DEPARTMENT: Economic Development
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Rene Dominguez
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City-wide
SUBJECT:
Chief Talent & Recruitment Officer (CTRO)
SUMMARY:
An Ordinance approving an updated agreement for $150,000 to support a Chief Talent & Recruitment Officer (CTRO) under the direction of, and partnership with, Tech Bloc a 501 (c) (3) Non-Profit Corporation, funding for this agreement is included in the FY 2018 Economic Development General Fund Budget.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
There are approximately 1,000 IT-related companies/institutions employing close to 35,000 IT workers in San Antonio. Large employers such as USAA and Rackspace have dedicated talent recruitment and hiring professionals on staff. However, the great majority of small-to-mid-sized technology companies lack access to these types of professional recruitment resources, relying instead on personal/professional networks, job boards, and/or expensive, one-off headhunter type services. Meanwhile, regional IT workers or those interested in access to IT-related career fields lack a central location for job listings, placement services, and/or training and scholarship opportunities. The net effect is an inefficient or suboptimal labor education, recruitment and placement market in San Antonio.
Understanding the job demands of industry is necessary to ensure the community is producing and matching talent to that demand. Each industry has its unique features and challenges that shape how that industry crafts solutions to deal with issues regarding talent identification and acquisition. The City’s response to this problem is SA Works. SA Works is supported by the City to help align industry job demand in the targeted industries of manufacturing, healthcare, and IT. Specifically in IT, the City and SA Works worked with Tech Bloc as an industry representative to determine that a CTRO position would be the best way to determine and respond to industry IT job demand.
ISSUE:
To create a healthy ecosystem for IT talent, San Antonio will need to grow its current labor market through training and recruitment, while fostering more efficient systems to facilitate job matches for often highly specialized technology workers. Tech Bloc has organized to support and fund a Chief Talent and Recruitment Officer (CTRO) and is partnering with the City of San Antonio and Bexar County for seed funding to launch the program.
A central clearing house for recruitment, training guidance and job placement will be led by the Chief Talent and Recruitment Officer (CTRO) which has been hired by Tech Bloc, an IT industry collaborative. This qualified and experienced individual will serve as a professional recruiter for the local IT ecosystem, especially the many mid-to-small-sized tech companies across San Antonio who lack dedicated staff to perform this function and a point of coordination between the City of San Antonio, SA Works and other workforce intermediaries.
The CTRO will help unify and better empower the currently fractured and uncoordinated IT talent recruitment, training, job search, and hiring ecosystem across the San Antonio region. The CTRO’s office and online community engagement assets will be a single-point-of-contact and coordination for 1) individuals seeking IT training and/or job placement, 2) employers searching for IT workers with general or highly-specific technical skills, and 3) industry efforts to recruit and retain more IT talent to San Antonio.
The CTRO will provide key performance indicators that include the number of industry partnerships, number of job listings, and number of job placements. This data will provide a baseline to build upon going forward and provide context to the City and SA Works about local IT workforce needs
Bexar County provided $150,000 of funding for the first year of operation. The City of San Antonio will enter into a $150,000 agreement with Tech Bloc for the second year of funding for development and execution of a work plan to structure and deliver an information system and means of coordination and collaboration with existing workforce development partners through April 2019. The initial funding from the City and County will sustain the CTRO program for the first two years then will become self-sufficient through industry support.
ALTERNATIVES:
City Council could reject a contract with SA Works for a CTRO. Tech Bloc has already received $150,000 from Bexar County and has hired the CTRO. Without City funds, Tech Bloc would struggle to maintain the CTRO and the connection of IT talent would continue to be inefficient.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This ordinance approves an agreemnent with TechBloc in the amount of $150,000 to support a Chief Talent and Recruitment Officer (CTRO), funding for this agreement is included in the FY 2018 Economic Development General Fund Budget.
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends approval of a contract with Tech Bloc in the amount of $150,000 to support a Chief Technology & Recruitment Officer.