Department of Industrial Relations Director Katie Hagen is leaving DIR for the private sector, according to well-placed internal sources. Hagen has served for five years in what one senior manager describes as a chaotic tenure.
News of the impending departure has been kept close (until this story); few managers were aware. No official announcement has been made. Neither the Governor’s office nor DIR public information officers returned calls in time for this story.
DIR Managers criticized Hagan, saying she would make decisions but not give them enough time to take hold before changing the game again.
She will become the CEO of CPS HR Consulting in July. The firm specializes in public agencies, and its website states that it provides testing, recruitment, and personnel selection, as well as organizational performance improvement. It has approximately 120 full-time staff and 200 project consultants. It serves, it says, some 1200 public agency and nonprofit clients throughout the United States.
DIR has had huge personnel issues and has been unable to staff up to capacity, severely limiting its ability to complete the mission. Managers across the board say a convoluted hiring process is to blame.
Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Hagen as DIR director in March 2020, just as the pandemic shutdowns were taking hold. Before her appointment at DIR, Hagen was chief deputy director at the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
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