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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The Department of Human Resources (DHR) is committed to providing a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and belonging environment for the City and County of San Francisco (City), where all employees and prospective employees experience fairness, dignity, and respect. DHR’s mission is to use fair and equitable practices to hire, develop, support, and retain a highly-qualified workforce.

The resources support and expand on the Mayor’s Executive Directive 18-02, "Ensuring a Diverse, Fair, and Inclusive City Workplace."

This webpage provides:

Guidelines

  • Discipline Guidance: DHR created the following checklists to ensure fair and consistent administration of corrective actions and disciplines across City departments.
  • Conviction History: DHR limits consideration of conviction history in hiring and promotion decisions, reducing conscious and implicit bias in hiring decisions, so that qualified, capable, and competent individuals are not denied opportunities to work for the City.
  • De-identification : DHR removes names, addresses, and schools attended from permanent civil service applications, to reduce implicit bias impacts in the interview selection process, thereby providing greater opportunity for those who may have been unfairly screened out in the past.

Policies

  • Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO): The City’s EEO Policy explicitly prohibits discrimination and harassment based on membership or perceived membership in a protected class, sexual harassment, and retaliation. The policy assigns responsibility for responding to and reporting discrimination, harassment, and retaliation; outlines complaint procedures; and describes potential discipline.
  • Gender Inclusion Policy and Tools: The City is dedicated to maintaining an inclusive, respectful, safe, and productive workplace for all transgender, gender-nonconforming, gender-nonbinary, and gender-transitioning employees, applicants, and contractors. The City does not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or retaliation based on gender, gender identity, and gender expression.
  • Language Diversity: The City’s Policy on Language Diversity recognizes that a workforce that speaks languages other than English enhances the services provided to the City’s culturally diverse public by providing efficient and accessible public services to its non-English speaking communities. An employee’s use of a language other than English is not only an asset in the provision of public services but, with few exceptions, is a legally protected right.
  • Policy Regarding the Treatment of Co-Workers and Members of the Public
  • Sexual Harassment: It is City policy that, in accordance with State and federal laws, each City employee has the right to work in an environment free of discrimination, including sexual harassment, and that sexual harassment is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the workplace.

Programs

  • Access to City Employment (ACE) provides an alternative route towards permanent City employment for qualified disabled individuals.
  • ApprenticeshipSF offers quality apprenticeship programs.
  • City University provides learning opportunities for City employees in an effort to produce high quality City services, improve performance, and satisfy employees. It is a partnership between the City, educational institutions, labor organizations, business, and philanthropic communities.
  • Diversity and Recruitment promotes diversity in the City and County of San Francisco workforce by recruiting highly qualified candidates and fostering meaningful collaborative partnerships with City departments and community stakeholders.

Reports

Trainings

DHR offers the following trainings to City employees in an aim to advance workforce diversity, inclusion, and equity goals.

  • Cross Cultural Communications: This one-day training helps employees explore strategies to enhance communication and build a culture of trust in their workplace. In this training, participants learn differences in communication styles and the role culture plays in communication and managing conflict.
  • Managing Implicit Bias: Creating Awareness and Building Inclusion Training: This training helps participants understand the effects of bias on decision-making, and learn tools to continue creating inclusion in their daily lives.
  • Workplace Bullying: In this training, participants learn how to identify workplace bullying, as well as skills, strategies, and actions to take to stop workplace bullying.