Hey everyone uh welcome everyone uh thank you so much for joining us today I see people are starting to still filter in uh but again we have a uh a pretty good program for you uh we are going to give everyone a few seconds to migrate
In from the waiting room uh sometimes it can be a little slow getting into uh um the presentation from a virtual waiting room but as you make your way in uh please mute yourself and switch your view from gallery to speaker uh so that you can see all the the presentation
Materials and uh our our uh our our guest speakers today if you’re not sure how to do that don’t hesitate to host a um uh post a chat a question in the chat and someone from our team will be happy to help you okay with that uh we will go ahead and get
Started uh thank you all for joining us again here today my name is Joe Perez uh I am an engagement partner audit and tax partner partner and member of Witham Smith and Brown’s not for-profit service team I’m also part of the leadership team here at the NJB not for-profit
Council uh we’re so glad you could make it for this month’s educational programming and really glad you can uh help uh support us by attending these educational seminars just a quick reminder we are recording so everyone who is registered you will get a copy of the recording along with any slides and materials
Later this week be sure to keep in touch with us so that we can keep you on the mailing list and make sure you get all of those valuable materials before we get started I would like to give a quick shout out to our partners for helping make this happen
These are our sponsors and supporters and they’re always very good to us and we want to make sure that they are recognized members of our organization so I’ll uh Spotlight a few of them well all of them really the association member trust Citizens Bank DCM Associates Focus New Jersey Horizon
Blue Cross Blue Shield nisaia accountant and CPAs the njbia HR Support Center and NJ business magazine again none of this would be possible without their support uh so please um you can see the slide in front of you has their um some of their information and if you need any if you
Need to get in t in touch with them for anything that they may be able to help you with uh feel free to do that and all of you again uh all of the the the corporations I just mentioned thank you for supporting this important work another quick bit of housekeeping
In case you’re new uh just a quick shout out to my fellow not for-profit leadership team co-chairs uh John Dy from the Society of for the prevention of teen suicide Sally Glick of the CPA firm Clifton Larson Allen CPA uh C CLA um Mary lran of Covenant House and Gary
Pollock of Goo Health now I’ll turn it over to the Bia for a quick word from U from the Bia thanks Joe um yeah welcome everyone good morning um Happy Thanksgiving week um I want to thank you for coming I’m Casey skari I’m sponsorship sales at ngv
And as Joe mentioned this session is being recorded um and all attendees will receive an email later this week with the recording um and depending on what time we finish uh we may have some time for some networking at the end of the meeting um but there is much to cover
Today so we are thrilled to see this group um assist our many NFP members and continue to Foster collaboration with our corporate members we’re so happy to have such a strong leadership team guiding the way and for those of you who are new to the NJ business and industry
Association we are the largest Statewide Business Association in the country representing approximately 1 million jobs in the state of New Jersey which amounts to about a quarter of New Jersey’s Workforce and offering customer development opportunities and visibility through events magazine ads our podcast our TV show um and uh and money saving
Discounts and stuff you’re probably already paying for for things like payroll Healthcare 401K Solutions HR Support and training if you’re interested in more info on us um I will drop our website in the chat it’s nj.org also my information if you want to reach
Out to me um and feel free to drop your contact info in theat as well um and one last reminder to switch your view from gallery to speaker um the directions to do that are going to be in the chat and with that I will turn it right back over
To Joe and thank you so much thanks Casey okay so before we get into the program I’ll just go over a few other points uh the the not for-profit Council here is comprised of not for-profit and Business Leaders of all backgrounds uh we convene to engage in meaningful dialogue share successful business
Practices and develop programs that support strategic growth within New Jersey during this session we do invite you to please place any questions that you may have in the chat our speakers are here to uh serve you and hopefully answer any questions you may have uh also the the council will also attempt
To help out with any questions you may have we will synthesize these questions and pose them to our speaker following the presentation uh also please feel free to add to your to the chat your name and contact information so that we can continue the networking and
Afterwards and with that it is now my great pleasure to introduce our speakers I’m proud to introduce I’m great always grateful when a speaker comes to uh provide some value to our to our membership base which is all of you guys out there I’m proud to introduce Dean
Pastes the chief executive officer for Bergen’s promise a not for-profit organization dedicated to meeting the mental health and wellness needs of children up to the age of 21 in Bergen County New Jersey I’d also like to introduce Cynthia castanada the director of Care Management who will be co-presenting
Along with Dean they’re going to discuss the implementation of policy and team-based approaches that can lead to success in Recruitment and Retention which I know is a valuable um topic for me in my business and I’m sure it will be in yours as well and with that I’ll
Turn it over to Dean and Cynthia good morning um thank you so much for having us um I’ve had a good um exchange uh over the course of guess few years with uh NJB I get your um magazine and I read it uh often and um with
Interest on with many things um in particularly what caught my eye some time back was um the focus on diversity intensity uh and and inclusion um which is a part of what we’re going to be talking about today in recr Recruitment and Retention uh thus the title so um I
Just want to go to the the next slide and the learning objectives um so I think it’s always important you know to have objectives and goals uh inclusive strategies to engage your team and recruitment efforts simple techniques big big results to create a cohesive workplace and reinforced team camaraderie Dynamic fund ways to
Simultaneously engage staff in internal information sharing creative teachable moments that stick and creative advertisement of the organization’s culture employee experience through social media um so there’s a lot of subtopics to that um but I want to start um with a a question for the group and I
And and I do encourage if you have um questions um I I’m not great at using the chat but you’re welcome to put it in there and I’ll count on S City to kind of flag those um we have a couple of other staff here too they could flag
Them and help to answer as well um so and I’m hopefully may there’s going to be enough time at the end for some questions I let me be clear about when you would like this to end um is there is there a time frame I understood around an hour is that right that’s
