Volume 14 Number 2 • 2000
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.
