Kathy McNelis has been the Manager of Employee Engagement and Development at the City of Lakeland, Florida, since March 2016. In this role, she and her team are transforming a traditional training and development department into one recognized as a consultative strategic business partner offering a diversified portfolio of professional development platforms. This includes introducing the City to organizational development, talent and succession management, a roadmap for culture “resets” targeting organizational and individual effectiveness, an online learning management system, “booster” programs for retention of post-event learnings, an improved new hire experience with onboarding enhancements, customized learning forums and workshops, a “leaders teaching leaders” paradigm, more inclusive strategic planning processes, and change management strategies. The “voice of the customer” is at the core of engaging leadership.
Before transitioning back into human resources, Kathy spent 13 years with the Lakeland Electric Utility as the Manager of Corporate Performance. This role included driving their strategic planning process, developing dashboard metrics, and facilitating senior leadership retreats. She led process improvement events across all operating divisions, managed the employee opinion survey process, and served as a Florida Sterling Award Examiner for several years.
Prior to public service, Kathy had 15 years of experience in private industry across a variety of HR and strategic planning leadership roles, including Director of Human Resource Development and Recruitment and Reinvention Manager at Florida Power Corporation (now Duke Power). She was an adjunct faculty member at several universities, teaching in MBA programs, and has consulting experience.
Kathy earned her Ph.D. and Master’s degrees from The Ohio State University in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and her BA from The State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from Villanova University and is currently pursuing her newest interest in the field of C-IQ (Conversational Intelligence).
SGR works closely with municipal governments across the nation to provide experienced Interim Managers who can begin work quickly to keep teams and objectives on track. To learn more, contact Wendle Medford.
SGR is bringing its Servant Leadership Conference to the Pacific Northwest, September 19-20 in Sherwood, Oregon. Join us in learning from high-performing, innovative, and progressive organizations that have revolutionized the recruitment and development processes and are recognized for their culture and values. Register today!
There are widespread predictions of a coming recession. What can local governments do to prepare? McKinsey’s advice to corporate America is on-target for local governments as well—accelerate investment in training and begin focusing on digital disruption. After reading this article, contact Training@GovernmentResource.com for information on how SGR can help you deliver live and online training.
The Town of Addison, Texas, has recognized that in today’s environment of intense talent shortages, new approaches to compete for talent are essential. They have created a fun and engaging video to strengthen their candidate outreach. Contact Addison's HR Director Passion Hayes for more information.
Though we may have a hard time accepting it, most of us are amateurs. This becomes problematic because we often engage in the game of being professionals with poor results. When we invert this problem by trying to avoid losing rather than trying to win, we increase our chances of success.
Putting aside the unnecessary in meetings can accomplish the end result.
"Be kind to people no matter how they react to you. You never know what all sorts of pain and conflict and difficulties they are enduring that are causing them to act out."