Right Dean thank you okay so I’ve got my my clock is in I view always so um I I will tell that I will move this down we can have some time at the end um we can also stay uh after if people would like um for some questions and we’ll also
Make ourselves available if someone wants to contact us at some other point so I I want to start with a question okay um and I’ve asked this question of people I interview uh management and and and all staff alike um it it is a question that uh I’d like to take credit
For it and I probably could I was at a conference many many years ago and it was on Recruitment and Retention and there was like one thing that stuck out there was a panel it was packed and this is years and years ago and it was packed
To the to the pill and so this is how long ago this has been an issue way before the pandemic way before the economic turn that happened and the um the the the job force uh depletion that occurred um so the question I’m ask is
Is that there’s a lot of things you can do about Recruitment and Retention but what do you think is should be the number one priority for agencies far in in way what is the most important priority for Recruitment and Retention and I’ll take some answers and I will
Tell you that it’s not my answer this was given to me again elsewhere but I believe that it’s very true and yet I must have asked this question hundreds of times and no one has answered it um they it’s and and the answers are usually I could list them they’re pretty
Much the same what everybody how everybody answers I will give you a hint that the answer is kind of in the question so any any hands I don’t if I can see hands and somebody wants to take a shot at this I thought maybe Employee
Engagement okay um I I’m I’m I’m G to I’m going to give you a star for being very close um and and it it’s it’s that’s very CL you’re on the right track I’m going to say making Recruitment and Retention your priority that’s the answer so congratulations I don’t have a
Prize for you um now I reason I want to talk about that is is that we have an hour to tell you how to recruit and retain better and I can tell you right now that’s far and away not enough time because if it’s a priority a priority
Generally does not last an hour not a priority like this it a it it it is when you wake up in the morning it is when you go to sleep at night it is all the time and that’s what to me this priority is if you expect to do something that no
One else is doing which is to fill your seats and recruit staff and retain them beyond what your averages are especially in the nonprofit world then you’re going to have to have an energy that that permeates throughout your entire agency and that is not easy to do I can tell
You people will tell you it’s a priority okay but they will not act in that fashion and that’s what you have to look look for things like how many interviews did we do this week how much delaying was the were the interviews um what are the outcomes how are we tracking this
And I’m just giving you that as an example uh but you you you need to you know i’ I’ve seen it where um we had somebody being referred for an interview and I see delay of two weeks because of a vacation or because of you know they
Couldn’t fit the person in or their schedule didn’t match you know our schedule well that’s not a priority um and and at this juncture of time right now we as the employers are in what I call one down position the employees have the upper hand that are that are
Applying for jobs because they have multiple places to go although that is changing can we have the next slide okay so um the the model that we use for Children and Families is not just a model for children and fames work it’s called wraparound and if you look
At that that uh little slide with the child with cute little hat on and you look at all the people that surround that that person that’s their team okay and you can expand on that um in terms of the informal supports and list you know who’s a primary care provider uh
Who is who is you know it’s not maybe parent or legal guardian it may be parents or legal guardian who are the care providers um and in the informal supports um that you also need to have in this in this circle things like clergy things like neighbors um so when
You look at the wraparound model and you look at using that that talks to the team approach to Recruitment and Retention and that talks to making it a priority for everybody the child in this case changes and becomes your agency and all of the people around you there your
Temp services your their they’re you know your colleagues uh they’re your friends here at NJB you know like and telling everybody you know that you have openings have flyers and um other means with you at all times whether it’s on your card uh with your little URLs that
We have on our card I don’t know if you can see this probably not but I I you know that this is what I give out and I tell people we’re hiring take a look at the job postings um the the priority idea of course is not just about Recruitment and
Retention we all have other things to do so what we did is we decided to put up at the top what we call our piie you see at the the left and you see Recruitment and Retention is right up there at the top and you see what it’s next to with
Cyber security those are two critically important things Financial accountability wrap around diversity Equity inclusion is there compliance and health and safety you know those are the the slices of the pie that we put um and we make sure that we’re looking at that when we have department head meetings
That is on our agenda to go through those areas and talk about them once a week in some fashion or other the more that you talk about it the more it reflects the priority so you should be talking about retention recruitment all the time at your meetings people should
Be bringing ideas in you’ll see an energy at first and then you’ll see it subside you’ll see an energy when you fill positions and you’ll see it subside and that’s what ends up happening is what happens right you fill all your positions you take a breath and you use
The word stop right you say okay we’re going to stop hiring now because we’ve got all our positions filled you don’t ever stop the idea of hiring you may not on board somebody but there’s a term in HR called Evergreen and that means you keep that energy going right you don’t
Let the grass turn brown you know it’s not seasonal like in the winter when your grass dies as opposed to the and a nice springtime when it’s nice and green it needs to be that green all the way through we have um one of the things we
Use oh dear so is it just me or Dean freze Dean it looks like Dean froze um I will keep going because um I don’t know when he will unfreeze but um if I know uh shalis I saw your name pop up if you could just uh reach out to sany maybe
And see if he could pop over into Dean’s office that would be great um okay so we are going to keep going um as many of you are aware we did have a nationwide challenge due to uh the pandemic as well as the rise in mental health challenges
At least for our industry and I know that on the call there’s probably a different industries that that are represented but we’re I’m just going to talk a little bit specifically about our particular industry which is which is the mental health industry and so we did find a nationwide shortage when covid
