Public Sector HR Leadership doesn’t get nearly enough airtime — and Jennifer Fairweather, CHRO of Jefferson County, Colorado, is proof of why it should. In this episode of GoHire Talks, Jennifer pulls back the curtain on how a large county government rolled out a four-day business week, how public employees are actually excited about AI, and what it really takes to build a workforce culture that people choose — and stay for.
Key Topics Covered
Jennifer’s unconventional path from finance and engineering into HR
The real differences between private and public sector HR
How Jefferson County implemented a four-day business week
Work-life integration as a cultural cornerstone
Why public employees are embracing AI — not fearing it
Talent management and career development across local government roles
Managing a seasonal and hybrid workforce across a geographically diverse county
Building an employer-of-choice strategy driven by 200+ employee ideas
Public Sector HR Leadership Starts with an Unconventional Path
Jennifer didn’t follow a straight line into HR. She started in engineering school, graduated from the business school, and landed in finance at a mutual fund company. A maternity leave changed everything — when she returned, her role was gone, and she was shifted into training.
“Once I got over there I was like, I don’t wanna do this. But then I’m like, I really like this.”
That accidental pivot led her to recruiting, then HR, then back to school to deepen her expertise. Her operations and finance background became a superpower — giving her the ability to speak the language of business while advocating for people.
“You’re trying to advocate for the human side, but you can’t do that without the finance side, especially when you’re talking about things like compensation and total rewards.”
Private vs. Public Sector HR: What’s Actually Different
Jennifer spent time in corporate HR before making the move to public sector — and she’s candid about what surprised her. The differences are real, but they’re narrowing.
Public sector tends to have greater workforce longevity
More employee protections and rules govern HR decisions
Benefits, wellness, and retirement carry more cultural weight
Turnover is generally lower — but roles still compete with corporate salaries
Public Sector HR Leadership and the Mission Advantage
The biggest differentiator? Mission.
“You don’t have to worry about people being there for the right reason. They come to an organization because they have a passion for the community. They have a passion for public service.”
That built-in purpose changes the entire dynamic of government HR strategy — and it’s a core driver of public sector employee retention that private sector organizations spend millions trying to manufacture.
The Four-Day Business Week: How Jefferson County Made It Work
Jefferson County didn’t just flip a switch and close on Fridays. The four-day business week was years in the making — built on a foundation of flexibility, community research, and a culture that already valued work-life integration.
Before the shift, the county studied foot traffic, surveyed employees, conducted focus groups with leaders, and even consulted elected officials. Sustainability was part of the equation too — closing buildings on Fridays meant reduced energy consumption, less paper usage, and lower overhead costs.
“We already had somewhat of a flexible approach. We didn’t have a one size fits all.”
The pandemic accelerated the transition. When Jefferson County reopened, it did so under a four-day business week model, with most county buildings closed on Fridays. Critical operations — courts, sheriff’s department, libraries, park rangers — built their own flexibility solutions within that framework.
Public Sector HR Leadership and Work-Life Integration
Flexible work schedules aren’t a perk at Jefferson County — they’re a strategy. And that strategy has become a competitive recruiting advantage.
The county offers a range of schedule options: four tens, four nines plus four hours remote on Friday mornings, and hybrid arrangements tailored by department. Not every role qualifies — a park ranger can’t work remotely — but the commitment is to maximize flexibility within the real constraints of each job.
“We always try to maximize the most we can do for the different roles we have and try to bring that understanding together of how it helps us staff all the different roles and keep a competitive edge when we’re trying to recruit and retain the best employees.”
Work-life integration is also central to why employees choose Jefferson County. The ability to actually enjoy Colorado — the parks, the mountains, the communities they serve — is built directly into the employee value proposition.
AI in Local Government: Employees Are Excited, Not Scared
When Jennifer’s IT department presented on AI at a recent employee town hall, the reaction wasn’t fear — it was curiosity. Employees wanted to know how AI could help them move faster, reduce errors, and get out from under administrative burden.
Public sector organizations are chronically under-resourced. There’s always more work than people to do it. AI, in that context, isn’t a threat — it’s a lifeline.
