Retaining Talented Staff

by Amber Elaine Marks, do good Consulting Trainer & Consultant

One of the most critical resources of any successful organization is often the least recognized. Undeniably, you must have active volunteers, donors who give a lot and give often, and as much public awareness as you can generate. With so many things competing for a director’s attention, staffing issues often become a priority only when office tension becomes unbearable, or turnover becomes so great that it threatens the viability of a special event.

In this serial column, I’ll explore several aspects of successfully staffing your organization including retention, training, professional development, performance evaluation, and promotion. Of course, successful organizations also face challenges we must examine such as lack of resources, competition for talent, difficult employees, and problem performance. Let’s get started!

Finding talented professionals for your organization can be a challenge. Many nonprofits provide compensation and benefits packages that cannot compete with those of other local employers or face the risk of losing their key employees to equally important but competing agencies. Staff turnover can reduce your organizational capacity and compromise efficiency, inhibit growth, and threaten the satisfaction of remaining employees. The costs can quickly escalate, from advertising expenses to lost productivity as your time becomes absorbed by managing a search and covering the responsibilities of an unfilled position. What can you do to reduce turnover and keep your staff happy?

Set clear expectations for all employees. Provide relevant and detailed job descriptions and review them annually with the employee, adjusting them as needed. Take time for orientation of new employees or staff who move into new roles. Ask open-ended questions after giving assignments to be sure employees understand their responsibilities. Just as important, encourage them to ask you questions.

Understand what motivates your staff and what environments support their success. Some employees are drawn to nonprofit work because they want to ‘make a difference.’ Others are motivated by a desire to work with a specific population or the specific services provided. Lifestyles, family backgrounds, and previous experiences all shape an employee’s choice of employment and help define what motivates them to be successful. Do they seek praise and recognition, leadership opportunities, or a flexible lifestyle? Would they like to be involved in many projects across the organization, or do they most enjoy focusing on the details? Do they work well individually, or as part of a project team? Many interview questions not only help screen applicants prior to hiring but also go a long way to establishing and maintaining ‘fit.’

Seek cost-effective benefits to help employees and find creative ways to make your organization desirable. Implement flexible spending account options, provide parking, allow flexible work schedules, encourage (and pay for) professional development trainings and conferences, pay for professional or networking organization memberships (Chamber, NSFRE, Rotary, etc). Partner with neighboring businesses or those with whom you have an existing relationship to offer fitness membership discounts, restaurant coupons, or other services.

Ask employees what they want! Provide them with choices, give them a survey, or have a volunteer conduct a focus group with your staff if that might make them more comfortable. The key is to give them the chance to speak up, and then see what you can do to accommodate some of their desires.

Provide regular feedback, conduct performance evaluations, and work with each employee to set meaningful goals. Employees will feel more engaged in the organization and more responsible for success when their efforts are acknowledged. Give them opportunities to evaluate their own performance and seek their input in establishing short-term and long-term goals. The key here is also to follow up on those goals, reward successes, and readjust as necessary. While it can be time consuming for you, your employees are counting on it.

Say thank you. Your staff came to work for you knowing that company cars and holiday bonuses weren’t on the horizon, but studies have shown that saying “thank you” can go a long way for retaining staff morale. Take time to acknowledge and appreciate employee efforts in staff gatherings, board meetings, events, newsletters, whenever possible. Attribute successes to your staff at every opportunity with vendors, sponsors, volunteers, and donors. Recognizing performance can make the achieving employee feel valued, as well as encouraging less effective staff strive to aim higher.

Review compensation and benefits regularly. If you do many of these things and still find yourself interviewing once a year or more for the same position, examine your compensation and benefits offerings. Contact some colleagues or a consultant (www.dogoodconsulting.org) and get a sense for the ‘market.’ An investment in this now may save you another expensive search and months of training another new employee. Even if you have employees that have remained loyal for 2 or 3 years, it’s a good idea to provide annual increases whenever possible (3-5% is common) and to periodically conduct a compensation analysis. (Note: many professional organizations as well as internet resources provide free salary comparison tools.)

Stay tuned next month for more tips on solving staffing issues faced by non-profit organizations….

Big Changes in Store for do good Consulting!

by Laura Huth, do good Consulting Trainer & Consultant

After launching do good Consulting less than six months ago in the dining room of my home in central Urbana, we have grown tremendously. The time has come for do good to move out on its own.

Throughout February, and culminating the last week, I will be joined by friends, family, and co-workers as we work to renovate the space at 201 West Green in downtown Urbana: do good Consulting’s new home. We plan to throw opn the doors to our new space on Monday, March 5 after new flooring, fresh paint, office systems, lighting, signs, and wireless are installed.

With over a half-dozen clients keeping us busy, we simply need more space to work and meet. Our new location is conveniently located on the southwest corner of Race and Green Streets, across from the Urbana Free Library and Lincoln Square Village. We have ample parking, are nearly 100% accessible, and are on or within a block of nearly all the MTD bus lines.

If you would like to join the renovation fun some time in February (there will be plenty of pizza and drinks), please contact me at 217-778-1687 or laurahuth@dogoodconsulting.org. Watch for renovation photos to appear on our website throughout the month at www.dogoodconsulting.org

Group Spotlight: Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois

by Jen Knapp, Special Projects Coordinator, do good Consulting

As a person not disabled, I never spent much time thinking about what it would be like to have a disability. That is until, in college, I participated in “Wheel Awareness,” a program put on by disabled students at the university. The task was to go through the day in a wheelchair and experience disability firsthand. For many, the lesson of Wheel Awareness is that pushing a manual chair is hard work (it is). Others learn that the campus is not as accessible as us “walkies” think. For me, I learned that complete strangers instantly assessed my value as a person. I could hear people talking about me. Some whispered, “It must be so hard to be in a wheelchair,” while trying not to point. I loathed their pity. To others, I was invisible. The metal surrounding my body reduced me to a parking meter or telephone pole. Still others assumed that I was unable to speak or think or do anything for myself.

One day in a wheelchair, of course, provides only a tiny glimpse into life with a disability, but that glimpse was enough to push me into the disability rights movement. I began to devote my time and energy to ensuring that those with disabilities count as people. This is no easy task. As Lester Pritchard, founder of the Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois (and a person with a disability) says, “much of the history of our country has been a description of a society learning, frequently with reluctance, to include one group of its citizens after another into its mainstream of political and social life.” Just as women and African Americans had to fight for their rights as citizens and individuals, people with disabilities are doing the same.

To attack the dominant myths and stereotypes about people with disabilities, Lester and his wife, Barbara, started the Campaign for Real Choice in Illinois in 2004. The Campaign is a statewide, 3,000-strong, citizen action organization dedicated to enforcing change in the system of supports for people with disabilities. As a grassroots group, the Campaign is based on the premise of participatory democracy and the belief that meaningful reforms will come only with active involvement of people with disabilities themselves and their families.

The Campaign’s formal goal is to change how Illinois funds services for people with disabilities. The vision is a system of individualized supports, where people with disabilities and their families can choose services they need, rather than merely taking what is available. Those who are part of the Campaign know that changes in individual hearts and lives are what people with disabilities really need. People with disabilities are people. Having a disability does not make someone less of a human, nor does is make a person’s life less valuable. As I learned from my day in the wheelchair, a disability does not dictate the kind of person one is. In reality, it is another aspect of what makes us diverse, interesting, and human.

To learn more or to join the Campaign, go to www.realchoiceinillinois.org.