Enrollment Forward: Intentional Workforce Planning

Glenna Davis: Hello and welcome everyone to Enrollment Forward: Intentional Workforce Planning. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Dr. Bernadine Futrell. Dr. Futrell, the floor is yours.

Dr. Bernadine Futrell: Thank you so much, Glenna. Hello, Head Start! Hello, hello, hello. Welcome, welcome to number three of our Head Start Forward: Enrollment Forward Webinars. I'm very happy and honored that you all are joining us on today and that we get to do this work in partnership with each and every one of you. I'm Dr. Futrell. I'm the proud director of the Office of Head Start and really excited about this series, this work, and this opportunity to come together and really talk about some of the opportunities to move forward when we talk about enrollment for our Head Start programs.

I also want to just begin by saying thank you to each and every one of you and acknowledging where we are in this moment of this pandemic, this moment of 2022, and really thank you, as you have continued to do the important work of Head Start in your communities. You've continued to lead. You've continued to bring together your community, to really prioritize and do the great work of Head Start for so many children and families, and I thank you for that. As we mentioned, this webinar series, Enrollment Forward, is our opportunity to come together. And as the Office of Head Start, what we want to do is to be able to provide support, have conversations, bring up ideas, and even share what we're hearing from you as we think about the areas of recruitment, enrollment, and workforce planning.

Today's webinar is going to be specific on workforce because it's important as we think about enrollment – and we think of anything that we're doing within Head Start to start with – I always say start with our people, start with the adults in the programs, start with investing there so that we can build. I always say that healthy leaders lead healthy organizations, and we need you all that are on the line, the program, those of you that are on the line and those that are not on the line to be healthy, to be well, and to be able to do the great work that we do for Head Start.

And we know, on top of where we are right now, that Head Start programs are experiencing very difficult challenges when it comes to workforce, when it comes to ... I know you're working as hard as you can to retain and keep our dedicated team members who have been with Head Start for years, even decades, and even more so these past almost three years of navigating this pandemic and working through these very challenging times. And I know you, like the Office of Head Start, we're thinking along 24 hours a day almost about how to really support and put the investment there.

And we also know that you are also exploring ways and every possible strategy to recruit and onboard new team members into your organizations. And we know that a big barrier is staff and wages ... Excuse me, a big barrier for staffing is our wages and persistently low wages that many of our frontline workers experience. And we also know that this is a problem not just for Head Start, but the broader early childhood education field.

We agree at the Office of Head Start and we’re committed to doing what we can to really understand how we can really support and put investments there when it comes to really honoring those of you that are doing this work to build a future, doing the everyday work for children and families. And we know that there are so many other factors in addition to getting higher wages that are important for a strong workforce. What we're going to do on today's webinar is to really explore this issue and provide some strategies, as well as things that you can begin implementing today to retain our hardworking team members as well as recruiting new staff.

I want to thank you all again for joining this webinar. Thank you for being a part of the Head Start family. Thank you for doing the hard work of Head Start and keeping children and families moving forward as we continue to navigate the pandemic and all of the things that are in front of us. I appreciate that we get to do it together, and I thank you for that. With that, I'm going to pass it on the Gretchen, who is going to kick us off with today's webinar and introduce our experts who will be talking about some strategies and ways that we can navigate when it comes to workforce as we focus on enrollment. Thank you. Gretchen?

Gretchen Jurgens: Thank you, Dr. Futrell, for starting our discussion today on workforce. With us today, we also have Heather Wanderski, division director for program operations, Steve Russell, program management lead, and Jacquie Davis, professional development manager both from the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations. My name is Gretchen Jurgens, and I will serve as your moderator today.

During today's presentation, we will revisit the Enrollment Forward campaign, review some of the questions submitted during the last Enrollment Forward webinar, discuss staff turnover and approaches to talent acquisition. Hear about staff recruitment strategies, including approaches to interviewing. From there we will move onto organizational culture and discuss the importance of retention. But first, Heather, can you share a refresher for us on the Enrollment Forward campaign?

Heather Wanderski: Sure, and thank you, Gretchen, and thank you, Dr. Futrell, for that wonderful opening. I'm really excited to, I think, dive deeper into workforce and really helping and thinking about our programs and where they may need some additional support. And, Gretchen, just like you said, for those of us who may not have been involved or been able to participate in some of the original webinars, we've had a couple already. Really, the whole purpose of this is really to provide support, strategies, and resources to our Head Start recipients. We're focusing in on areas that may be seeing some challenges, and you'll see here, program structure, recruitment, enrollment, of course workforce – that's the whole intent of today's conversation. And we always take into account and consider health and safety, as well as community needs.

And I think one of the big things I want to highlight and say really, just as a reminder, is that this is not a restart of the Full Enrollment Initiative but just really a continued effort to move towards full enrollment and in-person comprehensive services across all of our program options. And when I say all, I'm thinking about our center-based services, our family child care, our home-based options that are out there, as well as our locally designed programs. I think now, with that recap, I know people are really probably anxious, Gretchen, to get into more of today's content as well as maybe some Q&A from last time. If you want to see what we've got going on in the queue.

Gretchen: Definitely. I know that folks are anxious to get into the content of today's webinar, but we have received so many questions from the Head Start community throughout this Enrollment Forward series. I'd like to just take a few minutes to pose some of those questions to you. And our first question today is really about calculating the number of over income slots. If programs are serving a reduced number of children, is a program’s over income %age based on the program's current capacity or their funded enrollment?

Heather: Great question. I think it's a matter of going back and taking a look at the actual regulation itself and really making sure that they read the regulation carefully. What it says in the performance standards is that if a family does not meet income or categoric eligibility, that a program may still enroll children who would benefit from services provided they make up to 10% – they only make up to 10% of a program’s actual enrollment. Therefore, programs really should be using actual enrollment rather than funded enrollment to calculate the %age of over income children that can be enrolled.