“What I mostly hear from employees is an interest in, okay, how can AI help us do this quicker or better, or make sure we’re not making errors.”
Jennifer’s perspective on AI in local government is grounded and practical: automation has already shifted how people work in HR for years. The focus now is on developing humans to do what AI can’t — lead, problem-solve, and operate in the gray areas.
“What we need are humans to interact with other humans and to solve problems and to be able to answer those things that are in the gray area.”
Talent Management and Career Development Across Government Roles
One of the most underrated advantages of local government? Career mobility. You can move from accounting to IT to parks — sometimes without even leaving the county. Jennifer’s team is building the infrastructure to capture and act on that potential.
The goal is better tooling for leaders: visibility into employee career interests, background, development goals, and readiness for lateral or upward moves. Because retaining someone doesn’t always mean keeping them in the same seat.
“What’s wonderful about local government is you can do everything. So today you’re in accounting. Do you desire to be in IT? Do you desire to be a park ranger? How do we keep employees and move them?”
This talent strategy is directly tied to the county’s employer-of-choice initiative — and to closing the loop between what employees say they want and what the training team actually delivers.
The Employer of Choice Strategy: Built by Employees, for Employees
A few years ago, Jefferson County launched a major listening initiative tied directly to its strategic plan. The question was simple: what does being an employer of choice actually mean to you?
Employees responded with over 200 ideas — spanning benefits, leave programs, retirement, training, and more. The county has been systematically working through that list ever since, tracking and implementing changes across every aspect of the employee experience.
This is government HR strategy done right: not top-down policy, but bottom-up intelligence translated into action. And that’s HR leadership in the public sector at its best — listening deeply, then delivering.
🙌 About The Guest
Dr. Jennifer (Grier) Fairweather is a seasoned human resources leader serving as Chief Human Resources Officer at Jefferson County, with over 15 years of experience in the field. She partners closely with county leadership to strengthen employee relations, enhance compensation and benefits programs, and implement impactful, organization-wide training initiatives. Her work is grounded in a strong commitment to regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, and fostering a culture of accountability and engagement. With deep expertise in employee relations and total rewards, she focuses on driving positive outcomes while mitigating organizational risk through strategic collaboration. Dr. Fairweather is dedicated to advancing organizational effectiveness and leading culture change efforts that promote inclusion, belonging, service excellence, and employee satisfaction.
The GoHire Talks Interview Transcript with Jennifer Fairweather
[00:00:00] Jonathan Duarte: Welcome everyone. We’ve got a great guest today, Jennifer Fairweather, CHRO, for Jefferson County, Colorado. One of the first public sector CHROs we’ve had on in a long time. And Jennifer comes with a lot of really interesting experience especially talking about one of the things we wanna talk about today is a four day work week.
[00:00:20] Jonathan Duarte: In county, in public governments, and then how HR and operations, how she came from another diverse path into HR. And then overall, some of the differences we see in HR, in public sector that we don’t see in the private sector. So welcome to the show, Jennifer.
[00:00:39] Jennifer Fairweather: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:41] Jonathan Duarte: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your path. How did you get into HR and then move up the ranks and get into public HR versus corporate.
[00:00:51] Jennifer Fairweather: Oh yeah. Thank you for the question. So I guess I took definitely an unconventional path. I know sometimes we know people who know what they wanna do early in life and they do it.
[00:01:00] Jennifer Fairweather: I wasn’t one of those. I actually started out in the engineering school and ended up graduating out of the business school. And ended up in finance. I liked working with people. I was good with numbers, so I ended up in finance at a mutual fund company, and interestingly enough, because of shifts, I took a leave — this was before family medical leave — for maternity leave. When I came back, my role was no longer there. And so I was shifted into doing training. And once I got over there I was like, I don’t wanna do this. But then I’m like, I really like this.
[00:01:33] Jennifer Fairweather: And I learned about training and I learned about employee development. And then I learned about recruiting and so I worked my way over to HR because I found that I really liked it. And so I shifted from the finance side into the HR side and then went back to school to try to further my education in that arena and get up to speed on things.
