Last week, LeadingAge National invited several states and regional members to their office to talk about their new workforce initiative. States represented included Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia, New York, Washington DC and Indiana. They have developed 5 strategic priorities around this issue:
- Framing the workforce issue
- Gathering promising practices from the state affiliates
- Scaling state initiatives
- Developing a policy agenda
- Forming partnerships
During the meeting we picked up on a few thoughts/issues that our members might be interested in considering as we continue on this journey. Those include:
- Do you have a workforce voice at the Board level? Boards often have committees to focus efforts on specific issues. If workforce is the number one issue for your organization, consider forming a board level committee with staff input to focus on this issue.
- Culture is the crux of the issue in many cases. Take a moment with your team to discuss what employee culture is like in your organization. What are you doing well? What needs to be improved? How does the top person in your organization intentionally or unintentionally set the organization’s culture? When you develop a culture you are happy with, consistency is key. Everyone in the organization must know, feel, understand and intentionally walk it.
- Be a dealer in hope. Your current and future employees are bombarded with enough negativity in their home and work life. How does your organization create optimism and hope for employees and residents? Its a natural default to jump to negative reactions. Train yourself and your employees to turn bad situations around and re-frame the situation in a different light. The words we use matter and have a greater impact than we often consider.
- Do you have a line item in your budget for workforce marketing? Funding marketing efforts is a difficult discussion for nonprofits and even more so in nonprofit long-term care organizations. You are often paying to post and recruit for open positions anyway, consider taking the dollars you are already spending and redeploy them in a manner that will get you the most bang for your buck.
- Look to the hospitality industry to learn how they approach their workforce and customers. Contact a local hotel chain and ask the manager how they recruit and retain employees. While you are on the phone with them, find ways to forge a partnership that benefits both your organization and theirs.
As this group continues to work, we will provide additional information and share specific tools that might be shared or created.
If you have any questions about workforce, please contact Dana Weaver at dana@leadingagekansas.org .