That said, we do know that there are many programs out there who need to plan and that could be a little difficult to potentially calculate and recalculate the number of over income slots that a program can accommodate on a frequent basis depending on how quickly you're able to enroll children in the program. And we know that and recognize that the easier way to accomplish this would be just to plan on using funded enrollment. And I would say generally, in most cases that would be sufficient, but in situations where you anticipate that your actual enrollment is going to significantly differ from your funded enrollment, the number of over income slots really should be based on actual enrollment in order to meet with the intent of the law. And we know that there are a number of children and families in poverty and that, that number has grown significantly and that we need to make sure that our programs are prioritizing low-income families so that we are serving those in greatest need. Thanks, Gretchen.

Gretchen: Thanks, Heather, for making that clarification. We know families continue to express hesitancy. What should programs do if enrolled families do not want to participate in in-person services?

Heather: Good question. The priority is to enroll eligible children and families that are most in need of in-person comprehensive services. And slots really cannot be held for families who have decided that they do not want their children to participate in in-person services. And as you'll recall, what we said during the current program year, the '21-'22 program year, is that the Office of Head Start did say during that ramp up period at the start of the year that programs were allowed to provide, temporarily, virtual and remote services during that ramp up period for families who may be hesitant to return or particularly for those who were enrolled in prior years. But at the end of the calendar year, we did say we did discontinue virtual services so ...

And I just want to make sure that we're clear, that programs should not be providing virtual remote services as an ongoing option for programming. I think it's OK to say that programs can continue to check in with families who are on the wait-list that ... About ... And just reassess on a regular basis whether they're ready to return or not to in person services. And then when they do say, "Yes, I'm ready to return," I think there needs to just be some solid communication to let them know that if there's a slot available great but if not, they may need to still remain on the waitlist. And I think the most important part here is if families continue to express hesitancy for in-person services, staff and families may need to really consider exploring alternative placements that better meet the needs of families for virtual services. Ultimately, you're going to want to assist families in finding a program that best meets their needs.

Gretchen: Thanks, Heather. I think we can't underscore enough how important it is for programs to be in constant communication with their families. During the last webinar, we heard about some safety strategies for programs providing transportation. We understand that programs should work in consultation with local health officials and other state and local authorities to the extent possible when making decisions about transportation. Just to clarify, is temperature taking still consider a mitigation strategy when providing transportation?

Heather: Yeah, and thanks for asking this follow-up question because I know that there were a number of folks asking about this after our last webinar. The answer is yes, taking temperature of staff and children before they board a vehicle is a recommended health check. Programs should not be transporting individuals who have a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or who show other signs of illness. And that those who have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive or is showing symptoms of COVID-19. You're going to want to steer clear of transporting for individuals who fall into either one of those categories. And I will highlight here that you should check out that information memorandum that we have highlighted here on the slide. It does talk about additional strategies to ensure that our Head Start vehicles are safe places for transporting staff and children. Thanks.

Gretchen: Heather, also in the last webinar, we talked about a program's ability to shift slots. If a program is thinking about or making considerations to shift slots between approved program options or within their approved service area, what should they be considering?

Heather: Thanks for raising this. We did get a lot of questions on this too during that webinar. And I want to say that programs really should be familiar with all of the information that's contained in their Notice of Award. It details all the thing that they are required to do. But any consideration to shifting slots, either between approved program options or within your approved service area, must already be included within your Notice of Award. Ultimately, I recommend, and programs really should be engaging in conversations with their program specials within the Regional Office. I would say that considerations and conversations with the Regional Office will be addressing things like compliance with the Performance Standards, making sure that all decisions are made based on community need.

And I think that this again, highlights the importance of having that current community assessment that we've been kind of talking about through the webinar series. And then also, too part of that conversation is going to be talking about and making sure that whatever changes are being proposed are able to be done within the existing budget that the program is approved for. Thanks.

Gretchen: Heather, can you talk a little bit about what would constitute a Change in Scope request.

Heather: OK, good question. I think a Change in Scope request is actually defined in the Uniform Guidance. I think we have the citation there on the slide, 75.308. It's really defined as "a change in the scope or the objective of the project or the program that would require prior approval." Let me just clarify even that in going a little bit further. Recipients are required to report any deviations for the budget, the project scope, or the objective, and request approvals for any revisions to those. Really, I think the important part again is making sure you're familiar with what's in your NoA or your Notice of Award. I think about what we specifically highlight in there to help guide. We talk about and we identify in the remarks the populations for Head Start and Early Head Start that are approved. We talk about the designated service areas, and we also talk about the approved program options for delivering those services.

Examples of a Change in Scope would potentially include a Head Start to Early Head Start conversion, whereby you may be in that situation, moving or taking existing Head Start slots and converting them to Early Head Start slots, and that would potentially include a reduction in the number of Head Start slots and an increase in Early Head Start slots. Again, when we make a change to what's in that Notice of Award in those enrollment levels, that's what would trigger. Same thing with a part-day to full-working-day conversion that we have here. Ultimately, that's an increase in the duration of Head Start hours. That generally, in order to accomplish that, would require an overall reduction in the amount of Head Start slots that you can serve, just working within that budget. If you have to reduce that enrollment population, then that would also constitute a Change in Scope.

Enrollment reduction, same thing. That's ultimately to reduce the number of enrollment slots without necessarily a corresponding change to the budget. Adding or removing a program option as well as other programmatic changes, those are – those, again, would probably – you'd want to clarify or consult with the Regional Office on, but those are the primary Change in Scope requests.

Gretchen: Thanks for that, Heather. One last question for today. Can programs use American Rescue Plan or ARP or other COVID-19 relief funding to support staff?

Heather: Great question, so glad you asked it especially knowing what today's webinar is all about. I'm going to say, “oh, absolutely, please.” And I want to really make note of that program instruction that you have referenced there at the top of the slide. I think, in that particular instruction, that we spent a significant amount of time identifying ways that programs can use their American Rescue Plan funds as well as their other COVID funds to support staff.

