Employee Handbook

Section 2 — Employment

The general policy of the City of West Des Moines is to hire, promote and employ people on the basis of their job qualifications. The City does not prohibit the employment of relatives, but there are restrictions that must be followed when hiring, transferring, or promoting employees to avoid conflicts of interest, reduce favoritism or the appearance of favoritism, avoid adversely affect supervision and preventing family conflicts from affecting the workplace.

Full, part time, intermittent or seasonal/temporary employees should not be employed in or transferred to a position where there is a reporting relationship within the Department where the candidate for employment is related by blood, adoption, marriage or is a domestic partner. Reporting relationship includes, but is not limited to the Department Director, Division Head or supervisor.  

The City Manager, present elected officials, any Commission/Board Members that directly advise/direct the department that the employee would be employed in, or any employee of the Human Resources Department should not employ any family member anywhere within the City, with the exception of seasonal or intermittent positions.

Under this policy an immediate family member is defined as a spouse (including Domestic Partner, romantic partner or cohabitant), parent (by birth, adoption or a step parent), child (by birth, adoption or a stepchild) brother or sister (by whole, half-blood, adoption or a step brother/sister), brother/sister-in law or son/daughter-in-law, niece/nephew of any brother or sister (as defined above), aunt/uncle or cousin (of employee or spouse),grandparent, grandparent–in-law, grandchild or grandchild-in-law.

Family members may be considered for employment outside the Department in which the familial relationship exists as long as they are selected based on a competitive recruitment process and are the most qualified for the position. Authorization must be obtained from the City Manager prior to making an offer of employment.   

If two employees marry, become related, or begin sharing living quarters with one another, and in the City’s judgment, a conflict in supervision exists or reasonably could exist, only one of the employees will be permitted to remain employed. The decision to leave will initially rest with the two relatives involved. If an agreement cannot be reached within 60 days by the two individuals involved, the City will take appropriate action to remedy the situation. Such action may include an involuntary Transfer or termination from employment.