Empowering HR Professionals Through Peer Networking

Employee recruitment and retention continue to pose human resources challenges for local governments around the country, including those in the Centralina region. While visiting member governments during Centralina’s 55^th Anniversary Regional Road Trip, staff in these communities discussed the difficulties they face in attracting new talent while also struggling to retain current members of their workforce.  

Recognizing that human resources professionals could benefit from additional support as they navigate recruitment, retention and other personnel-related issues, Centralina sought to create a peer networking opportunity for these staff. Our objectives for this effort were to gain a better understanding of the issues affecting human resources professionals, share insights to help address common challenges, identify additional resources to support their work and build peer connections. The result – the Regional HR Officials Group – expands Centralina’s peer convening offerings to create a new space for discussing topics relevant to our members’ HR work within their organizations. We launched the group in December 2024 with a virtual meeting open to HR staff across the region.  

About the Group

A pre-meeting survey helped identify topics participants were interested in delving into as a group. Not surprisingly, recruitment and retention emerged as the top issue to address. At the group’s first meeting, Dr. Leisha DeHart-Davis from UNC School of Government (SOG) delivered a presentation on this hot topic, sharing data gathered from SOG’s Local Government Workplaces Initiative Employee Survey. Some of the data highlighted included trends in employee resignations and turnover predictors. She also shared recruitment strategies and practical tips to ensure successful hiring processes.  

The mix of presentation and group discussion created a highly interactive setting for the first Regional HR Officials Group meeting. In addition to learning from Dr. DeHart Davis’s expertise, participants were able to gain insights from each other’s experiences and lessons learned. This engagement among attendees representing various-sized municipal and county governments made for a successful launch. 

We are planning our next Regional HR Officials Group meeting for this spring where we will focus on employee wellness and mental health resources. We look forward to using future meetings to cover other topics that participants express interest in, including leadership and succession planning, employee engagement and morale, and technology and systems integration.  

This peer group is just one of the supports Centralina offers member governments to assist with their human resources-related challenges. We also provide executive search services, hiring and promotional assessment centers, personnel policy reviews and staffing studies. If your community needs assistance with human resources activities, please contact Michelle Nance at mnance@centralina.org.