But for the purpose of this question, I'm going to focus on just the supporting staff because it was – that instruction was pretty lengthy. But given where our conversation, our focus is going to be today, I would say some examples could include, that I want to lift up is, planning sessions with staff, making sure that all the staff have knowledge, skills, and resources they need in order to do their operations effectively. I think making sure and diverting funding to be used to invest in planning sessions would be certainly important. Thinking about staff wellness and mental health support, conducting employee wellness surveys or engaging other data collections to better understand the needs of your team member. Increasing access to mental health consultation and therapy services for staff. Contracting with an employee assistance program, as well as instituting other staff wellness program and activities. I'm thinking about those mindfulness breaks and other opportunities for self-reflection. I think those are all really important and things we'd want to make sure to highlight, and certainly funds could be used for any of those.

And then here we have – I know we have here highlighted additional staff, hiring additional classroom staff to meet physical distancing requirements or to reduce group size. I know folks are still concerned about that, and that's still a possibility. Also too, I think in light of the need for so many substitutes, if there's an opportunity to bring on full-time floaters so that you don't have to necessarily rely on the substitutes that may or may not be fully trained and up to speed with what's happening within your programs. Other things I want to highlight there are professional learning and development for staff. I think providing those experiences on key topics such as equity, diversity, inclusion, economic mobility, trauma-skilled practices – all of those would be great opportunities for expanding professional development.

 And then I know we've been talking a lot about other personnel costs. Thinking about fringe benefits, expanded sick leave, thinking about retention bonuses. All of those would all kind of fall under the other personnel costs and things. But I think really, grant recipients are in the best position to truly understand and make informed decisions around staff and community needs. I would say additionally, it's going to be important that programs maintain adequate documentation and written personal policies and procedures to really ... And make sure that they're basing their decisions on the cost principles. The cost principles again are ensuring that costs are necessary, reasonable, and allocable.

 I think too, that recipients should also carefully plan to and when thinking about the American Rescue Plan and other COVID funds and recognizing that those are onetime investments. If you're going to be using those funds for any ongoing activities, that you're going to want to make sure that you have a way to sustain those additional costs either within your existing operations budget or securing outside support to continue those activities beyond what is allocated through the existing opportunity that you have with those funds. I think those are just the things that I wanted to spotlight and highlight on that piece. That's all I've got, Gretchen, thank you.

Gretchen: Thanks, Heather. Thanks again so much for sharing this information with the Head Start community. As we move into today's topic of Intentional Workforce Planning, I would like to again welcome Steve Russell and Jacquie Davis from PMFL. Steve?

Steven Russell: Thank you, Gretchen. It's great to be with everybody and thank you, Dr. Futrell. Thank you, Heather, for your comments. This is a very important time in the life of Head Start and that goes without saying. I know all of you out there are working very, very hard and we have ... And what we want to do now is we want to take an opportunity to really do a couple of things here over the next hour or so and really kind of celebrate the good work that's being done all across the country. We'll share some examples. You all are – have seen some really exciting things going on. Many of you have been very intentional and innovative in the way you've approached the work over the last couple of years. We want to provide you with some insight and support, offer some ideas, some strategies, those “what can I do right now” kind of strategies. As well as some longer-term strategies that you can look at how to strengthen your workforce in Head Start.

And I'm going to be joined in a moment by my colleague Jacquie Davis, the National Center of Program Management of Fiscal Operations. Let's get to it here. Our cornerstone concept if you will comes from Ann Epstein where she says, "To be intentional is to act purposefully, with a goal in mind and a plan for accomplishing it." Heather, thank you so much for giving us what those parameters are today, that we're faced with. We can kind of acknowledge that these are some of the things that we really need to focus on. But what are the possibilities out there? We want to try to expand our thinking a little bit and we're going to do this by looking at some ways to think strategically.

We have a few illustrations that we want to share with you to help challenge us to be more strategic in our thinking. And some of these are pretty familiar too I'm sure, but the first one is to think in terms of being proactive, and what are we talking about? We're thinking about, an example would be the chess player who is a really, and some of you are probably really good chess players, I know I'm not. But it's really, what they call a “down the board” thinking chess player, where they're thinking several moves out, seven moves down the board, thinking ahead. And I know that's a challenge, to think about as we're faced with the many challenges that we're looking at right now, but do we take the time to really stop and think about the possibilities down the road.

The second illustration we want to share with you is this idea of contrasting. You see the Chinese symbol, the yin and yang, which really kind of represents that balance between the values in terms of contrary points of view. In terms of thinking about the right and the wrong. And I think one of the things that I have thought about recently is how very important it is for us right now to kind of live in that gray because there's so much ambiguity right now as we are faced with what we don't know this next chapter is going to hold for us. Hopefully, things are looking much better regarding the COVID infection rates. Every state is down significantly. Things are getting better. But thinking about this idea of contrast and what's happening and how can we balance what we need to balance in our work.

The third one is catalytic thinking, and this is really, if you think about the illustration of a bowler and how the bowler is aiming for one pin and hopefully that pin will knock other pins down, which in turn will knock all the other pins down. What are those high leverage activities? And we'll try and surface some of those that folks around the country, your peers have identified as some important high leverage activities that they have used. The next one is persistence, and of course, we don't have to say much about that because all of you have been very persistent, but what do these numbers represent? 147. The Wright Brothers, who were the first folks to fly a plane made 147 attempts before their first plane got off the ground. It wasn't off the ground long, but they were successful the 147th time. 805, this is the number of times that Thomas Edison tried out different filaments before his light bulb actually worked.