[00:01:52] Jennifer Fairweather: And just kept progressing along in my career path in human resources. But I’m really thankful that I had so much experience managing a team on the operation side and understanding how that feels, because I feel like that’s helped me provide good service on the HR side and understand what that’s like when you’ve got all these things up against you and you’re just trying to get done what you need to get done and how it might feel interacting with human resources.
[00:02:18] Jonathan Duarte: That’s interesting. You had a background in finance too. I’ve interviewed so many CHROs — they all came from operations backgrounds, or they knew finance because they could speak the language of business.
[00:02:33] Jennifer Fairweather: And even though everything we do is people centered, there is a cost to things. It is important to make sure when you’re spending money, that you’re being cognizant of the priorities and the finances of your organization and that you can speak to that because you’re trying to advocate for the human side, but you can’t do that without the finance side, especially when you’re talking about things like compensation and total rewards and all of those things.
[00:02:57] Jennifer Fairweather: So I feel like it’s not something I certainly regret and I’m happy I still have a little bit of understanding of that world for sure.
[00:03:05] Jonathan Duarte: Yeah. And then what’s the difference been in say, in your career? What was the jump from private sector HR into public?
[00:03:20] Jennifer Fairweather: I was in corporate human resources and then moved over to public human resources and it wasn’t something I wanted to do. The opportunity just landed there and I thought — okay, people are people. So you have a lot of people who wanna say, oh, it’s so different and it is different, but people are people.
[00:03:34] Jennifer Fairweather: I would say the biggest differences — although I feel like our differences have started to minimize over the years — but the biggest differences: there’s a lot of longevity in the workforce in public sector. I would say sometimes there are more rules and protections for employees. I would say in the public sector, our focus can be more on wellness and benefits and good retirement plans than maybe always on the corporate side, but that’s not a hundred percent. But what I love the most about public sector is that our workforce — you don’t have to worry about people being there for the right reason.
[00:04:09] Jennifer Fairweather: They come to an organization because they have a passion for the community. They have a passion for public service, whether it’s parks or law enforcement or all of the different roles that we have. And so that’s an amazing piece that you find when you make that shift.
[00:04:25] Jonathan Duarte: Yeah, that’s interesting. I would gather you still have turnover, but probably not to the same level as private and you don’t have the same external factors that come into play with it.
[00:04:39] Jennifer Fairweather: Yeah, the turnover’s a little bit lower and it can fluctuate. We still do have a lot of jobs that compete with corporate. When you think about it — we have IT, we have finance, we have human resources, we have accounting, we have lawyers. We do have to be cognizant of our environment and how things that shift outside can impact our turnover.
[00:04:59] Jennifer Fairweather: But generally it can be a little bit less, especially when you think about certain sectors like call centers and retail — some of those environments where turnover is actually part of the business model. We have a little bit of that in some of our roles of course.
[00:05:17] Jonathan Duarte: Do you have to manage the seasonality of roles — parks and rec in summer and things like that?
[00:05:33] Jennifer Fairweather: So of course we’ve got a parks department and Jefferson County has an amazing park system and we have people who have seasonal jobs there. We do a lot with youth to help work in our trails and things like that. It gives them experience, but it’s also a nice way to get work done and expose people to that environment and that occupation.
[00:05:51] Jennifer Fairweather: We have election workers that are seasonal. We have road and bridge and some seasonal things for facilities. So yeah, we certainly have seasonal type jobs that come about for sure in our environment.
[00:06:03] Jonathan Duarte: So where’s Golden? For people who don’t know the Denver area in Colorado, where’s Golden and what cities are part of your county?
[00:06:13] Jennifer Fairweather: Yeah, so Jefferson County is the county to the west of Denver. A lot of Jefferson County is part of the greater Denver metropolitan area. Some of the major cities in Jefferson County include Golden, which is where our county is based. We have Lakewood, we have Edgewater, parts of Westminster. And then when you get outside the metro area and start going into the Foothills, you have Evergreen and Conifer and Genesee. Our county goes all the way from Broomfield to parts of Littleton and then from Denver all the way up into the Foothills.