Happened in 2020 um our services which are primarily done in home had to be done through tella health and through through telea work and while it was a great Band-Aid it didn’t really provide the appropriate wraparound that we wanted to have for the youth and the
Families in Bergen County so as you can see there was about um you know 74% of over, 1600 nonprofits surveyed in April reported job vacancies we were one of them and I’m sure that many agencies represented on the call were one as well some of the things that really kind of
Affected this were um you know vaccine policies child care I know for myself my kids were doing school from home there was six of us at one time on the internet trying to to figure out everything that was going on burnout was a very big deal because you were at
Least for me I was Mom I was teacher I was Employee trying to just kind of figure everything out and then you know very affectionately the silver tsunami there was a lot of retirements that happened during this time as well in which our um older generation employees were leaving the workforce making room
For younger employees but what we were missing out on was their expertise their training and a lot of things that really kind of just created a gap in in many of our agencies so I just want to talk a little bit specifically about Bergen’s promise
So um we had to really kind of take a step back because as you know that when you are hiring in crisis you sometimes you hire Warm Bodies and that’s not really the the best way to do it so really kind of like taking a step back
And identifying what we were what we needed back in May of 2022 you could notice on on on your screen that uh an average was about 19 youth per one care manager now those were for our monolingual care managers for our bilingual care managers who had families
Um that speak both English and Spanish that number did bump up and so we did have some care managers that had about um 24 to 26 youth on their case load and just so you’re aware um the state of New Jersey does have requirements for us and
How many youth a care manager can have and 25 is very high so ideally what we wanted was to really be able to get down to a 12:1 ratio or a 14 to one ratio so what we needed to do is we had our Challenge and our particular challenge
Was that we needed to hire 50 Care managers as soon as possible now as soon as possible can be a little bit scary because you get into kind of like this this crisis mode of of hiring and it’s like you know how many interviews are we
Going to have how many persons can we on board um that that’s great we’re having 12 people start on Monday who’s who’s going to train them when the staff that we already have are feeling a little bit overwhelmed or maybe feeling a little bit burnt out so when we go back to kind
Of like that that wraparound model that Dean was explaining it was really having Bergen’s promise as that identified patient if you will or identified client and seeing who was what was needed what was needed on our team to be able to have appropriate and effective um recruitment as well as retention
I’m going to skip this so some of the things that we did and you could see here there’s a bunch of things on the screen um I’m sure that none of you are new to anything really that I’m that I’m going to say we just kind of want to
Highlight the things that we did here I do want to spend a little bit time on organizational transformation okay um and this is really where we were able to have that wraparound team effect where we were really able to identify those gaps and one of the gaps that we noticed
Was our last in um Dei initiatives if you don’t know what Dei is diversity equity and inclusion um you know diversity is is a very big numbers thing how many persons identify as Hispanic how many persons identify as female how many persons identify as non-binary um
That is um a little bit older um I guess if you want to say in in the Dei World it went then into equity and now we’re talking about inclusion so our organizational transformation had to be very inclusive and one of the best things that we were able to do is really
Talk to our staff talk to the persons that were doing the job review your job description is what you’re doing really reflective on this job description being able to work those things out and then being able to post almost the story of the job instead of I need you to do a b
C d and have a checklist because that makes it very transactional so what we wanted to do as an agency is step away from kind of like that transactional relationship ship uh with persons with candidates with staff when we were talking about Recruitment and Retention and go into a more
Transformational situation a more transformational headspace one of the things that the agency did during this time was hire a Dei um HR consultant so that person was really able to come in speak to our staff on all levels help us identify the gaps and one of the things
That I I really enjoyed doing um was having conversations with our identified leaders and our unidentified leaders and that is where we were really able to kind of hone into to this is the job and this is the need and really able to kind of like change our policies have some
Policy enhancement really look into that Creative Marketing because we were hiring if we want to look at Generations now we were hiring a little bit more of the Gen Z who were who were recent graduates so they are and and I don’t want to generalize but I look at my kid
Kids who are jenz they are less likely to pick up the newspaper in the morning and more likely to go on Instagram to go on Tik Tok to go on any of those other social media platforms so we really needed to see like how are we going to
Be creative in our marketing and how are we going to be creative in our advertising what are some Community Partnerships that we could do and later on in the later slide I’m going to really be highlighting um some of the initiatives that we made with with local
Colleges when we spoke about the right right person in the right path I encourage you all do a SWAT analysis have a strategic plan align your Recruitment and Retention with that strategic plan um I you know we have an HR department that was expanded we have
A director and manager I call myself an HR groupy because I I love that the work that they do um I had the opportunity to go to a conference recently and just really kind of see what what was going on in in the HR world so I’m our groupy
All the way and you know that um Dean I see that you are back on so I’m just going to pass it along uh back to you in which we’re going to be talking a little bit about one specific policy that we enhanced for our recruitment
Strategies okay so um I just want to I don’t I my apologies my computer just blacked out you know things happen like this I think that there’s a a good little example of what just happened though I I know how Cindy works works and we do this together part I call them
Partnerships and as well inside the team right so succession planning is really really important and what you just saw was succession planning I don’t do anything Alone um and and I do it in team and I know it’s very cliche it’s very cliche but if you saw what happened
I I can’t imagine that this didn’t that we did not miss a beat um with me going out and that’s that’s a good example of what happens right you know um I always joke no more getting hit by the truck it’s uh win the lottery and go to Havana
