The Honolulu City Council is considering auditing the Department of Human Resources to examine its selection and hiring process as the city faces filling about 3,000 vacant positions.

There are about 11,600 total positions at the city.

The resolution was proposed by Council Chair Tommy Waters.

“I introduced this because we’ve heard from various city agencies and departments that when they interview people for these vacant positions, it takes over a year to get processed sometimes and by the time they make the offer to the employee, they’ve accepted other employment,” he said during the Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee meeting Tuesday.

“That’s really the purpose of the audit, why is it taking so long? … We just want to help and make it more efficient.”

Human Resources Deputy Director Florencio C. Baguio Jr. was concerned that the audit would take away resources from the department and added that DHR is currently part of a Bloomberg Harvard Initiative that is examining its hiring practices.

“Just from our Bloomberg Harvard Initiative, it’s actually a very complex process,” he said, addressing the city’s high vacancy rate at the meeting. “I mean, there’s people who can triple their salaries by leaving the city and going to private sector.

“There’s people who can remote work with a mainland company, but while staying here. There is myriad factors as people who don’t want to work anymore, for whatever reason. But I can’t stand here and just give you a pat answer.”

Additionally the city is rolling out its official teleworking policy July 1 that may require some workers who are teleworking under the interim policy, established to address the COVID-19 pandemic, to return to the office.

Under the new permanent policy, workers who want to remain remote will need special permission from their department heads.

“Some people have been able to be very efficient, effective at telework, but the nature of the work, a lot of what the city does, and add to the fact that we’re short-handed, we need people to come back to work in order to get it done,” Mayor Rick Blangiardi told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“It’s also part of a return to normalcy in every way we can … our expectation is unless you have special approval, you’re expected to be back to work.”

He added that the city is aggressively hiring to fill the high number of vacant positions, most of which are in key departments such as the Honolulu Police Department, Department of Environmental Services and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The last time the city updated its teleworking policy was in 2010. Hawaii Government Employees Association Executive Director Randy Perreira wanted to see a policy for teleworking that is generally uniform for both city and state workers.

“Ideally, what we want is a telework option that allows employees the maximum flexibility while assuring that the work of the city is going to get done,” he said.

Baguio acknowledged during the Council committee meeting that the new telework policy would be less flexible than the current one, but that opportunity for telework would be possible for “individuals who are conscientiously going to work from home and complete their duties and responsibilities.” However, that is being largely left up to department heads to decide.

He was not sure if the teleworking policy would impact hiring and retention of employees, but that it would be an issue that department heads would need to consider.

Perreira thought that teleworking options could work to attract prospective employees and retain current ones.

“I think it would become a potential problem for them as an employer if they were not to allow telework because I think some employees would then quit to go work elsewhere, where they would have flexibility,” he said.

“It cuts both ways.”

HGEA is still talking with the city and state to negotiate a teleworking policy.

The city did not have information on how many employees were currently teleworking.

The Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee voted unanimously to approve the resolution to audit DHR. It will go to the Council for a full vote.