The City of Pismo Beach realized the unique challenges that they faced, one of the greatest being employee turnover. In order to reverse this trend the city had to take a number of steps to create a more collaborative environment in which the city workers felt more involved with the city and with their job. The first step in targeting the problem was implementing an annual employee event as well as year round training and recognition programs. Additional steps were taken in order to further involve employees and create a work environment that employees wanted to be in. This program is the winning submission for the 2016 Local Government Excellence Awards in the category of Strategic Leadership & Governance (populations of less than 10,000).