This idea of persistent, how persistent are we in ensuring that we're doing the good work that needs to be done in our local communities? And I know many of you are incredibly persistent. The last one that we want to bring up is this idea of being inclusive in thinking about how everyone in the organization, everyone that we work with has a valuable perspective on the strategies. Diversity is something we want to treasure, and we want to acknowledge, and we want to nurture, and those perspectives are going to differ widely. They're going to be based on experience, our mental models, our cultural perspective, but it's so important that we take the time to really acknowledge the diversity that we have in our program and to converse with each other to talk about the best possible solutions. I'm going to turn it over to Jacquie, and I ... Jacquie, I know you want to take us a step back perhaps and kind of examine the research around staff turnover. Jacquie?

Jacquie Davis: OK, yes, thank you. Thank you for that, Steve. And, yeah, that's ... Those illustrations of thinking strategically, it's like we're offering you a way to just kind of open up your mind and just kind of be free to just think about all of these things that we're going to share in any way that you feel that you need to. We're going to start off, as Steve just shared, with the seven major reasons for staff turn off – turnover, sorry. Why are we doing this? Well, because if we think about it, if we're ... Why are we getting start here with recognizing these causes of staff turnover? They can help us find retention solutions, so that's what this is about. These staff turnover, if we think about it, if we know what's causing our teams, our staff, our people to leave, then we can institute or try some solutions to retain the staff, and that's what this is about. As we get into this, what we have – we have these seven here, the seven major reasons, and we're going to kind of, as we're going through this, we're going to flip the script on this.

For example, let's look at the first two. The job is not what they expected, and the second one down there is mismatch between the job, and so these are two of the seven major reasons for staff turnover. What can you do to mitigate or lessen the probability that the job that they're in, whatever they're doing, it's not what they expected or for there being a mismatch between the job and the person? We kind of wanted you all to kind of, you all the listening audience, to kind of play along with this. If you think about one and two, what are some things that you could think of that you could do to make sure that they understand or they know what to expect on the job and that there isn't a mismatch between the job and the person or the people or the person that's in that position? Steve, what are you thinking about there?

Steven Russell: Right, this mismatch between the job and the person, I think that that's something that we do see on occasion, but really taking the time to really evaluate what's happening in our organization.

Jacquie: Exactly, thank you for that. And, yeah, and as you see ... I see Robin and Hannah. Hannah put "onboarding process" which is one of those. All of these are those kinds of things, job shadowing, job descriptions provided up front, and the ones that we were talking about as well as the onboarding process, interviewing. What can you different – do differently about your interviewing and, as Janet was saying, the job descriptions and providing those up front, and not only providing them up front as well, but also thinking about that job description? Maybe you may need to go back and look at it again, and I see what Tracy is saying, "A clear job description."

Steven: Clear expectations.

Jacquie: Thank you. Yes, clear expectations, exactly. It looks like you guys got it. Let's look at number three which is too little coaching and feedback. A Gallup survey in 2021 determined that employees whose major – whose manager's feedback left them with positive feelings are four times, four times more likely to be engaged, and only 3.6% are actively looking for new jobs. Given today's workforce, the coaching feedback – the coaching and the feedback, it doesn't really have to come from the managers and supervisors. What could be a retentive solution if there's too little coaching and too little feedback? What are some things that could work? Yes, "Building a culture that everyone can benefit from training and coaching," thank you, Janet. "Having a mentor," Tracy, thank you. Laura, mentoring again, yes, and also this strategy about peer-to-peer. All of the coaching and the feedback doesn't necessarily have to come from the manager or supervisor. What about building a culture where people may ... where your teammates are really providing that peer-to-peer support? What about that, Steve? And ...

Steve: Yes, Bridget is saying, "Actually hiring a coach to complete the work rather than it being a supervisor" ...

Jacquie: There you go.

Steve: ... which [Inaudible] programs have done, right.

Jacquie: Heather was just talking about that in terms of ways additional staff, additional ways that you can spend some of those dollars. Let's look at the next one, too few growth opportunities. In 2021, again, the future of recruiting, a recruiting report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers says that job seekers are willing to forgo up to 12% of their salaries for development opportunities and training. The Human Capital Institute describes this as an employee-first labor market. That's where we are now. We're coming into an employee-first labor market. If we think about that one, what could be a retention – some retention solutions around that? Yeah, delegating, assigning tasks, projects, and assigning them and showing how valuable they are. Interior career ladders, we're going to talk about job analysis in a few minutes, and a job analysis as a strategy, that could work.

Let's go on, and let's look at the next one, feels devalued and unrecognized, number five. The Oracle Institute – I probably don't even have to share this because you guys probably know this. You do know this – The Oracle Institute reported that when they have the tool to make recognition easy, 44% of employees give regular peer-to-peer recognition. And recognition is an important part of that whole engagement puzzle. And there's a book. How many of you have heard of this book, "How Full Is Your Bucket?" The authors, Clifton and Rath, based the book on the research that says people who engage in at least three positive interactions for every negative interaction tend to be more effective and productive than those who have a lower ratio of positive interactions. That alone, if we think about what could be some retention solutions around that.

And as we move on, and we're looking at dislike stress and work-life balance, here's another one. A Deloitte survey, Deloitte and Bersin – they do a lot of work around human resource through a lot of surveys – reported that 77% of staff experienced burnout at their current job, and because of it, 42% of those staff left. Retention solutions around that – encouraging vacations, encouraging breaks, and those kinds of things.

Then the last one is a loss of confidence in leadership. With this one, we look at this from three or four different perspectives. LinkedIn Talent Trends survey shows organizations with purposeful missions saw 49% lower attrition, and this brings us to the Montclair Child Development which was featured in the showcase of grantees best practices on in-person services, something that's on the ECLKC, and she said that since that – when the COVID first started, they immediately started to thinking about guiding their team and their people back to their mission, back to their purpose and those kinds of things, and that really made a difference. If we think about that, and that was leadership.

