie Gaura. As a member of the senior management team Hoppenstedt will manage the city’s human resources functions, the City Manager’s office staff and a variety of other projects.
Hoppenstedt was the human resources director for the village of Schaumburg for almost five years following a three year stint as the department’s assistant director.
Previous to her career with the village of Shaumburg, Hoppenstedt worked in the private sector in security services that includes tenures at the John Hancock Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Museum of Science and Industry.
Hoppenstedt has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and criminal justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also has a Master of Business Administration degree with distinction from the Keller Graduate School of Management. Hoppenstedt has achieved the International Public Management Association (IPMA) certification as a human resources professional.
Hoppenstedt was awarded the James Baird Leadership Award from the Illinois Public Employer Labor Relations Association for significant achievements in the field of public sector labor and employee relations.
From the Google…
Contract negotiations with the public sector unions are contained within the vaults of closed session meetings opened only by precisely worded FOIA requests in DeKalb. A Chicago Tribune report on the village of Schaumburg’s contract negotiations suggests that Hoppenstedt has experienced a more transparent approach. Hopefully she brings that approach to the City of DeKalb:
“We haven’t seen a lot of movement at all,” said David Marlow, AFSCME organizer, who has been with the local unit since the beginning and is on the negotiating team. The show of support at Tuesday’s meeting, he said, demonstrated to the board that employees “stand together” and are concerned because “it’s been slow at the bargaining table.
But Patty Hoppenstedt, Schaumburg village human resources director, disagrees, and said that after 10 meetings, both sides have tentatively agreed on 10 provisions in the contract.
“I don’t understand the frustration he expresses because we’ve been bargaining in good faith,” Hoppenstedt said. “I feel we’re making progress and moving in the right direction.”
Village manager Ken Fritz said in his experience in negotiating contracts with the five other unions operating in the village, the first contract often takes more time because the language is so important to get right the first time.
“The problem for us,” Fritz said, “was they had indicated they would have an economic proposal at the beginning of October, and they have yet to provide that.”
Both Hoppenstedt and Fritz confirmed that these employees, who are currently evaluated on a “pay for performance” structure, received a 2 percent raise this past year, which was retroactive to May 1 and paid in September. Based on evaluations, some employees received an additional 1 percent merit increase, Fritz said. The village has not yet budgeted for employee salaries for fiscal year 2013, which runs May 1, 2013 through April 30, 2014.
Economics and contract length have not been at the top of the agenda for Marlow and his bargaining team. Instead, Marlow said his team is focusing on non-economic proposals that protect fair treatment and give those represented a voice in the work they do
“In our experience, we would have liked to make more progress by now,” Marlow said. Source.
According to Ann All, editor of Enterprise Apps Today, while director of Human Resources at the village of Schaumburg, Hoppenstedt employed an enterprise social intranetwork to provide training and other information to staff without assembling employees for physical meetings:
Email Killer: A Customer’s Take
The Village of Schaumburg, Ill., a customer of SuccessFactors and now of SAP, has been using SAP Jam for two years. Initially Jam served as a cost-effective way to provide training and other information to staff without assembling employees for physical meetings, a necessity in austere times. “We were being asked to do more with less, and it was hard to spare money for training sessions or meetings,” said Patty Hoppenstedt, director of Human Resources.
“Intrigued” by the social elements of the product and interested in using it to boost employee collaboration, the village made SAP Jam the landing page for its intranet, replacing a homegrown portal, Hoppenstedt said. “We wanted it to be the one place that people knew where to go for all the information they needed throughout their work days to be efficient.” In addition, she said, all employees were automatically opted into certain groups like one for an online newsletter, so they are “instantly aware and informed of news throughout village of Schaumburg.”
SAP Jam has virtually replaced email, she said, noting that it is much simpler to gather feedback from coworkers via the platform rather than sending out an email and waiting for replies. “Especially with the mobile capabilities, you can connect with others more quickly and easily. You do not have to be at your desk and logged onto a system,” she said, an especially important feature for employees that spend much of their time outside an office.
“You do not need to worry about whether you’ve left anyone off an email list or accidentally deleted them,” she added. “Comments all get tracked. They won’t be deleted or put into an Outlook folder that you cannot find.”
The intuitive nature of the software was a benefit but also a challenge, Hoppenstedt said, as it initially led the village to downplay training.
“It was so user friendly we made the assumption everyone would jump on it and use it, so we did not offer training upfront,” she said. “But there was still a population of employees that did not like change. We realized we needed to offer training and do more of a one-on-one with some people to better communicate the benefits. Once they gave it a chance and saw what was possible, they decided to use it.”
As an added incentive, she said, the village required employees to use it for common processes such as requesting vacation time. The effort worked, as about 650 Village of Schaumburg employees now use SAP Jam.
Hoppenstedt said the village’s IT organization is currently assessing the platform, with an eye toward improving performance by expanding usage – or in some cases, curtailing it. For example, she said many employees essentially use it as a content management system although that is not one of its intended functions. “You can upload and share documents, but it is not meant to be a repository. So we are taking a step back to re-evaluate and determine areas for improvement.” Source. More from Enterprise Apps Today.
The city press release did not include salary or contract terms for Hoppenstedt.
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