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Slide #5

We have to consider concurrently and simultaneously, how are we dealing with our 
statistics?  Let me shift gears a little bit to the HR practices and talk 
briefly about each of these pieces:  job descriptions, recruitment and hiring,  
staff orientation and development, feedback systems, and paying compensations.  

All of those pieces go under the umbrella of human resource practices.  Let's 
start with recruitment and hiring.  What do your job descriptions look like now?  
What do they look like for people who work in a facility, day activity program, 
and  sheltered workshop? How might those need to be better articulated, so you 
can specify to your staff what your expectations are? 

Perhaps you would start your job description with clearly articulating the 
mission, vision, and values of the organization.  [You are] clearly articulating 
those performance expectations. [You are] articulating professional, 
developmental, or growth expectations. [You are] assisting people to think in a 
career development mode.  How much time might people spend doing what sort of 
activities?  We've got some examples of community resource specialist unified 
job descriptions that many organizations have used.  

It's also essential when you're recruiting and hiring your staff to look at your 
needs, obviously. Where do I need expertise and to hire for the future?  Try to 
keep two or three steps down the road ahead in your thinking for the type of 
expertise to bring in.  Clearly, we can't always find the people that have the 
expertise we need. We need to look at non-traditional sources, the business 
community, and so on.  Also, know that we can invest in the skills, if people 
bring those social and attitudinal skills that we need.  Many organizations have 
also up the ante, the status, and the pay, for the position that is responsible 
for community services and supports, elevating the status and the importance of 
that role.  

Redeploy good staff. We've talked in the conversion process that we do lose 
staff.  Staff leave, or we ask them to leave. They're not on the train, and 
they're going to get in the way.  You do want to invite staff to take on key 
roles and invest in them as they shift and gain the skills they need.  How do 
you orient and train your new staff?  How do you invest in them early in the 
process?  [How do you] set them off on the right foot when they join your 
organization?  How do you articulate your mission and values?  

I think it's important to know what [skills] staff bring?  What's their 
baseline?  What do they already have in their repertoire of skills?  Use that 
inventory to help individuals articulate or shape their professional development 
plan. Clearly, everybody doesn't need all the same things. To help individualize 
a growth plan, a development plan, a career path, I think is essential.  

As I alluded to in those deprogramming the structure examples, if we're going to 
have people taking on roles that formally were not theirs, then we have to do 
some cross-training, cross-function training.  Do that on an on-going basis.  
What are some ways?  You've got some veteran staff, perhaps.  Perhaps you've got 
somebody who is really interested in being in a mentor role.  Who might get some 
kudos from playing that role with new staff, that's very powerful.  Have them 
shadow and show them the ropes for a period of time.  We also want people to 
initiate their own learning, to reach out for opportunities, to attend 
conferences and training, to identify new resources and to bring them to the 
team, so that people are always learning with each other.  It's also helpful to 
bring in external expertise, as well as use your own folks, to provide that 
ongoing, incidental training at staff meetings and retreats.