The city of Berkeley auditor\u2019s office is recommending changes to city government policy regarding workplace relationships after receiving a whistleblower report concerning a romantic relationship and perceived favoritism between a manager and employee in the same work unit.<\/p>\n
Currently, city policy does not address romantic, dating or cohabitating workplace relationships. City Auditor Jenny Wong\u2019s office conducted a policy-focused evaluation looking into how conflicts of interest and unfair practices in employment decisions may result from the lack of a workplace relationship policy.<\/p>\n
To address the policy gaps, the auditor\u2019s office recommends introducing cronyism and nepotism provisions to the Berkeley Municipal Code, broadening the definition of family relationships and adding more restrictions for romantic and cohabitating relationships which cause conflicts of interest. The office also proposes adopting a documented conflict management process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese gaps limit the City\u2019s ability to identify and manage conflicts of interest when workplace relationships intersect with employment decisions, which can increase the risk of actual or perceived favoritism,\u201d Wong said in a press release.<\/p>\n
The current policy that aims to mitigate nepotism \u2014 Administrative Regulation 2.12, or the Employment of Near Relatives regulation \u2014 only regulates supervisory roles among certain \u201cnear relatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regulation doesn\u2019t require employees to disclose romantic or cohabitating associations, unlike Oakland and San Francisco\u2019s policies, which maintain broader definitions of family, including extended family, and have explicit rules governing romantic relationships in the workplace.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the Whistleblower Program has received other reports regarding similar concerns about personal relationships that are not covered by current city policy content.<\/p>\n
Whistleblower Program Manager Erin Mullin said the program aims to provide clearer expectations and a consistent process for identifying and managing conflicts \u201cwhen personal relationships intersect with employment decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cActual or perceived favoritism can undermine employee confidence that hiring, promotions, supervision, and other employment decisions are fair and objective,\u201d Mullin wrote in an email. \u201cIt can also weaken trust in management and make it harder for the City to demonstrate that employment decisions are based on legitimate business considerations rather than personal relationships. Strong conflict-of-interest controls help protect the integrity of City operations and public confidence in City government.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the report, expanding and updating these policies would improve transparency and match Berkeley with peer jurisdictions such as Oakland and San Francisco.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe report and Management\u2019s Response are publicly available and the report will go to City Council on September 15,\u201d Mullin said in an email. \u201cManagement has already agreed with the report\u2019s recommendations and plans to evaluate updates to the City\u2019s Employment of Near Relatives policy and provide training following the policy-development and labor-relations process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of Berkeley auditor\u2019s office is recommending changes to city government policy regarding workplace relationships after receiving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[177103,177102,1610,177101,139047,177104,177105,7984,143,145,144,101,95843],"class_list":["post-447227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-administrative-regulation-2-12","tag-berkeley-municipal","tag-city-council","tag-city-of-berkeley-auditors-office","tag-code","tag-employment-of-near-relatives","tag-erin-mullin","tag-jenny-wong","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-san-francisco","tag-whistleblower-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}