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SHANNON TANSusan Sinz tries to make a city more than 90 percent white sensitive to racial issues while diversifying its work force.
LARGO - City officials proposed a human rights ordinance after a Fair Housing study found bias against minorities renting apartments in Largo.
Officials strengthened the city's internal harassment policy after a racial slur in the fire department.
They mandated diversity and sensitivity training, typically after serious incidents of discrimination against women or minorities.
The city's track record is one of reacting to negative headlines. But Susan Sinz, its relatively new human resources director, wants to be more proactive.
Since she started in July, Sinz has been quietly hammering out City Hall's plans to improve diversity.
First, she wrote a six-page memo outlining diversity initiatives the city will take to better its work environment and minority recruitment.
Then, this past Tuesday, she presented commissioners with suggestions to extend those initiatives into the community.
Most human resources directors stay behind the scenes. But the self-proclaimed people person has been entrusted with a task. And she can see a path to get there.
"I'm not saying it's a cakewalk," she said. "I know the land mines are out there."
Critics will wonder whether her efforts can succeed. Largo employees are 89 percent white; the city is nearly 93 percent white.
"If we can get three tangible things out of this," she said, "it'll be worth it."
Sinz, 39, was chosen by City Manager Steven Stanton to be the city's first human resources director after a 17-month national search. Stanton wanted a front person who could focus on employee training and issues such as diversity.
Sinz's first commission meeting was Aug. 5, the day the proposed human rights ordinance failed. She listened as people spoke for and against the proposal for more than five hours. She realized it was imperative to educate members of the community, especially the business owners.
She suggested forming a committee made up of residents and businesses to discuss what the city could do to attract a more diverse population. But first, officials agreed that Sinz should invite the Florida Commission on Human Rights to make a presentation. The city may even hold a town hall meeting on the topic.
The negative publicity generated by past incidents where city employees made inappropriate comments at work has resulted in an apprehensive work force. If Largo's diversity efforts are to succeed, she says, it needs to be done one step at a time.
She has researched the best practices used by companies and other cities when it comes to employee relations. She started the weekly Monday Morning Briefing newsletter for employees, which occasionally features articles on diversity.
Now, it's all about getting input from employees and making any necessary changes, she said.
"That's the most important thing - to keep it pure and simple," Sinz said.
Instead of more formal training, Sinz set up an executive employee relations and diversity committee composed of department heads. They crafted a definition of diversity and an employee culture statement.
Department committees will meet this month to discuss setting up a small-group outreach, a new employee mentoring program and a diversity week.
Over a three-month period, each committee will talk to four or five employees at a time on the benefits of a diverse work force, what the city can do to promote diversity, and what the obstacles are.
Education is key, she says. At every staff meeting, she hands out forms and policy proposals. After her co-workers teased her about it, she brought a shopping cart filled with forms to one meeting.
"She can laugh at herself," Stanton said.
She's also able to relate to other employees. On Take Your Child to Work Day, Sinz donned a bathing suit and slid down the waterslide at Highland Family Aquatic Center with her young daughters. Her daughters' glitter and paint-covered artwork cover a wall of her office.
"She's a sweetheart," said Nate Klinger, a music director at Christ Church of Oak Brook in Illinois, where Sinz was an elder. "She's a great lady - big heart, very committed to her faith and her family."
Even at her former church, Sinz sat on a leadership committee aimed at changing a culture where churchgoers showed up only on Sundays.
"It was a new way of thinking about how to be a church," Klinger said. "We were moving from where people show up (for church) to where people are involved."
While working at the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority for seven years, Sinz implemented changes that resulted in a huge public impact.
She was the chief negotiator on union contracts, and initiated a cross-training program that gave employees skills in different areas, said Tom Cuculich, former executive director of the agency.
"She's very hands-on, very involved," he said. "It wasn't just hiring and firing and discipline. She made sure employees had the skills they needed."
Sinz believes a diverse work force allows people to understand one another better.
Take a group of people who are stuck in an elevator. When the elevator stops, and the lights go off, you don't care who's standing next to you.
"You work together to get off the elevator," Sinz said. "When you have to work with people, all that falls away."
- Shannon Tan can be reached at shtan@sptimes.com or 445-4174.