I don’t know why Havana but um you know how is your succession plan and for retention that is really really important because if the person that reports to me if um if they’re not lined up with my succession plan for them and for myself and for the agency you know
Then if something happens to me um they’re not you know the the the interim doesn’t work I have both a letter um a succession plan letter and a policy that I share with my board the letter is yearly that’s for a here and now if something happened like you just saw
Happen so it would kind of say something like you know if I go out and black out on the screen you know then X Y and Z happens and and I name people that are here right now uh so the board just has to look at that and you know go right to
It that makes a big difference in the security that people feel of how the agency is run and so retention again right there so this is the policy um that uh that uh Cindy was talking about um I did not like the idea of employee referral uh programs okay um I felt like
Um you know I was worried about competition I was worried about um you know a liability stuff like somebody says oh you hired this person because they were friends with this person and and um I had to get out of my own way and uh I started this program with
$350 per person uh referred after three months of successful uh and I’m not going to get into all the details we stagger it we give I think 150 for then back then for hiring and then 150 if they stay for for for uh for three months um now that works for both
Recruitment and Retention because if you stagger that money and you hang that out carrot the person that referred has to stay at least three months in order to get the money so you know that’s not a long time but it counts right and if you’re doing all of these things all
Around then it makes a difference I then move the money up to 500 and finally up to 750 now I know listen I came from the poor nonprofits as well as the ones that were better funded I get the fact that you know somebody’s going to say well
How are we going to do this you know we can’t afford it well nobody said it had to be $750 nobody said it had to be any dollars you can figure out some creative way you could give person an extra day off right if they bring somebody on or
Two days off um if you’re recruiting staff that means you probably have a cruel dollars so we’re Pennywise and pound frish in the nonprofits unlike the uh business and industry Association who has nonprofits wisely as a part of that um you’ve got to look at things as a
Business and to succeed at business you have to look at the dollars and cents I’m a social worker okay but I also am a very good businessman and you have to have both aspects of this and paying these employees was worth what we paid out because you’ll see the numbers and
It it’s we I may be getting ahead of myself but in 15 months we filled 50 positions and it was directly related if I could pick one thing besides my priority thing if I could pick one thing this generated the most the most staff we hired uh I believe uh that indeed was
Next and Career Fairs was right up there as well so you know they’re and and and in terms of looking at the career fairs uh also looking at interns and other things like that doing career fairs at at universities um you know they often have Career Fairs there but you can also you
Know appeal to them to recruit their interns to do intern work and then ending up hiring them and you see the employee networking you know I tell people that you need to be able to tell what we are and who we do what we do and why they want to be here
In what I call an elevator speech you need to tell them by the time they and you’d be surprised and it’s not you you know I put flyers up in a supermarket you know I had somebody ask me why would you put it in a supermarket well don’t
People that work for nonprofits go to supermarkets um we put them up in hairdressing salons you know uh you know you need to expand you know your your community base as well as your Staffing base just think about it though if you look at how many staff you have and I’m
Going to stick with this referral program for a minute minute we have 200 staff so when we had 150 if if you know we needed 50 staff well half of our staff brought one person we would have more than filled every position one person from each staff think about it that way
So you know it’s really important and the staff had fun with it and then because we were able to do this um I after we’re doing it for a while I threw a surprise lunch for all of those who had referred not just the ones who got
Hired but all the ones that had referred and I brought them in a room I bought them lunch and I stood up and I told them how grateful I was regardless of whether the person got hired or not um and so uh we’ll move on we have the video next
Yes this is our this is also what we did we uh we cre we bought a bunch of TVs and because they’re not that expensive anymore we put them all over we have 35,000 square feet we put them all over the office right and once a month we
Have a 10minute show which is called bpv Bergens promise TV and we put in a cute funny way you’ll see it key points of we want to extend to the staff so they see them visually what Cindy was talking about before about no more newspapers right well email is not the way people
Communicate very well anymore texting is really not you know all these things have declined into social media so how do you replicate you know that format or do something different this is what we did so here is what we posted for getting the message out about the
Referral hi I’m Meg do you like money of course you do referral bonus that puts $750 in your pocket so how do you Rak in the dough it’s actually really easy so for me all I did was reach out to my sority sisters and now Rael Melanie and Aaliyah are my
Co-workers so what are some of the amazing perks well lowering the case load size for you and your team and most importantly three mon so according to our extensive research everyone loves money and the data does not lie I refer daa from support team by messaging my friends group chat now I
Have $750 towards my next student loan payments and we’re not talking about $1 we’re talking about Cold Hard Cash just by bringing people in I referred arene while we were just talking when my college friends and now I have $750 to put into my daughter’s savings I’m still working on
Mine so what are you waiting for refer your next coworker and get $750 in your pocket first payment of 375 received after the successful completion of first 30 days final payment of 375 received after successful completion of provisionary Period so a little funny story uh that they uh and actually um I believe Ryan is on uh one of The Observers here we’re GNA get feedback from Ryan is uh our um person who does a lot of this work and um he came to me and he’s very
Respectful about asking my permission for things and he asked me um you know can I give out you know these Ste dollars to everybody and I said no I said you’re not you’re not putting my face on Dollar on on this bill and put it giving it out to anybody well he
Managed to and not going to make a long story short he he he snuck it in and now it it’s like everywhere people had me signing them um I I don’t take myself all that seriously even as Co oh my ego is certainly healthy but uh I have my
Own humbleness with this but you know you have fun with this stuff and that’s important also you know we we laugh and joke but that that the person that did the lead in this um uh Meg she um she was one of the lead PR persons in the referrals and had several conversations