[00:07:05] Jonathan Duarte: And how is that from a management standpoint — you’ve got people remote in some far-out places?
[00:07:38] Jennifer Fairweather: Yes, you’ve got a south shop, we’ve got our central hub in Golden, we’ve got shops in Conifer and Evergreen. We’ve got our airport, which is close to Broomfield to the north. We’ve got libraries everywhere. And then we also have a hybrid workforce — employees working around, generally Colorado, but mostly the metro area. It does require intentionality in how we get people to connect and come together for certain things and ensuring that our leaders have good communication and ways that they are keeping in touch with their employees.
[00:08:24] Jonathan Duarte: Tell me about the four day work week. And the success that you guys have had.
[00:08:40] Jennifer Fairweather: I think before we made that transition, we already had a bit of a foundation around flexibility. Work-life integration is big in our culture and we’re an award-winning county as far as our wellness initiatives. And so we’re really proud of that. It’s one of the things that people come to work at Jefferson County for. So before that we had a lot of flexible schedules — some part-time, the flex schedule where people might have a day off every other week and work nines and eights. So we already had that, and then we started talking about how could we make a four day business week work as well.
[00:09:13] Jennifer Fairweather: Giving employees an opportunity to have a schedule that might give them more time — which employees expressed interest in — but also would it help save? Would it help with sustainability? Meaning there are certain buildings we could close on Friday. No lights, less heat, less AC, less paper usage, all those things.
[00:09:32] Jennifer Fairweather: And the pandemic happened. We had already been talking about it. And of course, as many organizations, we ended up closing for a little bit during the pandemic. And during that time we also shifted a lot of our services to having more kiosk options, more things that were available to our community on the web so people could still connect with us — scheduling for things so that people weren’t coming in and waiting in line, but they could get an appointment.
[00:09:56] Jennifer Fairweather: We had already studied our foot traffic. We had done surveys with our community. We had done surveys with employees and our leaders and our elected officials even before the pandemic. When we reopened under the four day business week model — where many of our buildings are closed on Fridays — and because flexibility’s always been part of our culture, we knew that it couldn’t always be the same for everybody.
[00:10:37] Jennifer Fairweather: We also have a coroner, we have a sheriff’s department, we have libraries, we have park rangers. So this schedule doesn’t mean all of those entities are closed on Fridays. There’s still work that needs to be done. We still have courts that run on Fridays, but those groups have within their operations figured out how they can maximize flexibility as well.
[00:11:17] Jennifer Fairweather: What we hear from our employees is they really appreciate the four day business model. Our community is able to make appointments Monday through Thursday and manage their expectations for wait times and for internal services. We still provide service on Friday, as we always did.
[00:11:31] Jonathan Duarte: Payroll still gotta get run.
[00:11:32] Jennifer Fairweather: Sometimes even on Saturdays and Sundays, things happen — we have 24 hour operations and sometimes people might need to get ahold of someone in HR. So it’s the same thing. When things come up there’s availability. And so I think by leaning on that flexibility, we’ve been able to make it work.
[00:12:07] Jennifer Fairweather: Same with hybrid — everyone can’t work a hybrid work schedule. You’re a park ranger, you can’t work remotely. But we always try to maximize the most we can do for the different roles we have and try to bring that understanding together of how it helps us staff all the different roles and keep a competitive edge when we’re trying to recruit and retain the best employees. That’s really our goal.
[00:12:45] Jonathan Duarte: When you were president of the PSHRA, have other public entities asked you about the four-day week?
[00:12:56] Jennifer Fairweather: Yes. I’ve talked about it in a lot of different workshops and conferences, especially with public sector individuals. It has come up for sure.
[00:13:26] Jennifer Fairweather: I think we’re one of the few in Colorado, although some are exploring it, and I think what helped us is that we already had somewhat of a flexible approach to this around the county. We didn’t have a one size fits all. And when we went to hybrid work, we didn’t have a one size fits all. Human services has a very different hybrid schedule that needs to be structured because of the customers versus HR. We can do it differently. So we always had a little bit more flexibility and I think that made it easier for us.
