EAST LONGMEADOW – The town of East Longmeadow’s first human resources (HR) director, Karin Decker, started her second week on the job on Feb. 6.

Decker said one of her top goals is to streamline the town’s hiring process across its many departments.

“There really isn’t a central place for everything here,” Decker told Reminder Publications. “We need to centralize the policies, the employees, files, and handbooks all together. Right now, every department has their own so it makes it really difficult to get information from anywhere … And that’s going to take a while.”

Decker said she currently shares an office with Health Director Aimee Petrosky while renovations are underway at Town Hall, which are set to be completed in a month.

“As soon as we get the offices done, that’s when I can start really doing some of that stuff,” she explained. “In the meantime, I’m still going to be working on different processes like new hires, how we hire new people, and working with the police and fire chiefs to hire their new employees. It’s a big learning curve because everybody here seems to do things a little bit differently.”

Decker, a Westfield resident, worked for the city of Pittsfield starting in 2007 before becoming the assistant director of human recourses for the city of Westfield in 2013. She said she was appointed as Westfield’s HR director the following year.

“And then prior to that, all my other positions were management,” she added. “My first position as an HR director was in the early 1990s. So, I’ve been in the field for a long time. I’m very well versed on benefits, employee relations as far as contracts and worker’s comp and civil service and all of the things that come underneath this department.”

Decker said what attracted her to the position in East Longmeadow was the fact that she would be responsible with starting the department.

She said department heads were previously responsible for hiring their employees, but now the HR Department would vet candidates and help departments fill positions.

“It starts right from the get go from advertising,” Decker explained. “No one informs the town manager or the [council] when they’re hiring somebody … Let’s say the Council on Aging – they’re going through a hiring right now with bookkeeper. So, what I would have done would was have them have a conversation with me first. Let’s go over the job description and the posting that you’re going to put out there. From there, get it in the paper. All of those applications should come to the HR Department so we can look over them [to] see if their qualifications meet what the department is looking for and at that time sit down with the manager or the department head and go over what my thoughts are and come up with a number of people that we’re going to interview.”

She added during the interview process she and the department head would pose questions to applicants and decide who the best fit would be.

Decker said the building commissioner job is a position she’s looking to find applicants for in the near future in addition to positions that must be established under the town’s charter such as a director of municipal finance and a director of planning and community development.

“We’re just starting with the job descriptions right now, so probably within six weeks to two months at the latest [the positions would be filled],” she explained.