“We need to get the right people in the right positions so that they can help accomplish the initiatives of the organisation – whether it be a project, improving a process or just getting the day-to-day work done,” she says. “HR also needs to be strategic partners in helping the organisation navigate through potential liability issues. Being brought in at the beginning helps us avoid or reduce the impact of any pitfalls and makes the organisation run smoother. The best compliment we can receive is that things run so smoothly you didn’t even know we were there!”
HR-related issues are central to balancing the books as well. Before cutting public sector benefits became the topic of the day, San Diego port was making changes to its benefits package to make the organisation ‘more sustainable in the long-term’, says Ms Corbin.
“Working in collaboration with our labour groups – the California Teamsters, Professional & Medical Employees Union, Local 911 and the San Diego Police Officers Association – we were able to make recommendations on health and retirement benefits that would continue to attract and retain employees and yet be sustainable for the future.”
She says the port’s employees are its biggest advocates. “It is their interactions with the community at large where our reputation as a ‘preferred employer’ starts. We hear over and over again from our applicants and people that we have hired that the top two reasons that they want to work for the Port of San Diego were because of its reputation and because of the types of the projects that we work on as an organisation.”
The next HR project being planned is the further development of the port’s intern programme, bridging some of the gaps between intern experience and full-time employment.