[00:13:55] Jennifer Fairweather: And in Colorado, but also Jefferson County in particular, people really do appreciate that work-life integration — that understanding that if someone could have more time off and expand that weekend, how they can get things done with their kids, how they can actually enjoy the parks and the place that we live and be a part of their community.
[00:14:17] Jennifer Fairweather: And feel like they get enough rest and recovery to come back to work and really serve the community in a way that’s meaningful and takes care of the people who live here.
[00:14:40] Jonathan Duarte: What are the next big changes? Are your employees worried about AI?
[00:14:53] Jennifer Fairweather: We just had one of our employee town halls last week and our IT department was talking about their innovation team that takes ideas and tries to make them happen. And it was interesting that when they talk about AI, employees are actually excited. They are interested in AI and how it can make their job easier.
[00:15:15] Jennifer Fairweather: I think in the county and in many public sector environments, we have more work than people. Work just keeps coming — there’s a new mandate, a new law, a new way to do something. So you’re always trying to catch up. And what I mostly hear from employees is an interest in — okay, how can AI help us do this quicker or better, or make sure we’re not making errors?
[00:15:51] Jennifer Fairweather: I do think in some ways there are pockets of people in certain occupations wondering will this replace my job. And from the HR aspect, we’ve already made some shifts in automating many things through our systems. What I’ve noticed over the years is that it’s shifted how people work versus just replacing things. Where a lot of emphasis might have been on paperwork or data entry or scanning — we don’t need to focus on that.
[00:16:28] Jennifer Fairweather: What we need are humans to interact with other humans and to solve problems and to be able to answer those things that are in the gray area. And so our focus is helping ensure we are training people to be good leaders. We’re training people to be problem solvers. We’re training people to be change agents and help other people. Because I think the work is there. I just think it will be different.
[00:17:03] Jennifer Fairweather: I certainly hope so. I think there are tasks we all hate to do and so I think people are very interested in — can somebody else do this so I can focus on the important things and the things that bring value.
[00:18:26] Jonathan Duarte: What are the next things you guys have in the works? Any mission statements and challenges for this next year?
[00:18:34] Jennifer Fairweather: We’re really focusing on — let me back up. A couple years ago in direct relation to the county strategic plan, which included being an employer of choice, we did an initiative where we did surveys and focus groups with our employees to identify what does that mean to you? Our employees gave us like 200 ideas that they feel would move us in that direction. And so we’ve been continuing to move through those ideas and track them and implement them.
[00:19:32] Jennifer Fairweather: Another big thing for us is really looking at our talent and our strategy around that from onboarding through the employee life cycle. We wanna focus on better tools for our leaders around the status of their workforce — like what are people interested in for their career development? What’s their background? Do they wanna move to something else? Do they have a career plan with us?
[00:19:46] Jennifer Fairweather: Because what’s wonderful about local government is you can do pretty much everything. So today you’re in accounting — do you desire to be in IT? Do you desire to be a park ranger? How do we keep employees and move them, even if it’s up or sideways? So we really wanna get a better handle on that and then ensure that the development we’re providing in our training team is in line with what our workforce needs to get where they wanna go in the organization.
[00:20:25] Jennifer Fairweather: Hopefully the technology can just help us do a better job of getting a handle on it, because in the past it’s felt like you have so much data — how do you make sense of it to tell a leader: this is where you should focus, or these are the things your employees are looking for.
[00:20:44] Jonathan Duarte: Thank you so much. I can’t wait to get feedback from people, especially from other public entities on this, because I just think it’s also great for corporate HR to actually see that HR in public sector isn’t this bad area. Look at Jennifer’s smile — there is a positive side in HR in public sector as well. So thank you so much, Jennifer, and we’ll put your contact info down there for LinkedIn if anyone wants to reach out. Thanks again.
[00:21:11] Jennifer Fairweather: Sounds good. Thank you.
Connect with Jennifer Fairweather on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferfairweather/
05 March, 2026
