If you
Can't Lick 'em, Join 'em
Thoughts on the Recruitment and Retention
of Quality Employees
By Bob Niemiec, Director of Training, Kaposia, Inc.
Last year, my co-worker, Jon Alexander, and I wrote a series of
articles for the Association for Persons in Supported Employment
(APSE) newsletter, The Advance, discussing recruitment and retention
of quality staff. We talked about the experiences of Kaposia, inc.
where we are employed. The articles listed a variety of steps we
took to attract new employees and keep experienced employees. We
discussed how this was a total effort by the entire organization
to take a critical look at ourselves and make the necessary changes
to improve our effectiveness when it came to hiring, training, and
retraining good people. This article will touch on some of what
we learned, the steps we took, and how it's turned out so far.
The Issue at Hand
The first step in the process was to realize that we were fighting
a national trend in employment. I have read labor reports that indicate
the average American changes jobs every 2-3 years. Human service
organizations have been mired in turnover for as long as I have
been in the field (over 20 years). So we needed to embrace the fact
that people were going to come and go in our field more than they
would stay. If we could have a positive influence on people that
would encourage them to remain in the field or perhaps choose this
as a career, we would be ahead of the game. To that effect, we examined
whom we were recruiting, how we trained them, and what we could
do to keep them around.
A Group Effort
Kaposia uses teams to identify an issue or problem, study the situation,
and make recommendations to improve the process or solve the problem.
In the case of our employment situation, the team was called "The
Recruitment, Training, and Retention Group" or RTR for short.
Problem solving can be a frustrating experience
if you don't really know the problem you are trying to solve.
The first order of business for the RTR was to define or state
the problem. In our case, we defined our issue as a lack of skilled,
trained applicants for open positions at Kaposia. Along with stating
the problem, we also recognized three core areas that needed our
attention. Those areas were:
• Individual Issues (qualifications, personality
[essence], and a willingness to work);
• Leadership Issues (management and supervision = mentoring
and training) and;
• Organizational Issues (structure, functions, etc.).
The RTR discussed Kaposia and our culture. What made us different
from other organizations? What would make someone want to work for
Kaposia? We looked at ways to change the job. What is the best way
to get what we need to get done accomplished? Finally, we identified
the characteristics we wanted from an employee. Those characteristics
include:
• Reliability (comes to work everyday and on
time);
• Positive Interactions (working well with the people we
support as well as with other staff employees) and;
• Good Customer Service (communication, attention to detail,
etc.).
From the discussions the RTR began exploring the issues and took
tangible steps to solve our employment needs.
Contract Employees
At one time, Kaposia had 22 open positions. In order to get the
work done, and to continue to provide quality services to the people
we support, we had to rely on contract employees (commonly referred
to as "temps") to fill our staffing needs. Kaposia took
positive action to assure that temporary employees were performing
as well as regular Kaposia employees. The first step was changing
our language. We made a concerted effort to remind our regular employees
that contract employees are Kaposia employees. The only difference
was that someone else was paying the contract employees.
We made efforts to include contract employees
in team and company meetings. We included them in our regular
training sessions and other company functions. This was a commitment
by Kaposia because it meant we were paying them to be at these
functions and events. The common practice is to send contract
employees home when the service day is over and support to people
is no longer required.
Our commitment was to assure that contract employees
received the same training and attention as those employees paid
by Kaposia. We also committed to funding training provided to
contract employees in medication administration and other specific
skills. The result was that performance improved, contract employees
and regular Kaposia employees had a better understanding of one
another, and some contract employees joined Kaposia as regular
employees paid by us.
Recruitment
Recruiting new employees was becoming an ongoing and constant fact
of life. Kaposia used the traditional methods to attract new employees.
What we discovered was that our return on investment just wasn't
paying off.
We made a decision to stop placing newspaper
ads and explore alternative ways to recruit. Kaposia had been
in the process of developing a web page about our company. We
devoted a link on the web page to employment announcements and
contact information. That strategy paid off in that we received
several inquiries and a few actual hires. We continue to get inquiries
through this path today.
Another strategy we used was personal referrals.
Kaposia offered to pay a bonus to employees who referred someone
to apply for employment that was hired and stayed employed. Again,
this strategy paid off as we did acquire new employees and current
Kaposia employees who made the referrals were a few dollars richer
for it.
