A new organizational assessment found Kalamazoo city employees describe favoritism and inconsistent discipline as voluntary departures climbed 13-fold since 2021.
A consultant hired by the Kalamazoo City Commission presented findings from a citywide diversity, equity and inclusion organizational assessment during an August 17 Committee of the Whole meeting, describing sharply rising employee turnover and what surveyed staff called an inconsistently enforced disciplinary system.
City Manager Malcolm Hankins told commissioners the commission voted in September 2025 to engage the firm All Things Diverse to conduct the assessment, which followed up on a prior organizational climate review completed in 2021. Dr. Tammy L. Hodo, the firm’s founder and president, presented the results alongside Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director Tanya Hewitt-Smith.
Methodology
Hodo’s team surveyed the city’s 671 employees and received 138 responses, a 20% response rate. The 33-question survey covered fairness, leadership, communication and accountability using a four-point scale. Researchers also conducted a pay equity audit, reviewed personnel policies through an equity lens, analyzed compensation and separation data for 668 employees, and held four anonymous focus groups.
Turnover findings
The assessment found voluntary departures climbed from three in 2021 to 42 in 2024, a roughly 13-fold increase. Combined, voluntary exits and retirements accounted for 61% of the city’s 364 total separations recorded between 2021 and 2025. Hodo told commissioners the city currently has no formal exit interview process, which she said makes it difficult to identify patterns behind the departures.
Commissioner Jae Slaby, who said she previously worked for the city, told the commission she was one of six employees who resigned from the Community Planning and Economic Development department within an eight-month span. “This truly validates my own experience and those that I worked with,” she said, adding her support for the city manager’s implementation of the recommendations.
Accountability and culture
Hodo said survey respondents and focus group participants described feeling that discipline was not applied evenly across the organization. The findings pointed to inconsistent accountability across departments as a central concern. Employees described their workplace culture as requiring enhanced leadership training, with Hodo telling commissioners that survey respondents characterized the organization as a “caste system where the top feels untouchable while small errors below get written up” — what she called the highest-risk finding in the assessment.
Hodo recommended the city publish a disciplinary framework that includes senior leadership and log employee concerns with assigned owners and timelines.
Communication and promotion pathways
Roughly 37% of survey respondents reported communication delays, and Hodo said some employees learned about leadership changes through outside media before hearing internally. She credited the city manager’s four-month-old monthly newsletter as a step toward addressing the issue, and recommended departments without computer access — citing waste management as an example — have printed copies posted on bulletin boards.
On promotion, Hodo said 75% of respondents wanted clearer paths for advancement, and that many supervisors were promoted for technical skill without training in managing people. She recommended a leadership needs assessment, structured management training for supervisors, and a published promotion framework.
Pay equity
Hodo’s presentation found that more than half of the city’s Black or African American employees fall into the organization’s second-lowest pay bracket, between $40,000 and $60,000 annually. Slaby noted the data doesn’t break down how long employees have held those positions or whether the concentration reflects role type. Slaby also raised a separate concern not addressed in the assessment: city employees who are not part of a union vest in a pension after five years, while unionized employees must wait 10 years.
Recommendations underway
Hodo’s report included a 90-day rollout plan and two new training courses — one on psychological safety for supervisors, one called “How to Speak Up at Work” for frontline employees — that Hewitt-Smith’s office is working to implement. Other recommendations include an anonymous concern-submission channel, optional “skip-level” meetings between employees and senior management, and “continuity books” to preserve institutional knowledge ahead of retirements.
Hankins told commissioners some recommendations were already underway before the report’s release and said the findings align with the commission’s goal of improving service delivery.