With her she is a direct service care manager um and she’s very dedicated to the agency and um she was really good at this um and so that you know you think about it if they refer you know um and you let them know this in person you
Know you refer two people that’s $1,500 you know you you refer four that’s that’s that’s 3,000 right so um it adds up and the thing about it is is that we had more than enough AC cruel you know to to to make do with this because when you’re not paying staff
Right if you have a $50,000 salary right and you’re not paying staff or 52,000 to make it even it’s it’s $1,000 a week in a cruel dollars you know what are you spending that money for and is it the agency priority that you’re spending it
On so I just want to emphasize because I do know that not everyone is in the position to pay out and that that I un very sympathetic to the nonprofits that that struggle um so I’ll turn it back over to Cindy I think that’s what I’m supposed
To do and Creative Marketing no problem so I know earlier I was talking about um the unidentified leaders and Meg was definitely an unidentified leader we were really able to tap into her and um I know that based off of that many of our persons who had sororities or
Fraternities or other other groups were able to go out and really and really refer I’m just going to really briefly talk about um Creative Marketing and some of the things we did I know that earlier I was talking about uh newspapers I know Dean had come to me
Specifically about newspapers and I said no I mean I I read them online but I don’t go out and buy a newspaper so um you know we do have we have an Instagram page we do have a LinkedIn page the cool thing about uh LinkedIn is most of us
Are on it um and so you could just tag a person put it in there and you know we have you know several followers we did get some hits off of LinkedIn um and you might say okay I put on LinkedIn I got one hit but it was one hit more than you
May have that you got if you if you didn’t put it on there so um it’s just a great way to advertise being very strategic um geographically if you’re using something like Facebook or um other avenues to be really be able to put it um strategically like I know with Spotify
It can be Geographic so that only in certain areas will will that add play um we have other opportunities like if you go to our website Bergens promise.org um for you to be able to see many of our promotion videos we do have some walkthrough videos the walkthrough
Videos are great for our new hires um even at during the interview process because it gives them just a quick peek um to be able to come into the office and see what is going on there um in on on any given day the testimonial videos are really great um I personally love
The agency value videos um values are a wonderful thing um and if you promote that you are a values based agency know what those values are if someone asks you what they are and make sure that what you are adverti advertising excuse me is um true and real for what your agency is
Doing um there’s our C QR code that Dean was mentioning earlier um we we do have our email marketing so we make sure as part of our signature we let persons know that we are hiring QR code is part of all of our business cards we do have quarterly provider collaboration
Meetings with um different agencies and uh actually next week we do have a pro provider Fair of person coming in and just making sure that recruitment is always always part of the conversation I know I’m going a little bit fast I just kind of wanted to get
Through these um I did want to spend a little bit time now on the community outreach and Partnerships most specifically on the interns um you’ll see here that there’s there’s a whole host of different ways that we have Outreach we have community- based events there’s committee meetings um we have
Our Career Fairs both virtually we have Career Fairs with local universities we have conference spot sponsorships in which in all of these areas we’re really kind of um you know developing those relationships with persons um I probably have more of an affinity for internships because um I was an intern not here but
Elsewhere and when you’re looking for an internship anywhere it sometimes it’s so hard as the student to to just cold call somewhere and say hey are you looking for interns and and not really know what’s going on so one of the ways that that we’ve been able to do is we’ve
We’re using our staff um where where are they alumni from Ruckers ripo Montclair Kain all of the local universities NYU forom I’m just thinking of the interns that we have uh right now going into classrooms into senior um oh gosh there’s a word for it it’s not senior
Workshop all my kids had to do it I I forgot I forgot what the name of it was um sen your seminar thank you I don’t know who said thank you shalisa um the the senior seminars where they go in like they’re ready to graduate they may
Have been like a Psychology major or a child advocacy major and saying hey look you know what we we do take interns and that is a pipeline for recruitment I know um specifically off hands I could name um three that are coming to my mind right now that were interns that were
Able to interview during their intern experience and really be able to um kind of embrace the values that we have here and and be hired and it’s not just for Care Management we do have interns in other departments we have an intern for our our education manager we have an
Intern in Community Resources in finance technology um and in and in data management if if I’m not mistaken so interns are great we love them um we really want to see them succeed here uh before we go into retention um I just want to focus a little bit on the
Results at the beginning of our presentation we were talking about having to re having to fill those 50 spots and some of the things that we did was really that targeted hiring really taking a step back who was on our team I said that earlier really being inclusive
In our hiring practices so that we’re not so much looking for a fit um who is going to fit the agency because if you fit the agency you’re just hiring someone like yourself but what can a person add to the agency and there you might have 40 steps you might say okay I
Know what my last step is going to be but always start with step one so I’m just going to focus very briefly on on one particular um demographic on one particular uh diversity data point that was very important to the agent when we did a survey of the youth and families
That that were being served we noticed that um our staff was not representative of the youth and families being served most specifically with language proficiency so um we had to take a step back really analyze what was happening and you know currently we have um o that
Didn’t pop up currently we have um close to 100 employees that are fluent in a language other than English which represents 10 uh foreign languages which is a 209% increase of bilingual employees from 20 uh to from last year 2022 to the present year and it also um represents um
93% of our of our of our youth I’m sorry we have 309 of our active youth whose first language is not English they speak a total of 19 languages and we are able to service 93% of them which is really really great so of the you know we have