As we think about this, we think it in terms of the loss of confidence in leadership could be from a whole lot of different perspectives. It's not just the leader in and of itself, but what is the organization looking like, and that goes back to the leadership. You know the saying, "People leave managers"? Well, at the end of the day, who is leading the managers? And that's the leadership. If we think about these, and we get that ... Get our juices flowing, and we think about these staff turnovers, and we think about them in the reverse in terms of retention solutions, and that is an important part of this conversation. I hope that was helpful, and I hope that got your juices flowing. I know that there are a lot of things that you're probably jotting down that could really work, and thank you, all, for participating.

Now we're ready to go on and start with our conversation on talent acquisition, and so talent acquisition is about the activities necessary to build and maintain a workforce that needs ... or that meets the needs of your organization, things like attracting, recruiting, and selecting the talent. Talent acquisition is essential to resetting your workforce and for the health of your organization, two important things in there, resetting your organization, which I'm sure a lot of us are probably doing in some way, form or fashion, and of course the health of your organization, organizational wellness. As we think about that, and we go on, and we think, "Why are we talking about talent acquisition when we're having recruitment and retention concerns right now?" Well, this is why because, yes, as we think about talent acquisition, attracting and, yes, recruiting and selecting. Talent acquisition is the strategy, is the strategic approach, and recruitment is and remains an important activity of talent acquisition to fill immediate and ... vacancies and addressing the momentary need.

During this presentation, we're going to offer some activities for talent acquisition as well as say a little bit more about recruitment, but the big picture here, Steve, is that, to the audience as well, that talent acquisition is the strategic approach. It is the big umbrella, and recruitment is one of those strategies within talent acquisition, and this begins our handouts. We have lots of handouts for you, and we're going to be putting the link in the chat from time to time, so that you can see the handouts. This is the first of a series of handouts we have, and you will see the link in the chat in just a few minutes. As we continue to think about recruitment and moving away from a recruitment centric approach towards a more talent acquisition approach, you are positioning your organization to be even more intention about finding the right people who will grow your organization and support through the needs of your children and families and the community.

One of the things that we're looking at here is this thing called strategic sourcing, and strategic sourcing is an intentional – it's intentional and represents a shift in mindset around hiring. It's the opposite. It's antithetical to the whole idea of post and pray, posting a job announcement and then just hoping you get potential candidates. Strategic sourcing, here we're going to look at four things. Lead generation, so when a potential candidate connects you with someone else who might be a good fit, this is an example of lead generation, when you're getting leads, or you're getting suggestions from other people that you may have approached, but they may not be interested, or it may not have worked out for them, and they're prepared to give you some other suggestions. Another one, of course, is pipeline management, and this is a process that we kind of know that allows you to identify who is ready now for jobs of higher responsibility and who would be ready in – later, in 3 years or so. The result of this is a deeper pool, and this is what we're calling now the internal mobility. When you're building a pipeline like that, you're building your internal mobility, and that's important right now.

And of course, we know social recruiting is recruiting candidates through the social media. And then this other one, the passive candidate, so those may be those who may not be hunting, but they might just be perfect for the job. Have you ever been in – been out going about your daily business, and you run across someone, or you see someone that really ... You're in their environment for a while, and you see that they would really work well at your organization, but they're not looking for a job. What do you do? You may something to them, approach them and just kind of share with them and give them your card and just kind of say, "Well, if you're ever looking, look us up." These are some strategies and some ideas that could very well be working for you right now. Then, of course, attached to that is also the whole idea of assessment and then selection which is, of course, the next steps in this process, and then from there we go to the hiring, and then we go to the onboarding.

Onboarding, I'll talk about more. It's a very important part of the process, and then as we go on, and we're going to visit the ECLKC for a minute. We're going to take you back to the ECLKC, where they have these staff qualification briefs, and this resource is also ... You're going to see it at the end, and we're sharing this right now because when you look at these briefs, they have four categories. What are the requirements, what else do I need to know, considerations for hiring staff and where can I find more on this topic? And I just wanted to share that this, for example, what else do I need to know could be helpful as your considering the other skills, the skills that you may be looking for as you're putting together your job description, as you're interviewing and those kinds of things. We wanted to bring this to you so you could just see the value of this. Then our next piece, we mentioned it earlier, the job analysis.

When we think about the job analysis, this is one of those things that could be a now resource, or it could be an over-time resource, and there are five different kinds of job analysis – methods, observation, interviewing, questionnaires, technical conferences, and then the diary or the work diary log. When we think about the job analysis, it's important for us to just consider what is that, and we think about it. It's a study of a job to determine which activities and responsibilities it includes that could be important, as you're thinking about reinventing or rethinking your current workforce, your current  – the way your current organization or your agency, the way it works now. You may want to do some things differently, so that's what this job analysis is about.

We want to take a minute here and get you all involved in a poll, and we're going to bring the poll up, and the poll is asking you, "Have you conducted a job analysis that has or will lead to changes in how a staff member does their work?" The answer is "Yes" and "Not Yet" because with so many different things going on in our workforce, in our early childhood workforce, you could very well consider a job analysis sooner than you think. Just share whether it's a has ... It's a "Yes" or a "Not Yet," and let's give you a second or so and then ...

Steven: Yeah, Jacquie ...

Jacquie: Yes?

Steven: I was just going to say, as I look at the poll, I know that perhaps over the last 2 years, many of us have really had to kind of rethink our own job in terms of what we needed to do differently to respond. It'll be interesting to see the results of that, but absolutely, yeah.

Jacquie: Thank you, Steve. Let's see the poll. Let's see what the results are, and the survey says the results are "Not Yet." Ooh, great! There are 213 people out there that have done ... that has done a job analysis. That’s really great. Don't you think so, Steve?

Steven: Absolutely, yeah.

Jacquie: Mm-hmm, and those that are "Not Yet," well, maybe after this, we have a job analysis ... Thank you for – Chris – for sharing the poll. The next slide is a job analysis questionnaire, and for those of you that said, "Not Yet," then this could be an opportunity for you to actually see how it could be useful or how it could support your reinventing or as you are moving forward to return to full in-person services, and this job analysis questionnaire was developed by PMFL ... different ... We looked at different questionnaires, and we kind of pulled one together, and this is also in the link of resources that we have for you that you see in the chat. Thank you for that, and thank you for sharing on that poll.

