Transcript Slide 1

Recruitment & Retention
of a Qualified Workforce
The Foundation of Success
Impact on Children & Families
Human Cost of Turnover:
• Decreased trust, self-esteem, sense of
control
• Decreased quality and continuity of
relationship
—Folman, 2000; Hess, Folaron & Jefferson, 1992
Workforce Development Issues
• Impact of Demographics:
workforce trends - salary, vacancy
and turnover rates
• Impact on Organization
• Financial Impact
• Impact on Outcomes
Demographics: More Jobs, Fewer Workers
165 Million Jobs
In Millions
160
162 Million Workers
150
140
2002
Years
2012
Demographics of Social Services
• Growing need for workers (BLS projects
36% growth)
• Disproportionate aging of social service
workforce
• Millennial workers – value work fulfillment &
work/life balance
—Nittoli, 2003; Light, 2003; Anderson, 2007
Workforce Trends in Child Welfare
• Salaries
• Vacancy rates
• Turnover:
• Desirable
• Unpreventable
• Preventable
Workforce Trends: Salaries
• NOT COMPETITIVE:
– Average caseworker salary is lower than for
nurses, teachers, policemen and fire fighters
• NOT KEEPING UP:
– Average annual salary of CPS worker increased
by 6% in 2000-2004, consumer price index rose
by 9.7%
—DOL - BLS, 2006; APHSA, 2004
Workforce Trends: Vacancies & Turnover
• Vacancies are staying open longer (7-13 weeks) as
compared to 2000 (6-7 weeks)
• Vacancy rates for public child welfare workers are
significantly higher (9%)than those of other state and
local government workers (1.5%)
• Turnover is slightly higher: CPS - 20% in 2000; 22% in
2004 compared to 9.6% for state & local government
workers
• Preventable turnover stable at 12 – 13%
—APHSA, 2004
Impact on the Organization
• Increased workload for those who stay
• Decreased morale
• Increased difficulty of cases & forming
relationships
• New & inexperienced workforce
• Resources to train new workers
Financial Costs of Turnover:
Direct Costs:
• 50-70-200% of the salary of the position
$18 – 72,000
• Turnover costs per worker in Maine = $16,273
• Costs to train new worker in New York =
$24,000
— Kaye & Jordon-Evans, 1999; Cascio,
1987; Cowperthwaite, 2006; Lawson &
Claiborne, 2005
Direct Financial Costs of Turnover to an Agency
Agency of 200 Workers Annual Cost of Turnover
$2,400,000
X
X
Cost
$2,000,000
$1,600,000
X
X
$1,200,000
X
$800,000
$400,000
X
10
20
30
40
50
Turnover Rate
60
Impact on Outcomes
Workforce Issues: large caseloads
and worker turnover
• Delay timelines of investigations
• Limit frequency of worker visits
• Hamper attainment of safety and
permanency outcomes
—GAO, 2003
Outcomes:
Safety – Recurrence of Maltreatment
• High, moderate and low functioning counties
• Highest functioning had lowest turnover (9%)
& lowest recurrence (6–15%)
• Lowest functioning had highest turnover
(23%) & highest recurrence (15–23%)
—National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2006
Outcomes:
Decreased Chance of Permanency
• January – September, 2004, turnover rate
34–67% of ongoing case managers
• Over 40% of the family cases had more
than one worker
• 40% of the 2,899 children in the Bureau’s
care had more than one worker.
—Bureau of Milwaukee County Child Welfare, 2005
Fewer Changes in Caseworkers
Increases the Chances of Permanency for Children
Children Entering and Exiting Care to Permanency:
January 1, 2003 through September 2004 (N=679)
0%
10%
20%
1 Worker - 74.5%
4 Workers - 2.2%
7 Workers - 0.1%
30%
40%
50%
2 Workers - 17.5%
5 Workers - 0.3%
60%
70%
80%
3 Workers - 5.2%
6 Workers - 0.1%
Outcomes:
Decreased Services & Worker Contact
Turnover results in:
• Fewer services to children and families
• Fewer contacts with children and foster
parents
• Fewer visits with family of origin
—Unrau & Wells, 2005
Outcomes:
Length of Stay & Reunification
• Children with multiple caseworkers have
longer stays in foster care
• Turnover is associated with a decrease in
likelihood of reunification
—Ryan, Garnier, Zyphur & Zhai, 2006
Workforce Issues & PIPs
• Acknowledgement of workforce issues
• Improvement in caseloads/workloads
• Staff recruitment and retention
• Supervision and supervisory training
• Current and incoming worker training
• Staff education/certification/licensing
—Children’s Defense Fund & Children’s Rights, 2006
Strategies for Success
• Highlight promising strategies for
– Recruitment
– Selection
– Retention
• Examples from the Child Welfare
Recruitment and Retention Grantees
Children’s Bureau:
Recruitment & Retention Grantees
• NYS University
at Albany
• University of
Michigan
• University of
North Carolina
Chapel Hill
• University of
Southern Maine
• Michigan State
University
• University of Iowa
• Fordham University
• University of
Denver
Characteristics of the R&R Projects
• Data driven: Organizational
assessments, Human Resources data,
surveys and focus groups with workers,
supervisors and managers, exit
interviews, etc.