Just just name a few there’s English which is a language English Spanish Hindi Korean uh French Creole Arabic uh Portuguese and a couple more that that I just can’t remember but it’s it’s really great when we are able to go into a youth’s home and and speak the language
Of the family because it just allows for more of that cultural connection that language connection and really be able to to strategize the the needs of those of those youth and and and families so I just I am going to post a question um oh and we had our 50 spots
Filled which is great so um before we you know now that we going to go into retention I am going to pop a question up if you want to answer in the chat if you want to raise your hand that’s great we’re here to answer it so what retention strategies have been
Successful for your particular industry or organization and then we’re going to share a little bit of what was successful for ours I’m just going to add if I might um that I do very little without a strategy and and and it stays concurrent so the reason that we’re asking this question
Is because we don’t know everything we know almost everything we we don’t we don’t know everything um you do and others do and if you look at the team approach right that gives everybody here an opportunity to say something that we might not have mentioned and doing this
In this forum and then you see it and it may be something will add will gain from it you’ll gain from it right it’s something else this is using the team you know of of this it’s not us talking to you it’s us talking with you and that
That’s really a philosophy I have about management um I you know I call staff that report to me sometimes Partners um I I don’t look at that hierle piece we’re working together and that that’s I mean there are somebody in charge yeah but really uh teamwork is really really key and
Leadership so back to the question we’re gonna move on we’re just going to share a little bit about ours I think that someone put in the chat that um a lot of time is spent on employee engagement yes that’s very very important that that relationship building uh with the team regardless of
What of what level you’re on having that emotional intell and that relational intelligence um is is great for that for those retention strategies yeah also with that that’s a really good good good point um about the engagement relationships are critical around the retention uh areas I agree and what
Cindy said earlier about the aligned values um that was another demarcation and kind of think you know you know you you do what you value right I mean that’s that’s really you know know what it boils down to so in interviews you know you really want to you really want
To hear that and you want to hear them up front say you know what brings you to the agency and you want to hear them ahead of you saying you feel like your values are aligned that they come in and that’s clearly on your website and shown and that the people that you’re
Interviewing you want them to have read that and seen that and picked out the values um and and then you start to see the alignment and as Cindy pointed out they don’t have to think exactly like you do you know or act the way that you
Do you know or have the strengths or weaknesses that you do they they but the values alignment is very important I’m just gonna read an answer that Mary uh typed into the chat I absolutely love it um she wrote we do our best to align with our core values
Of unconditional love absolute respect and Relentless support for our youth staff volunteers and supporter which has led to some very long staff retention I love that that relational intelligence that that you have in there and really really um dialogue is best appropriate feedback continuous feedback um having that open and honest communication with
Your staff just does lead to trust building respect building and for that engagement and and retention so I’m going to um move on you’re free to use the chat if you’d like to add anything some of the things that we did you know employee participation I am going to show a quick
Brief um clip of the BPT TV that Dean was talking about earlier and some of the ways that we really strengthened our culture internally as Dean mentioned you know there’s TVs located throughout the the traffic areas um it’s really great when we when we show these uh on we show them
About about twice a month um everyone stands from their cubicles leaves their leaves their office they’re standing in front of the TV they really want to see what’s going on but one of the best things is like if they see um let’s say I I’m promoting something on the TV I
Was only on there once and Ryan I know you’re listening that doesn’t mean you need to ask me again um so you know I was I I was on there one time and then they would ask me questions about whatever initiative was being presented so really being able to have that cross
Department uh communication and collaboration so I am going to show a Quick Clip here we Go good evening berens promise my name is Ryan O’Keefe and you’re watching BP here are October’s top stories this just in after an incredible year of Recruitment and Retention efforts our BP team is nearing capacity when it comes to care managers however we are still seeking more care manager
Supervisors that is why our referral program has now now been increased to $1,000 for anyone who successfully refers for more we go to our special correspondent thanks Ryan preparation for an annual holiday toy drive are kicking off care managers will have until Friday November 10th to submit toy
Requests for their youth that might struggle to afford gifts this holiday season remember this is a popular event so first come first serve please make sure to follow the directions in the form by providing the name cyber ID age gender want to take this time to welcome
All of our new staff that started with us in September we hope you feel comfortable and right at home now in addition congratulations go out to shelda who was recently promoted to care manager supervisor way to go finally we have some Spooktacular work anniversaries to celebrate in October
Giana Destiny and S knocked out their first year Chelsea and Carolina have had had a thriller 2 years Lori and Ma have made it a successfully sweet 6 years and finally Chalisa has treated us to 18 years at Bens prise that’ll do it for me thank you for tuning in be great B Promise great I hope you enjoyed that we enjoy every month when Ryan puts on uh puts it on um we I will say that of the 200 I want I don’t know an exact number but I think a little bit more than half have been actors so it really just
Allows for you to meet who is on your team who is who is part of the staff if it’s not someone that you see if if it’s not someone that you see every day so this is again very specific to Burgen promise some of the retention strategies
That we have employed and continued to do um and I’m just going to highlight a couple of them I want to do highlight uh health and wellness specifically for our staff uh you know ensuring that our benefits package is is attractive to the persons that we are hiring um making
Sure that you know we have things like a gym membership reimbursement EAP um some of the other things that uh are in internal initiatives we do have a Wednesday walk in which there is a particular topic of the week um it could be Men’s Health Women’s Health mental
Health suicide um all different things that we do during our walk we have fin Financial Wellness in which we have sometimes external presenters or our finance uh Department coming in and really talking about that aspect of Health and Wellness we’ve had smoothie day mental health day we had Suicide
