PSHRA Member Agencies Selected for Work for America Talent Accelerator Program

Seven PSHRA member agencies are among the 12 cities selected to take part in Work for America’s Talent Accelerator program, a free, eight-week virtual workshop designed to help city HR and operational teams improve hiring processes.

Part of the program’s inaugural Transforming City Hiring Processes cohort, the Spring 2026 cities include PSHRA member agencies:

• The City of Akron, Ohio
• The City of Allentown, Pa.
• The City of Kansas City
• The City of Knoxville, Tenn.
• The City of Pittsburgh, Pa.
• The City of Pompano Beach, Fla.
• The City of Savannah, Ga.

PSHRA also has individual members in some of the other participating cities: the City of Albuquerque, N.M., the City of Green Bay, Wisc., the City of New York, the City of Norfolk, Va. and the City of Stockton, Calif.

Delivered in partnership with Jobs for the Future, the workshop will help cities map their end-to-end hiring processes, identify bottlenecks and develop “practical, leadership-ready recommendations to improve efficiency and candidate experience, according to a Work for America statement.

The Spring 2026 cohort, which runs from April 21 through June 9, focuses on operational improvements to hiring workflows, with participating cities collaborating to surface common challenges such as fragmented processes, unclear responsibilities and limited visibility into hiring timelines, according to Work for America.

At the program’s conclusion, each city will produce a comprehensive process map, surface key inefficiencies and deliver a briefing to leadership outlining recommended changes.

A second Talent Accelerator workshop, Data-Driven Hiring for Cities, is planned for Fall 2026. The program will focus on helping selected cities use hiring data and metrics to inform decision-making and track progress, according to Work for America, which urges cities interested in taking part in future cohorts to fill out an interest form.

“Hiring is the operating system of local government. If it’s broken, everything downstream breaks with it,” said Caitlin Lewis, executive director of Work for America, in a statement.

“Talent Accelerator is where cities rebuild that foundation, so that every service, every team, every resident feels the difference.”