Our next piece that we're going to look at is values-based recruitment. According to the Gallup, state of the American – of the global workplace, there was a report, and it said that 85% of employees worldwide are not engaged or actively disengage from their job. Recruiting the right people, it can be difficult because there isn't a guarantee that once the candidate is there, they will deliver as they said they would in the interview. But what we know is that when you recruit a new employee who believes in their purpose and has similar values as your organization, they feel happier about their job, and it's more likely that you're going to get the best work out of them. That's an idea of what values-based recruitment is.

Right now, we're going to share another poll with you. We're going to bring up a poll, and we want to look at these five statements. What do you think are the benefits or advantages of using a values-based approach to recruitment, positive work environment, improved staff morale, increased employee engagement, increased productivity or/and reduce employee turnover? What do you think about the values-based recruitment?

Steven: And they can ...

Jacquie: Which of those do you think ... Hmm?

Steven: They can select, as you can see, you can select any that you think fit.

Jacquie: Definitely. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Let's give it a second, Steve. And what do you think, Steve? What do you think is going to happen, increased employee engagement, improved staff morale? If you have to wager, what would you say? Just kidding.

Steven: What would I say? That's an interesting ... my initial ... I'm going through and ticking them off, saying all that apply here.

Jacquie: Mm-hmm.

Steven: I know we're going to talk more about workplace culture and representation culture, but I know that's so critically important, and you kind of alluded to that when you talk about talent acquisition ...

Jacquie: Definitely.

Steven: ... and thinking through the lens of talent acquisition versus merely thinking about recruitment, and I think there's some nuance there between those two terms, and, well, I know we're going to ... We'll come back to that in a bit. But, yeah.

Jacquie: Yes, for sure. Thank you, Steve. Let's look at the results of the poll, and we know that values should be present at every stage of recruitment and hiring practices, the hiring process.

Steven: Check, check, check, check, check.

Jacquie: Check, check, check, check, check, oh, yes.

Steven: They're all [Inaudible]

Jacquie: For sure.

Steven: They are critical, yeah.

Jacquie: Exactly. At the end of the day, this wasn't a trick poll. All of them apply and in some way, form or fashion, if you're thinking about values-based recruitment. We want to thank you for sharing in that poll and we're going to ...

Steven: Hey, Jacquie?

Jacquie: Yes, please.

Steven: Jacquie, I was just thinking and looking at what people responded and how each one of those is so critical, and I'm assuming that most people checked all of them, which was kind of my first inclination.

Jacquie: Yeah.

Steven: But just thinking back to what ... And I've been kind of monitoring some of the questions that are coming in, too. Thinking back to how sobering these last 2 years have been, and how we are in kind of a crossroads, in a – I don't know, a seminal moment, a time of opportunity right now in Head Start and, in our country, and how there's so much hard work that needs to be done, and folks out there are working so hard. How do we get all of those things that we know that are so valuable, that are on that list? And I know we'll talk more about that, but that's just kind of a question in my mind, and I know we'll try and address that as we go through this but ...

Jacquie: Yeah.

Steven: Yeah, values-based recruitment and how important that is.

Jacquie: Right. And you know, Steve, the values-based recruitment has been around for a while, but since this pandemic ... And we're looking at this employee-first workforce that we're in, it is resurfacing big time.

Steven: Right.

Jacquie: Now let's look at some strategies. One of them is values mapping. This is where you map out what beliefs and standards are important to your organization. Before you can do any recruiting around it, you pay attention to the strategies ... your values within your organization, and then you're able to take those, and they become the foundation for your values-based recruitment questions, the way that you do your job postings, the way you – what you say in your job descriptions and those kinds of things. And then another strategy to attract candidates who understand values and competencies ahead of an interview is to promote values in your job postings, and that's what I just said a few minutes ago.

You also want to make sure that your job postings are inclusive of all groups as well. And then, of course, we have another strategy, and this is role-playing. Interview technique, that is role-playing, and you can see how candidates would do in a real-life situation as well as the values that lead to their ... that led to their actions, to the way that they chose to do something. As we close this conversation out about values-based recruitment, it can be a big advantage incorporating it, could improve diversity, inclusion, belonging and lead to long-term successful hires. This is something that could really be worth thinking about. Asking ...

Steven: Jacquie, there's a comment in the chat that we're seeing from Manetta, who said, "This could be used for child and family recruitment as well."

Jacquie: Yes.

Steven: When I think about this notion of values-based, I don't think that's that hard for us in Head Start. Head Start has been around for, what, 55, 56, 50, I don't know, 57 years now? And one of the reasons Head Start has been so successful is we really stayed true to what we value at Head Start, what's critically important. And I know many of the folks that work in Head Start, that's what we love about this work is the kinds of things we see each and every day, the impact that we make in the life of children and families. This, I don't think, is that hard, although it's something that's important, and I think we can do better. We can be more intentional. We've seen lots of examples. I know you and I ... they have really ... leaders in development, there was one in region five recently that we talked to, but really took ... I think of that ... They didn't term it a values-based approach to staff, to talent acquisition and retention, but I think that's what they were doing, is they really were looking at the important elements in those strategies to really bring out what's important in the work that we do. So, anyway, I just wanted to share that.

Jacquie: Yeah. No, that's really good. Thank you so much, Steve, for sharing. Our next piece is going to be to look at ... Now we've recruited them. Now we need to interview them, and here on the screen we have a document, Interview Questions to Assess Relationships, and right here we see an example of ... Who was it that just said that about the recruitment, mission-driven values-based program? Carolyn is saying that. We – or Head Start is a relationship-based environment. The work that we do is centered around relationships, and so this is an interview question tool that really allows you to think about that as you're interviewing people, and it doesn't just have to be the teachers, the Family Services staff, the people that come in contact with the children and families, but you have to think about ... Because if you're thinking about safety in a Head Start program, everybody needs to know what's going on and needs to be able to pay attention, and if you have someone on your team ... It's the cook or the janitor, and they don't necessarily care for children. They're not going to be paying attention to the children as they're going about doing their daily work or their daily job, so that's something to think about. That's a tool that's in that link that I just shared – that we're sharing with you.

