City of Destin HR director: employee survey shows strong culture, identifies mental‑health and communication gaps

Jamie, Destin’s human resources director, told the City of Destin City Council during a visioning session that 80 employees completed the city’s 2025 employee survey, which the presentation said represented about 73% participation.

Jamie said survey results showed strong workplace culture and fairness but identified room to improve how the city promotes physical and mental well‑being and how elected leaders communicate with staff. “Employees do feel like they are respected by the new city manager and department directors,” Jamie said, “Where we have some area to grow is employees don't necessarily feel respected and appreciated by the mayor and council.”

The survey was organized into five categories: employee well‑being and satisfaction, leadership and trust, communication and employee voice, compensation and career growth, and workplace culture and fairness. Jamie summarized ratings with a four‑star style scale; workplace culture and fairness scored highest (four stars), while leadership and trust scored about three stars and compensation/career growth about two stars on some measures.

Jamie outlined steps already planned or under way to address the gaps: a City of Destin Leadership Academy that will enroll 25 employees initially for monthly two‑hour sessions delivered by a professor from Northwest Florida State College over six months; a “deep dive” benefits analysis with the city’s broker to explore partially self‑funded health plans as a way to control annual premium increases; and a policy change to combine sick and vacation accrual accounts while retaining current accrual rates and liabilities. “We are going to be combining our sick and vacation accounts. Nothing is going to change in terms of liability for the city,” Jamie said.

Jamie also reported ongoing small‑group employee feedback sessions to understand why some employees view well‑being supports as inadequate and noted plans for a senior‑leader meeting after those sessions to recommend priority actions. On compensation, she said employees ranked pay, retirement and health insurance as their top three benefits and that many employees value the stability those benefits provide more than occasional merit increases.

City Manager (addressing the council earlier in the session) framed the exercise as a visioning and culture effort and emphasized “no drama, no surprises, and don't embarrass us” as expectations he has asked senior staff to adopt.

Key next steps Jamie recommended are completing the small‑group sessions, convening the senior leader follow‑up meeting, presenting the benefits analysis findings and rolling out the Leadership Academy beginning in May (timing given in the presentation). No formal council action or vote on HR items occurred during the session.

Ending: Jamie invited additional questions and said staff would return with recommendations after the small‑group sessions and the senior‑leader discussion. “We are going to set up a workshop with our broker and members of council to discuss 1 to 5 year options we can move to a partially self funded platform,” she said.