A report was presented to city council a couple of weeks ago that criticized the hiring of Gilles Prefontaine. In the report it claims that there were many improprieties in the hiring process and that it was completed in a questionable way.
A report was presented to city council a couple of weeks ago that criticized the hiring of Gilles Prefontaine. In the report it claims that there were many improprieties in the hiring process and that it was completed in a questionable way.
The report was given by Kristen Toms, Steve Stone, and Bill Tuchuk.
They reported that Mr Prefontaine was chosen for the job despite not having a bachelors degree in business administration, engineering, or planning. But they ignore the fact that he has a master's degree in business administration. Isn't a master's degree more qualification than a bachelor's degree? This large of an error shouldn't be presented in a professional and well researched report.
When you look at the qualifications of who was reporting and how they gathered their information much becomes clear.
They did their research on LinkedIn and decided from that information that the other candidates were more qualified; they referenced it many times throughout the report. Since the qualifications of Mr. Prefontaine are in question by these three individuals I wonder what expertise did they bring to this report? Are they qualified to assess executive level hiring practices?
According to her LinkedIn profile Kristin Toms has a bachelor's of education, worked for three years as a high school English teacher, then worked as a personal assistant to a financial adviser at a bank for four years. She has no experience in human resources or management and has never worked in a city's administration, has never hired city employees, and has never been involved in high level executive hiring.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Steve Stone has 30 years experience in janitorial services, no apparent education beyond high school except “completing various courses in business accounting, communications, and marketing,” has never worked for a city in any capacity, and has never been involved in any HR related work for a municipality or any other level of government.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bill Tuchak is an auditor with no education, work history, or reference to anything relating to human resources, municipal governance, or hiring executive positions.
In the interest of fairness, I used their litmus test of LinkedIn profiles on the three individuals who did make the hiring decision.
At the time of the hiring, Patrick Draper had been our city manager for two years. He has a bachelor of commerce from McGill University, has worked in various high level positions for large organizations over the past 30 plus years including serving as the deputy minister of economic development for the province of Ontario. He has lots experience in developing and hiring executive level teams in government in a variety of environments.
The head of HR for the city of St. Albert was also involved in the decision. She has more than 20 years of experience in human resources. Her education includes a bachelor's degree in political sciences and government, a master's of law in employment relations, and a postgraduate diploma in employment law. he engineers and planners.
A partner with one of Canada's top executive recruiting firms was the third person involved in the hiring. For more than 20 years she has been interviewing and placing high-level executives in a variety of roles. She has two bachelors of commerce degrees, one from the U of A; and the second from the highly regarded specialty school, the Institute of Corporate Directors. She currently serves on the board of directors for a university and a hospital, and has served on multiple other boards for schools and large organizations. She has placed thousands of executives in large organizations including a variety of municipalities larger than St. Albert.
Let's compare the education and work experience of the hiring team against the education and work experience of the authors of the report. We can all quickly recognize who are our experts in high-level government job placement and who aren't.
Furthermore, the three people who actually made the hiring decision had access to far more information about the candidates including their resumes, professional references, cover letters, and did interviews with several of them. The report writers did not have that information, nor did they have the expertise to analyze the information properly.
As a resident of St. Albert, what matters to me is whether or not our staff is doing a good and effective job. In the follow up council report, it was noted that 96 per cent of the projects that Gilles Prefontaine presented in the past year have been approved by our city council. The planning and engineering department has long been a problem for our city, but in the past year we have seen a turn around that gives me hope for the future because the department now has an experienced leader guiding and supporting the engineers and planners.
Steve Bossell, St. Albert
