CREMONA – Council has approved a plan to review the municipality’s personnel policy manual.
The document outlines how the village deals with such things as employee recruitment and evaluation, management rights, equal employment opportunities, resignations and terminations.
The decision to initiate the review process took place during the Jan. 17 council meeting.
Acting mayor Joseph Canaday explained that the review is being undertaken to ensure Personnel Manual Policy #1701-04 is up-to-date with current provincial legislation.
“It is in our bylaws to review all of policies,” Canaday told the Albertan. “We want to make sure that all our policies still apply and are up-to-date. Personnel policy has to be in line with Alberta Labour regulations.
“We want to make sure that the employees have access to the most recent policy (and) we want to make sure that we haven’t missed any updates from Alberta Labour in our own policy.”
According to its current policy statement, the manual is in place to provide a “uniform, fair and effective system of personnel administration for the Village of Cremona and to provide a mutual understanding between employees, and supervisors with policy guidelines approved by village council.
“The manual will be periodically reviewed and revised where necessary. Any additional memorandum issues concerning the personnel manual will be distributed and made available to all employees.”
The manual itself has three main objectives, including ensuring that procedures are “fair to both employer and employee and that adequate protection is provided for the interest of both parties” and “to provide employee benefits at a level that will ensure the village to maintain a competitive position in the labour market.”
Although council has already identified some specific areas of the policy it would like to review, those are not yet being made public, he said.
“We have some things that we are looking into, but that’s about as much as I want to say on that right now; it is internal work,” Canaday said.
Any proposed changes coming out of the review will be reviewed by legal counsel and would require a motion of council to approve.
“Any changes would go through legal channels to make sure that we are in compliance,” he said. “If we make any changes, we would get our lawyer involved and make sure that the policies stay in compliance.”
There is no specific timeline for the personnel policy manual review to be completed, he said.
Canaday is acting mayor in the absence of mayor Tim Hagen, who is on medical leave.
