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Mankato’s Remote Work Policy
The City of Mankato has had a telework policy for years, but it was very bare bones and nobody really took advantage of it.
But when the pandemic hit, the city sent just about everybody home to work. HR Director Sheila Huber reports it was challenging to get all of the information technology set up, but the city worked through it and gave employees VPN access and other tools to work from home.
Since then, they’ve been continuing to upgrade technology to provide easier access for staff. They started with a Zoom environment and then transitioned to a Microsoft Teams environment.
According to Sheila, “now our employees are figuring out ways to work from home, meet family and personal needs, but still be very active with their teams at work.”
The city found they can provide customer service at the same level as they did when everyone worked in the office. They noted that their residents seem to be preferring remote access to the city for things like providing building permit plans or paying water bills.
The city also reports that allowing work from offsite has had a side benefit of allowing projects to progress that otherwise might have been put on hold while someone was out of the office.