• Strong University – Agency partnerships
• Focused on building organizational
capacity
Why do they stay?
• Individual characteristics
– Avoiding Burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization)
– Goodness of Fit : Worker and the Work
– Professional and Organizational Commitment
• Supervision
• Organizational Characteristics
• Practices (salary and promotion opportunities, flex scheduling,
caseload and workload, communication, autonomy, worker safety,
technology access, etc.)
• Organizational Climate (respect, fairness, inclusion, leadership, etc.)
Recent and Upcoming R&R Publications
• Landsman, M. (2007). Supporting child welfare
supervisors to improve worker retention. Child Welfare,
86(2), 105-124.
• Strolin, J.S., McCarthy, M., & Caringi, J. (in press).
Causes and effects of child welfare workforce turnover:
Current state of the knowledge and future directions.
Journal of Public Child Welfare.
• Dickinson, N. & Comstock, A. (in press). Getting and
keeping the best people. In C. Potter & C. Brittain (in
press) Supervision in child welfare. New York: Oxford.
Recruitment: Finding the Best
• Realistic Understanding of the Job
– Inside source recruiting
• Goodness of Fit: Applicant and Work
• Applicant Characteristics:
– Human caring, motivation to make a difference,
persistence, ability to multi-task, enjoying fast paced
work, likes a challenge, etc.
North Carolina:
Jordan Institute, University of North Carolina
• Develop a Recruiting Message and a Plan
– Professional Materials (posters, fliers, public
service announcements (PSA), paid
advertisements)
– Use diverse methods to reach potential
employees (job fairs, community events,
regional cable, print media, internet job sites,
agency website, press releases, etc.)
– Involve supervisors!
Sample Advertisement
CW Agency is a fast paced, supportive and
stimulating place to work. We are looking
for child welfare workers who desire
challenging, meaningful work and welcome
the opportunity to make a difference for
families and children. If this describes you,
consider applying for a public child welfare
position at….
You’ll never be bored!
Selection
• Job analyses leading to
• Structured interviews and Work Sample Tests
• Consistent, well trained selection teams
• Strong selection processes! HR is our friend…
• Realistic Job Previews
– Video introduction to the job
– Balanced view of opportunities and challenges
– Client and worker perspectives
Impact of a Realistic Job Preview:
University of Michigan
• Workers who saw the RJP were significantly
more likely to:
– Indicate a commitment to remain in child welfare for
five years
– Say that the application and selection process
helped them cope with job pressures
– Say that the agency’s honesty made them feel more
loyal, and
• Less likely to say they would “never have taken
the job if they had known what it was like.”
Arizona Realistic Job Preview:
Butler Institute, University of Denver
• Developed by team of agency workers and
supervisors in Phoenix
• Supported by a trained group of current
workers who are on call to answer questions
from applicants.
Keeping the Best
• Supervisors are the key to success!
• Almost every aspect of the worker’s experience
with clients and the agency is mediated by the
supervisor.
• All grantees focused to some degree on
supervision.
• We urge you to take advantage of some of the
dynamic supervisor curricula available.
Iowa Supervisor Training:
University of Iowa
• Supervisor curriculum focuses on
– human resources functions,
– case practice supervision,
– clinical supervision, and
– The supervisor’s role in leading
positive change and promoting
worker resilience.
Keeping the Best
• Organizational interventions are also
critical to success!
• Leadership for recruitment and retention
begins at home.
• Organizational interventions can be
productively facilitated by outside
partners, who can provide time, support
and focus.
Developing Internal Leadership
Capacity: Michigan State University
• Leadership curriculum for managers
includes an intensive focus on
recruitment and retention.
Design Teams:
State University of New York, Albany
• Local agency design teams focusing on
organizational culture and work issues.
• Workers, supervisors, and managers
serve on design teams, which are
facilitated by an outside facilitator.
• The Design Team uses data from the
agency, identifies priority issues,
designs responses using a strengths
based, solution focused approach.
Connecticut’s Mentoring Program:
Fordham University
• Managers and administrators serve as mentors for social
workers and supervisors. To date over 200 staff have
participated in the program, which is highly supported by
all levels of management.
• Goals:
– Provide opportunities for career development and retention,
– Increase leadership capacity,
– Provide opportunities for involvement in projects beyond the scope of
their current job function,
– Help managers and administrators broaden their own perspectives, and
increase responsibility and involvement in succession planning for the
agency.
Connecticut’s Mentoring Program:
Fordham University
To date over 200 staff have participated in
the program, which is highly supported by
all levels of management.
Conclusion
• There are serious workforce challenges facing
child welfare.
• Solutions involve both recruiting and selecting
the best candidates and managing
organizations such that we can keep them.
• This is not an easy journey, but it is an
essential one.
• There are effective strategies and useful
partners than can help.