Another one is called "Motivation-Based Interviewing: A Revolutionary Approach to Hiring the Best," and the book is by Carol Quinn, and she's with the Society for Human Resource Management, and I really, really like this book because it really takes apart the whole idea of interviewing, and it really hits the nail on the head about how ... And I know I've fallen prey to this, where we don't really pay close enough attention to what they're saying in their interview, in the response to the questions, and we give them too much information. Then we help them out, and then that may not necessarily be the best thing when you're trying to get to the person that's going to be the best hire, the best talent. That book is really interesting.

There is another resource that we put in that link, and it's called 100 Modern Interview Questions, and I like this resource because it takes those soft skills, those human skills like flexibility, adaptability, and they give you some questions that you could ask that really helps you think about what you're looking for. If you really need somebody that's really flexible, well, there are some questions there that could help get at it. That's some information about interviewing. Now our next one here is employee onboarding. I'm not going to say much about this because there is so much. We could have a whole day on talking about onboarding, but onboarding is often confused with orientation in a lot of cases. While orientation might be necessary for that paperwork and those other kinds of routine tasks, the onboarding is that more comprehensive process, and it is  – and it involves management. It involves every level of the organization, and it lasts, I've heard some people say, as long as it needs to, but then, of course, the 12-month kind of thing because they're so involved in really making sure that person is really getting what they need.

And also just want to add that the recent ... of course, I was looking at this ... at these 2022 kinds of pieces on major retention drivers, so I could make sure to update the information we have, and I looked in three different places, and guess what was in the top five or six? Onboarding. People are beginning to see how really important onboarding is to making sure that you're using – that the people that you get, that they're staying, and that you're helping them to be able to stay. Now we've had this conversation. We've taken talent acquisition, and we've talked about in terms of interviewing, the different things involved in talent acquisition, the interviewing, the onboarding, even a job analysis and, of course, recruitment. Now we're going to ... We would hope that we offered you some ideals or something to think about. Now we're going to take a moment. We're going to take a breather, and we're going to turn it over to Steve. Thank you, all, very much.

Steven: Yeah. Jacquie, you're so good at bringing us the latest and the research and what the good thinkers are saying out there based upon what works in organizations, even in these times of crisis. And one of the things that I just wanted to share was that we have seen not just ... not only you're sharing it from the perspective of what the researchers, the human resource folks are saying, but we've seen it in grantees that have really invested time in high-quality very intentional onboarding processes, and they have discovered that, based upon doing, conducting interviews or whatever with staff, is that that was a key element in their staff retention. And so that's been an a-ha for me, in terms of as I've talked with some of the grantees out there that have really invested in that. So, I just wanted to say that, how critical that is because I know you said it from the perspective of the researchers and how they're saying that's important.

We want to just share with you ... Some of you probably are familiar with this resource. There's a book called "Upstream" by Dan Heath. We at PMFL have read this book. We did kind of a book club on it. It's an incredibly valuable resource. We highly recommend this, and the subtitle, if you can read it in the slide, is "The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen," and you can't solve – you can't know everything that's going to happen. Change is all around us. It's ... There's a lot of change that's occurred over the last couple of years, but just this frame, this thinking, this shift of mind. We are wired to, when we have a problem that comes to us, what do we do? Whether it's at work, whether it's at home, whether it's our kids, is we seek to solve the problem. What's the old saying? "The easy way out leads back in."

We are wired that way as people, right, and as ... And that's how we're trained, but what Dan really speaks to and gives example after example after example about how important it is to really think more upstream, to think more proactively. I encourage you to read the book. A couple of quotes, "System change starts with a spark of courage," and we want to celebrate the courage in the local communities out there all across this country. All of you have been very courageous, and we know that you're doing yeoman's work. You're doing incredible things out there. I know, Jacquie, I don't know if you want to add anything to that, but I think it's important for us to acknowledge there's been lots of sparks out there going on across the country in Head Start. Did you want to add anything to that, Jacquie?

Jacquie: No, no, keep going. You're doing it.

Steven: Yeah, and we want to connect this back to this notion of thinking strategically, those illustrations, right, because that's ... Those illustrations we talked about earlier on, in terms of thinking strategically, are thinking – are about thinking upstream. The second quote that Dan –that we wanted to bring out from Dan's work is, "In planning these interventions, these upstream interventions, we've got to look outside the lines of our own work." And again, Jacquie, you're so good at bringing in those important resources that we're learning from other sources outside of Head Start and how valuable that is. You have to zoom ... and Dan goes on to say, "Zoom out, pan from side to side. Are we intervening at the right level of the system?" Are we getting the leverage we need? Are we shifting our thinking to solve the problems instead of ... Of course, we all know we lack time, we lack staff, and we lack money, but we have to look beyond that and say, "What can we do about that?" And I know many of you are doing some really incredible things.

We just wanted to kind of shift our thinking here at this point and move into talking about some specific things that we're seeing across the country, some strategies and some ways that you might consider investing in the work that you're doing in order to retain, to acquire and retain high-quality staff. We have a number of things, and of course we wouldn't be – have a Head Start session without speaking to regulations, of course, in the uniform guidance, the fiscal regulations in this particular section, 75.430. It talks about compensation incentives, and it talks about those parameters. We have to live within the guidelines. We have to live within the cost principles, and we'll talk a little bit about reasonableness because that is a bit ... There's a shift going on, as we know, in terms of how we're thinking about what's reasonable in the work, but there's a number of examples we want to bring out.