The RTR believed we needed a way to show a prospective
employee our company. We wanted to shorten the interviewing and
hiring process. To that effect, the RTR recommended that we produce
a short video about Kaposia. The video would feature different
people supported by Kaposia that were doing a variety of things.
This way, a prospective employee could get the flavor
of the array of services and people we support
in order to make an informed choice about accepting an employment
offer from us. One of our senior employees has used the video
to make a CD ROM version complete with music and titles.
Training and Orientation
When our need was high, we just couldn't help ourselves from throwing
new employees into the field right now. We fell victim to letting
our urgency outweigh our better judgment. The RTR spawned another
team to deal with the orientation process. Prior to this team being
formed, we would hire a new employee, start them on a Monday, and
begin the process of overloading them with information.
We would do mandatory policy training like the
Minnesota Vulnerable Adult (VA) Act. In other words, we would
get someone on board, then we bored them with a lot of policy
stuff, isolated them, and then scare them with the VA Act letting
them know how they can go to jail if they're not careful. We needed
a change.
We honored no sacred cows, and came up with a
totally revamped orientation process. One of the principles in
the new orientation process was that we would limit the amount
of time a person spent alone. We made sure the team coordinators
were actively involved in meeting, introducing, and training their
new member. We instituted shadowing, whereby the new employees
would spend time with other, valued employees from across the
entire company. Kaposia is a team-based organization scattered
throughout the Twin Cities, so it is difficult to get a true picture
of who we are both as a company and as individuals. A new employee
would shadow someone from every service team and the team coordinator
of the team would be the person who arranged the shadow experience.
The team coordinator would also meet the new employee, escort
and introduce him/her to the employee who would be shadowed. Also
within the first week the new employee would meet each director
and everyone who is in a support role or works at the main office.
It was important to make sure the new employee felt like a part
of our company within the first few days of employment with us.
The orientation team made a distinction between
orientation and training. Orientation was more about becoming
one of us and training would be about learning how to do what
we do. Training comes to employees at Kaposia via many formats
and styles. A principle of the newly revamped orientation process
was "just in time" training. The idea is that a new
employee would learn how to do something when it needed to be
done. We discovered that in the old way, we overloaded people
with a lot of processes and procedures only to learn that they
weren't retaining the information. The "just in time method"
allowed an experienced Kaposia employee to coach the new employee
in much the same way as we do with supported employees. We wanted
to be sure people knew how to do things before we "cut them
loose." In most cases the new employee spends two weeks in
the orientation process before they actually begin to perform
their jobs on their own.
Mentoring and coaching became a cornerstone of
"just in time" training. Mentoring and coaching also
addressed the fact that not everyone learns the same way in the
same amount of time. We began to recruit and train mentors who
could show new employees what it meant to be a Kaposia employee.
Kaposia mentors and coaches are carefully selected
and trained. A new employee is assigned a mentor prior to their
start date, and introduced on the first or second day of employment.
They may continue the mentor relationship as long as necessary.
Organizational Issues
Changing recruiting practices, developing new tools, revamping the
orientation process, and the other steps we took would not be effective
unless we also made some organizational changes. Along with changing
some structural issues we needed to overhaul some of our most beloved
practices and procedures. We needed to review how people were managed.
W. Edwards Demming believed that over 85% of performance problems
were the result of the structure while less than 15% were caused
by people. In other words, the structure and organization in which
people are expected to perform cause most of the problems. Kaposia
committed to finding the parts of our structure that prevented peak
performance, and changing them.
The Bottom Line
Despite our best efforts, creative approaches, and determination,
we still experience turnover. What organizations like ours need
to realize is that we all exist in volatile employment times. Turnover
is a fact of employment. People are mobile and regularly move between
jobs.
It is doubtful we will completely solve the employment
issues in our field. Money isn't the answer. Degrees and certifications
aren't. Completely changing the way we do business won't solve
it. We must come to grips with the employment facts of life. Embrace
the idea that people are mobile. Get the best from them while
they are here. Maybe a few will be struck with the passion and
stay for a long time. Others will leave because it's just their
time to go. If we can make positive changes, treat employees well,
and understand that fluid employment is going to be here for a
while, we can continue to provide quality service to our customers.
