M Focus on: Public Works
Broomfield, Colo., brings innovative team approach to snow removal (Shutterstock.com)
By KEVIN KILBANE | The Municipal
A Colorado community’s innovative team approach to snow response could offer an idea for other communities seeking to improve efficiency while recruiting and retaining employees in a tight labor market. The combined city and county government of Broomfield, Colo., provides snow and ice management on 280 miles of roads. About three years ago, however, both a community survey and city-county employee survey pointed out areas for improvement, said Kimberly Dall, director of public works for the community of about 75,000 people north of Denver. “The community ranked the state higher in their snow-response operations than they ranked us,” Dall explained. “And then, on the employee survey, several of the drivers who had been part of the program just expressed that they were a little less than happy with it.” Broomfield government officials decided to develop a new snow response strategy by using an Innovation Ecosystem approach, Dall said. The community, which receives about 58 inches of snow per year, uses 28 truck drivers for 14 snow routes, with two drivers assigned to each route so they can split the work shifts, Dall said. The community pulls the drivers from its utilities, streets and parks departments. Previously, Broomfield divided snow-and-ice road response workers into two teams for each snow season, Dall said. One team would start snow plowing during the first snowstorm and then switch with the other team after 12 hours. The team working at the end of one snowstorm would sit out the first shift of the next snowstorm.
22 THE MUNICIPAL | JULY 2022
“So you never would know really when you were starting,” Dall said. The timing of snowstorms can be unpredictable. It could create situations, she said, where drivers would have to work a 12-hour snow shift after nearly working a full regular day of work. Drivers were stressed and felt they lacked control of their work schedules, Dall said. They missed a lot of holidays, birthdays and other family events. “We wanted to create consistency, in whatever method we could,” she said, “to help that predictability so they could at least plan their events around it as the snow event occurred.” Broomfield officials started the innovation process with two main goals: rank higher than the state on snow response in the community survey and improve employee morale on the snow-fighting team. Officials also wanted to act quickly, Dall said. They started meetings in August 2019 and put their plan in place by Oct. 1. They began by gathering a matrix group of 12 key snow-fighting personnel, most of whom weren’t managers. “We looked at who had driven in the past and who were our current drivers, who we thought would provide input and really be honest,” she explained. The matrix group first met to get to know one another better and to build trust. “It was interesting because we had people who had been working side-by-side for 15 years but never knew that he was interested in a