Prevention month and uh there is daily meditation for those who who want to who want to meditate most of the times it is in a conference room but there have been times that our meditation is virtual um as far as the team building activities um some of us got together and developed
A workg group and we were really noticing that um you know the teams were cohesive we and we wanted a little bit more cohes so we were able to kind of develop a policy um associated with um with a stipend in which the teams were able to
Use on a quarterly basis to go out and and do things as a team that they may not have normally done uh some of the things that I’ve seen are um Cel making X throwing karaoke uh one team went to see Barbie and had dinner um so a whole
Bunch of of different things that they do for for those team building activities on top of those we do have a agency specific gatherings in which um there’s a lot of Employee Appreciation um on a quarterly basis food trucks now for the holidays there will be a holiday
Spirit week um as part of our Dei trainings and ini and initiatives we make sure that we have um droing events uh whether it be for any specific demographic that we want to be able to highlight and then every year in June we do have a feed your soul event which
Aligns with the juneth holiday in which we are able to uh really holiday uh the excuse me really uh highlight uh juneth but also um we have persons bring in food from from their culture and really be able to to share as an agency uh things things like that professional
Development uh we currently have many staff who are on professional development and out of our 18 supervisors 11 of them were internal promotions we had several supervisors that have I’m sorry care managers that have been promoted to different positions and one of our favorite is when uh care managers return and either
Reapply as a care manager or reapply as a super as a supervisor so um we had to really look at what our onboarding strategy was have um stay and ex and exit interviews identificate we also identified uh staff that were at risk to be able to go in and have different
Types of conversations with them to see you know what we could do and how we could join them and partner with them to be able to kind of have those um those retention numbers stay where where they wanted to go do I’m not sure if you had
Anything that you wanted to add um just a couple things that came two two things really quickly um the the the diversity Equity inclusion piece has been a a heavy Focus um as we’ve mentioned throughout and uh I’m very proud to say that that what you saw reflected in the
Languages um it it also uh we have a diverse staff on on in every level throughout the agency and I would say we’re probably uh way above the norm for uh Bergen County uh being you know the the population that lives here and matching that up that was one thing the
Other thing I just wanted that this is kind of an outside thing about being creative and and thinking about things from a very positive level and here’s the example so I want to get into whole details of it but they were talking about an ad that somebody ran it wasn’t
Us it was for a veterans hospital and there was a gentleman who was he was pronouncing that he he sell sold ads for radio uh and he did it for free but then you pay for the radio time so we didn’t want to use the radio time but I listen
To what he said and this is what he said about an ad he was uh engaged by a um a veterans hospital that said that they were just bleeding you know uh no punon attendant uh they they they had nursing staff which is a very hard thing to fill
These days and um they said you know the CEO said okay what tell me the ad you would write you know I I I take the ad you know we write an ad for for us and and we’ll look at it we’ll see so they asked him
He asked them you know what are the three things that make you different than any other Veterans Hospital right so that’s a great recruitment question and the guy said sure I can tell you that we have the worst equipment that anybody has that’s different we have you
Know the the most you know shortages in staff was different and our bet our our environment uh rather our environment is not great you know in terms of the work environment and we don’t have very good pay or benefits go that’s what makes us different and so the ad that the guy
Wrote was this he wrote if you want really good pay and you want a great environment to work in and um you know and and you’re you’re and you’re looking you know for great benefits then you don’t want to listen to this ad and you
Don’t want to work here but if you want to help those who serve their country and give back to them then we need you here something to that effect so appealing to the altruism not what he could pay because what do we say right when we don’t have enough money to fund
We always say well if I could raise the salary you know and compete better you know that’s not always true uh one of the programs that I supervised that I um it was one of the poor most poorly funded programs this is years back and that program had the best retention of
Any program IR ran and it was for a lot of these reasons that we’re talking about but it was really because it was a great program that was a prevent child abuse program and the staff loved working and loved working with these children that were seen at Birth and
Then for three years afterwards in the home so that’s what kept them there so we can move forward so uh we’re we are we are done uh we are done on time even have a few minutes for questions um and again we’re willing to stay for the
Rest of the meeting whatever that might be and also to stay after if you want to arrange that or do that but so uh questions okay something from Betty which I’m trying to navigate sorry Dean I can I can just ask you so this is really incredible work um
I’m curious to see if you added something to your retention tool box that you felt didn’t work and then you abandoned it it’s a great question um I I have trouble I’ll answer if it’s okay Dean can I just I’ll answer it so I just do want to talk about U maybe the
The team building activities that had to go through a lot of different revisions before we made it into into what it was um so there was there there have been things something like that that was that was trial and error um the the meditation did didn’t fail I think that
Um there may have been low numbers at the beginning but finding the right people to to be able to do it was very very important so kind of like noticing what the gaps are and making sure that the right staff was was in the right position yeah I’m sure I’ll think of
Something after and I’ll be honest not to sound flowery but um I have a lot of work in my head to remain in positive thinking and to to reduce and so um because we succeeded at this but I will say that the journey along the way
Uh a year and a half ago that 15mon Mark uh I went in my office and I was whining about the numbers and earlier Cindy probably showed you the uh when I was off they showed you that slide on the uh this the state of the world the state of
The economy you know with the the and there is a thing called a participation index I don’t know if you know what that is that’s essentially on in the labor world and it really measures the number of people that are able to work but not working the phenomenon that happened
