GovLove - A Podcast About Local Government · Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL)

Building a People-Centered Workforce with Alex Lawrence, Boston, MA

·58 min·3 clips

GovLove opens by marking its 10-year anniversary and inviting listeners to think about what local government could look like in another decade. Ben Kittleson sits down with Alex Lawrence for a conversation about people operations inside city government. Lawrence is Boston's chief people officer, a role she has held since 2022. Her portfolio includes the Office of Human Resources, the Office of Labor Relations, the Registry, and appropriations for health benefits, unemployment, and workers' compensation. The episode keeps coming back to a simple question: how do you make policy work in a real organization, not just on paper? Boston's policy is the clearest example. The city did not roll it out as a polished final answer. It started as a pilot, ran it for six months, and asked both managers and employees what was working and what was getting in the way. That feedback shaped the policy before it went live. The approach helped surface concerns early and lowered some of the resistance that usually comes with workplace change. Lawrence points out that the policy affected only a small part of the workforce. Many employees still came into the building, including people who ate lunch downtown. The biggest impact was on technology roles, where Boston has to compete with employers that already offer flexibility. The pilot went well overall, though the city still made a few practical changes after launch. Some of those tweaks dealt with reporting changes in workdays. Others gave managers a little more room to judge whether work was getting done. The result is a grounded look at how municipal workforce policy gets tested, revised, and lived with.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how Boston tests and refines flexible work policy in city government.

Boston's chief people officer, Alex Lawrence, offers a practical look at how flexible work policy is negotiated and refined inside city government.

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You want a grounded look at how Boston pilots flexible work before making it live.

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