Employee exit interviews point to ‘toxic’ workplace culture at Fargo Cass Public Health – InForum

FARGO — WDAY News has obtained dozens of exit interviews from former employees of Cass Public Health through a Freedom of Information Act Request.

After weeks of digging through those interviews, a common thread emerges. Employees criticizing department leadership, describing their work environment as toxic, stressful and unhealthy.

In 2024, through Dec. 16, a total of 52 employees of Fargo Cass Public Health left, according to documents obtained by WDAY News. In 2023, that number was 37. In 2022, it was 48 employees, although that includes departures of 12 seasonal employees hired to help with the agency’s COVID response.

Those disparities are even more stark within the Harm Reduction programs — 26 Harm Reduction employees left in 2024 an increase from 21 in 2023, and 18 in 2022. The Harm Reduction Programs work with various social and health issues and outcomes, including drug and alcohol addiction, among many others.

Those 26 employees make up more than half of the Harm Reduction division, which is made up of 44 positions, according to documents provided to WDAY News through the FOIA request.

A raw look at the number shows a noticeable increase in turnover over the past year, but city officials say those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

“Fargo Cass Public Health and the city of Fargo as a whole have experienced some changes in workforce dynamics due to economic and industry trends,” Fargo Assistant Director of Human Resources Beth Wiegman said. “Additionally, we compete with several large private healthcare facilities in attracting and retaining healthcare talent.”

City officials dispute the numbers are out of the ordinary, pointing out that of those 52 employees, seven employees who worked as Correctional Health Nurses at the Cass County Jail transitioned to being employees of the county, not of the city.

Putting aside those employees and positions cut in the 2024 budget process, turnover numbers have increased, but by a smaller margin.

“I don’t think that that is significant when you look at industry and regional trends in terms of what turnover is doing,” Wiegman said.

But some exit interviews from past FCPH employees paint a different story.

Exit interviews obtained by WDAY News cover dozens of employees who left FCPH over the last three years.

Many interviewees say they left FCPH because of Family Circumstance or because they are moving from the area or found other employment. Other interviews paint a negative picture of workplace culture at FCPH.

A medical technologist who resigned in summer 2024 writes that they were “dissatisfied with workplace culture” and said they felt they couldn’t communicate with management because of “dishonesty and manipulation.” The person also wrote about “Nasty personal comments said to me by management and others. Management did not hesitate to gossip and reveal negative incidents that should be kept private.”

Another exit interview from a registered nurse who left FCPH in summer 2024 claims tension exists between different departments of FCPH, writing “there is no teamwork” and “someone needs to look at the environment, otherwise they will continue to have turnover because no one wants to work in that type of work climate.”

Issues persist beyond last year. A Community Health Educator who resigned in 2023 wrote “my supervisor made my job challenging and difficult to come to every day. He leads by intimidation.”

In an email to City Administrator Michael Redlinger, that same employee wrote about their supervisor “something needs to be done before the City of Fargo ends up in a lawsuit over this man and his tactics as a so-called manager.”

Jennifer Faul took the reins as Director of Fargo Cass Public Health last summer, replacing Desi Fleming, who had been with the department for decades.

Faul and Wiegeman declined to talk about specific employees by name in an interview with WDAY News on Jan. 9. They say implementing a healthy workplace culture is a challenge in any place of work, and dispute that FCPH has unique problems.

“We don’t want existing or exiting employees to feel that way,” Wiegman said.

Wiegman says the city takes exit interviews seriously, but says it can be challenging to determine an appropriate response, since exit interviews often reflect the perspective of a single employee.

“There really isn’t a cookie cutter way to solve some of those problems, and so we take each exit interview on a case-by-case basis and work with the appropriate people involved to develop an action plan,” Wiegman explained.

Faul says improving communications between FCPH’s six divisions is a top priority for her.

“It’s something that hadn’t necessarily been strongly done previous to that, where each division was working in a siloed kind of fashion, serving the population that came to their particular division,” Faul explained. “When we started breaking down the barriers for that, I think the culture has improved by having increased communication across divisions.”