During the pandemic is people decided they didn’t want to work and you know and they just stopped and you know they found some way to make do and so in order to get them re-energized that was really difficult and so in that beginning spot nothing was working I
Mean I don’t remember some of the things specifically two years ago um and I remember going in my office and closing the door and having this conversation with myself that sounded like I’m never going to be able to do this people told me in forgiving ways you know um you
Know you may never see every position fil you know and that just didn’t sit well with me at all because everybody else is just like you why do you why would you think you know and I realize we had to be completely different and and that was really a struggle um
Because we were doing a lot of the same things that was doing the recruitment retention I went to to tremendous conferences I will say now that I T you I would think of it I went to that seminar and it was on they were going to
They were you trying to sell radio time and um and so this guy was really good you know I told you the story he told he was really good good salesperson when I came back I talked to my uh the consultant that Cindy mentioned that’s very good with diversity and Recruitment
And Retention and I said to her yeah radio time you know this is something totally different and uh we didn’t actually try it but we were close and she talked to me me out of it and I realized that the ad that I heard for this gentleman’s seminar on the radio
Station 107.1 that I heard in the next year after not doing it I never heard one ad not one single ad for employment so I realized that it would have worked and um and so there there were probably things that got cut down before you know
We actually put them in place um but I can honestly say that part of what you’re seeing in the difficulty to finance because we really worked hard to get to the spot and that’s why we wanted to do presentations too because we feel we have something to offer and as a
Nonprofit um and someone that’s you know within the nonprofit world and the last thing I want to say is not quite about that but in the Dei piece um I read an article I think it was in your New Jersey business magazine because I know
You you you you know I read a lot I got here early every morning I read about Recruitment and Retention and I remember seeing something that said if you have a diverse staff you know statistics say that those companies you know are do do much better financially and I’m trying
To figure out I always thought about the efficacy and I like it and the children we serve right but I never thought about it from a practical business model until we started bringing staff on and then I not going to go into all the details but
I saw that outcome I saw the differences of opinions that added to the culture of the agency pun and ended um you know that that that’s who we became and we use them to talk to kids maybe they might even be their qualification might be because they’re of a certain ethnic
Background right and they know something about that background and we use them for advisement and on the teams we’ve had them go out um we had our director of Technology who’s uh Korean he went to speak to a Korean community group um in in Korean and to advertise what we are
And who we and what we do so that’s I suddenly realized that’s what that is is that you have all this difference you know coming in and it’s not easy to do you can’t just do one single thing and thinking about advertising you have to
Do a lot um in order to to get a more diverse staff and probably whatever you’re doing is not enough and I would say that for myself I thought I tried I tried I tried couldn’t do it was we were not diverse enough not my fault it’s the
ZIP code it’s this and that I had to get out of that thinking saying okay we need to think differently um and and that’s you know short version of what occurred but um there’s a lot more to it other any other questions or comments or thoughts that’s um that’s great Dean and
You know what I really appreciate that I was uh hoping we were going to have a few more questions but you uh you covered a lot very uh very concisely and very quickly and I appreciate all the information you’ve provided I threw one question question in there with which
Cynthia answered uh so we don’t have to go into the details about it maybe I can contact you guys offline I just wanted to say how uh amazing it was that you had real life employees that were able to put on that type of that quality of
Production so I was very impressed with that which is uh all I really wanted to mention and they’re out there watching this after it’s over they all laugh and applaud people bring popcorn out for the 10 minutes I mean they they just they just love this they absolutely and
You’re giving messages that’s the important things of value you know in a package you know it it you it’s all almost all work rated but it’s adding a fun piece to it for for sure all right I think we’re pretty close to the end of time so if anybody has any other
Questions please post them in the chat or send them to us separately and we’ll try to get them to Dean and Cynthia to uh answer them to you offline uh since we’re at the end uh what I did want to say is uh I really liked I mean there
Was many things about the presentation I like I really like the social media style of the recruiting incentives for employees I think those people people did a dynamite job so congratulations to you guys on putting that together and actually executing on it if you think about it what better source of referrals
Um for employees than your own employees who already know what the culture is like I also thought it was interesting about uh you saying Dean that you posted at the local supermarket you’re right everyone does go to the supermarket you never know where your next grade
Employee is going to come from so um I just wanted to make those final comments uh I don’t think we have any more time as I mentioned keep posting questions for those of you who are still on the call uh for the networking uh and we’ll try to get them
Answered to you to the best of our ability I would like to thank all of our speakers Dean and Cynthia once again I think you guys did a dynamite job uh thank you so much for presenting to the group I hope the group found it as
Valuable as I did I know I’m going to share some of those little quick tips that you had uh with our HR department so hopefully we all benefit from that I’ll give one more quick you’re welcome I’ll give one more quick shout out to our partners uh Association member trust
I talked to these guys at I talked about them at the top of the presentation uh associate Association member trust Citizens Bank DCM Associates Focus New Jersey Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield nisaia njbia HR Support and NJ business magazine I think CLA was in the beginning as well uh so thank you to
Them as well uh if you think as you’re listening if you think you’d like to be a speaker please let us know we are currently filling out the rest of our program we’re always filling out the rest of our program uh to keep uh it topics of value to you to disseminating
It to you so uh please keep your eyes peeled for some incoming in emails uh for more information and if you’d like to stick around we can uh do a little bit more networking feel free to do so uh but if you got a jump we understand
And thank you for joining us today
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