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Assessing Workplace Recruitment and Retention: The First Steps

by Sheryl A. Larson

Sharon was at the end of her rope. She had just completed her fifth exit interview this month and now had three vacant positions. The agency had to find a way to stop the revolving door. This scenario is all too common in agencies that provide direct support to persons with developmental disabilities. One answer to the question, “How do we attract and keep good staff?” is to use a workplace assessment to begin identifying and solving staffing problems. A workplace assessment involves developing an accurate job description, examining retention outcomes and recruitment practices, evaluating workers who leave, summarizing the findings, and selecting an intervention.

A recent study of workplace recruitment and retention in 110 small Minnesota group homes (Larson & Lakin, in press) provided the following results:

• Crude separation rate: 48%
• Average tenure of staff: 26 months
• Average tenure of staff who quit: 7 months
• Percent who quit by 6 months: 46%

The same study assessed the percentage of stayers and leavers recruited through various sources, finding the following:

• Newspaper ads: Stayers (31%), Leavers (51%)
• Current employees: Stayers (43%), Leavers (21%)
• Direct support staff in other agencies: Stayers (12%), Leavers (6%)

These results are an example of the valuable information an assessment provides. The remainder of this article describes the steps providers can follow in assessing staffing in their own agencies.

Developing Job Descriptions

The first step in establishing a baseline assessment of recruitment and retention practices is to develop complete and accurate job descriptions for all positions in the agency. An accurate job description can guide the selection of interventions and assist in assessing the training needs of direct support workers and first line supervisors.

Examining Retention Outcomes

Four recruitment outcomes should be examined, including average tenure, current separation rate, average tenure of leavers, and percent of leavers with various lengths of tenure.

To compute the average tenure of workers at a particular site or agency, list each worker and their number of months at the site. Add the number of months for each worker at the site and divide by the total number of workers. The formula can be written as:

The result will be the average number of months workers have been at the site.

To compute the turnover rate for a particular site, count the number of workers in a particular category (e.g., direct support workers) who left within the last 12 months. Divide by the average number of workers at the site each day during the last 12 months. Multiply the result by 100. The formula is:

The resulting percentage (which may be higher than 100%) reflects the annual crude separation rate.

To compute the average tenure of leavers, identify all leavers in the past 12 months. For each leaver, note the total nu mber of months worked before quitting. Add the number of months for each leaver and divide the total by the number of leavers. The formula is:

The result is the average number of months a worker stayed before leaving. Computing separate numbers for workers who were fired versus those who quit voluntarily may be helpful. Be sure to include all workers who were paid for one or more hours of work. It is very common for some workers to quit after training or in their first few days.

To compute the proportion of leavers who stayed less than six months, count the number of workers who left in the last 12 months. Then count the number of workers in that group who stayed less than six months before leaving. Divide this number by the total number of workers who left and multiply the result by 100. The formula is:

This same formula can be used to compute the proportion of leavers who stayed 6 to 12 months, and the proportion who stayed more than 12 months.

Examining Recruitment Practices

It is helpful to maintain information on the proportion of direct support positions vacant, the total cost of advertising in the previous month, and the total cost of overtime in the site for the previous month. These data, observed over time, can assist in monitoring organizational investments in recruitment.

Parallel information should be maintained on recruitment sources and their relative effectiveness. Such an assessment could list the primary recruitment sources used by the agency (e.g., internal postings, recruitment by current or former employees, newspaper advertisements, employment agencies, temporary agencies, colleges, walk-ins, and other). For each source, the number of applicants recruited in the last 12 months should be recorded along with the percent of new hires from each source, the percent of leavers from each source, and the percent retained over different periods of time. Such information, when combined with the estimated costs of each recruitment source, will allow the agency to assess the relative cost-effectiveness of each recruitment source. Such analyses may lead agencies to invest more heavily in their most productive recruitment strategies.

Evaluating Workers Who Leave

Another component of an agency’s self-assessment is an exit interview for workers who leave their positions. This can be done by asking leavers to indicate on a scale of one to five (1 = strong reason to stay, 2 = moderate reason to stay, 3 = not a factor in my decision, 4 = moderate reason to leave, 5 = strong reason to leave) the extent to which several factors made the person want to stay or leave. Items to rate could include salary, paid- leave policies (sick, holiday, vacation), benefits policy (medical, dental), scheduling practices and hours worked, opportunities for promotion or career advancement in the agency, training and career development opportunities, company policies regarding the treatment of people with developmental disabilities, relationships with supervisors, relationships with coworkers, relationships with the people supported in the site, specific job tasks (ask the worker to specify), and specific frustrations or disappointments (ask worker to specify).

Qualitative exit interviews are useful in drawing out valuable information to assess and modify agency practices. Open-ended questions provide a rich source of information about the reasons direct support workers left or considered leaving their jobs. Among the most productive qualitative interview items are questions such as:

• What would you tell a friend considering taking your job?
• Give an example of one or two specific incidents that made you want to stay on this job.
• Give an example of one or two specific incidents that made you want to leave this job.
• What could (your supervisor/this agency) do to make your job better?
• What type of position do you plan to work after you leave this position?

Agencies will also want to integrate other information along with the specific exit interview responses including status at exit (e.g., whether leavers were fired or left for other reasons). Agencies may also want to include the job performance of the leaver, whether the leaver will continue “on-call,” and where the person went when they left the agency (e.g., to perform similar roles for another agency, better position in the field, lateral move for higher pay).

Evaluating Current Workers

Many exit interview questions also can be asked annually of current direct support workers and first line supervisors. Ongoing formative evaluation allows agencies to identify and address issues as they emerge. Annual assessments of organizational commitment can provide an index for agencies of the current feelings of workers. Likewise regular assessments of job satisfaction can provide an indication of how workers feel about their job. Using such indexes over time can identify areas of relative weakness and monitor changes that may be associated with positive initiatives (e.g., a training program for supervisors) or changing contextual factors (e.g., decreasing real dollar wages). Another area for ongoing evaluation is the extent to which the expectations of new hires were met during their first few months. The results of such interviews can be used to improve the information provided to recruits before they are hired.

Summarizing and Intervening

Developing a good assessment of recruitment and retention is a helpful first step in addressing workforce development problems. Once the information is gathered and summarized, interventions that match the problems can be selected and tried. Their success or failure can be measured by comparing the assessment of the outcomes after implementation with the findings of the base-line assessment. Then, because workforce needs are constantly changing, ongoing efforts to assess workforce issues and evaluate interventions should become a regular part of an agency’s workforce development plans.

Reference:

Larson, S.A. & Lakin, K.C. (In press). Turnover of newly hired direct support workers: Longitudinal study results and intervention suggestions. Washington, DC: American Association on Mental Retardation.

Sheryl A. Larson is a Research Associate with the Research and Training Center on Community Living, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She may be reached at 612/624-6024.

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Resources: Web Sites Related to Direct Support Workforce Development

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Citation: Gaylord, V., Hewitt, A., & Larson, S. (1998). Impact: Feature Issue on Direct Support Workforce Development, 10(4) [online]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration. Available from http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/104/.

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