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Dear Clayton Community:
I've read all of the rhetoric, professional commentary, retrospective analyses, and online criticisms surrounding the issues of our past city managers.
In summary, based on my analysis, it appears that our previous city manager Bret Prebula rode into town with his own agenda and poor management skills. As a side note, the city manager before him, Reina Schwartz, worked remotely from Sacramento most of the time, which proved ineffective in providing the real leadership needed by city staff.
My findings are as follows: We don’t need a Grand Jury to tell us what is going on at City Hall. The recent accusations from councilmember Holly Tillman and tabloid newspaper owner Tamara Steiner wrongly place blame on council members Wan, Diaz, and Trupiano for supposed meddling at city hall clearly stems from Tillman and Steiner's dissatisfaction with the past election's outcome rather than any actual wrongdoing by Wan, Diaz, and Trupiano.
Staff turnover in any organization is caused by various factors. Employees are leveraging the current labor market to jump to new opportunities, but what's making them leave in the first place? None of us will ever know for sure why people are leaving, but in many instances, it is caused by the lack of leadership. My research tells us good employees quit for many reasons.
The saying “people don't quit companies; they quit their bosses” is as true as the sky is blue.
Here are a few reasons why employees quit their jobs:
1) Rude behavior - Studies have shown that everyday indignities hurt productivity and result in good employees quitting. Rudeness, assigning blame, back-biting, playing favorites, and retaliations are among the reasons that aggravate employee turnover.
2) Employee misalignment - Organizations should never hire employees (internal or external) unless they are qualified for the job and in sync with the culture and goals of the organization. Managers should not try to force a fit when there is none.
3) Coaching and feedback are lacking - Effective managers know how to help employees improve their performance and consistently give coaching and feedback to all employees. Ineffective managers put off giving feedback to employees even though they instinctively know that giving and getting honest feedback is essential for growth and building successful teams and organizations.
4) Bad Management and Leadership - When the manager ignores difficult team members and the problems they cause, strong performers often get frustrated. They also may dread coming to work for fear of having to deal with their toxic coworkers. That leads to unhappiness on the job and is a big reason why good people leave.
5) Underpaid Relative to the Market - While many employees in recent years have prioritized company culture and flexibility over pay, those who feel undercompensated and mismanaged compared to the market are more likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Here is the real question we should all be asking ourselves. . . Who’s driving the bus? Who is in control of the team? THE CITY MANGER should be, not the City Council.
Holly and Tamara are you following along, are you listening? Please stop with the divisive rhetoric and misinformation.
It appears our past City Clerk, Janet Calderon got it right when she attributed the "lack of leadership" and a “toxic work environment” from the past two city managers as the sole reason for her departure.
When Bret came to town he wasn't in sync with the culture of Clayton. He brought his own agenda. When his agenda was rejected by most of the city council and the citizens, he packed his bags and left.
End of story.
We appreciate you for reading this article.
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Now that we’ve seen the “real” budget, it’s apparent Bret was not qualified to be a city manager.
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