One is this idea of return-to-work pay, and we're seeing that as an example of something that some grantees are doing out there. "Are we intervening at the right level?" I would ask. The next one is hazard pay. This is something that we've seen some examples. A recent grantee that we heard about really looked at exploring ways to address staff shortages and cultivate internal capabilities and qualifications. They had a number of strategies. One of them was hazard pay for staff and stay bonuses for 6 months of employment. There's this idea of retention pay which is our next little bullet that's going to pop up here. And then lastly, what other kind of stipends are there out there? And we do know that these are onetime expenditures. You all know that we've had the CARES allocation, the CRRSAA money, the ARP money, the American Rescue Plan money that's out there, these onetime sources that can support us in some of these strategies that are not long-term. They're short-term obviously, but they can help get us to a place where we can really start to think more strategically and be more mindful in our planning.

But we have to think about, what is reasonable in today's world? What are some of those things that we can do? The other part of that is ... The equation, of course, is sustainability, and I think someone asked that question in the ... as I was just checking the Q&A, in terms of thinking about all of these strategies, and yet when we think about what can we do on a longer-term, we have to think about, how can we sustain that? What can we do to sustain some of the things that are critical and important as we move forward? And in the ... Jacquie, I know you're very familiar with the Society for Human Resource Management but ... resource that they had, an article that they had which talked about talent acquisition trends with staying power beyond the pandemic. They spoke to some of these examples that we just saw, that we're seeing out there, but they also say that these are short-term solutions.

Can they work in the long-term? No, not really. However, we can think about what we can do in the short-term and then think about, from a broader perspective, in terms of sustainability, and it's really exciting to hear Dr. Futrell talk about how committed they are at the Office of Head Start. We know that they are. We know that they're working very hard to try and figure out how to support the Head Start community on a more sustained level, as we move forward, to stay competitive. Those are just some of the things we wanted to share with you in terms of kind of this fiscal notion of what ... I would point out to you for those that have not read them, there are a number of Information Memorandums and Program Instructions that you can find on ECLKC, and that will provide you with some ideas perhaps, if you will, if you look at the Program Instruction that came out in 2021. It's called PI 21-03, and this was the one in terms of the American Rescue Plan appropriations. It really gives a number of ideas, suggestions for programs. I know many of you have seen that, have used many of those things. But take a look at some of those Program Instructions and Information Memorandums on ECLKC to help you in terms of thinking about, what can I do in the now, and what can I be thinking about in the future, and what are those important things we need to sustain?

Jacquie: Steve, I just wanted to add that Janelle ... Because she put it in the host and panelists chat, so everyone may not be seeing it.

Steven: Right.

Jacquie: But she says they've done a mission bonus for those who've stayed with us through the pandemic in order to fulfill our mission, so that's a cool one. I just wanted to share that. Thank you.

Steven: I love, Janelle, how you phrased that as a mission bonus, and that speaks to the kind of culture you have in your organization.

Jacquie: Yes, it does.

Steven: And I just want to say that because we're going to talk about that in just a moment.

Jacquie: Organizational culture.

Steven: [Inaudible] Yeah, yeah.

Jacquie: Exactly.

Steven: Lots of good ideas out there, we encourage you to share with each other and put them out there. I know that the chat is not ... Maybe you can't see that. We can see it, but we can probably keep an eye on that and share those good ideas. In the next slide, we're going to think about this idea of culture, and culture is ... One description of culture that I picked up in a book called "Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch," which some of you may be familiar with the Peter Drucker quote which he ... It's a bit of a takeoff on that, where he said, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." They talk about in this book that culture is the result of a collision of the rational with the emotional, and boy, have we had a lot of emotional thinking and rational thinking hopefully as well, that balance, but it's this collision where there are moment-by-moment connections, those touch points. We want to share with you kind of a graphic which is going to ... We're going to show you eight distinct cultural styles, and we want to do a poll in a minute. We want you to be thinking about these eight styles as we kind of quickly go through them because we want to ... We want you to reflect on which one best describes your organization.

And, Janelle, I'd be interested to hear which one you say when you talk about the mission bonus, but the first one is caring. The first style is caring which focuses on relationships and mutual trust, where our work environments are warm. They're collaborative. They're welcoming, where we ... where people help and support each other. Sounds like Head Start, doesn't it, where employees are united by this notion of loyalty? Leaders are emphasizing sincerity, teamwork, positive relationships, so this idea of a caring cultural style. The next one is purpose, and we've talked a little bit about that. Head Start has a very focused long-standing purpose. We ... What we value is important, and it's driven us for over 55 years, 57 years now, where purpose is exemplified by idealism, where work environments are tolerant. They're compassionate places, where people try to do good for the long-term future of the world, of the ... And in this case, in Head Start, it'd be for our communities, right, which is impacting the world.

The next one is learning, a learning style. This is characterized by this idea of creativity, of expansiveness, of exploration. We're inventive as open-minded places, organizations, where people spark new ideas, explore alternatives. Is this the kind of organization that you have? How about enjoyment, the next one? It's expressed through fun and excitement. We need a little levity in this world of gravity, right? There's a lot of gravity going on, right? We need some levity. Enjoyment, where we can take our jobs very seriously but not take ourselves that seriously, where there's lighthearted places where people work. Employees are united by playfulness, stimulation. The next one is results. Results is characterized by achievement and winning, outcome-oriented, merit-based. People aspire to achieve top performance.

Now, I know what you're thinking. There's several of them here that would characterize our organization. We're going to ask you to pick one in a minute here. Sorry about that. The next one is authority. Authority is defined by strength, decisiveness, boldness. Work environments are competitive places where people strive to gain personal advantage. Employees are united by strong control. Leaders emphasize confidence and dominance. And there's pros and cons to all of these, right, and there's important elements in each one of these. This idea of authority. The next one is safety. Safety is defined by planning, caution, preparedness, and we'll talk more about that in a little bit, where work environments are predictable places, where people have risk consciousness and think things through carefully as best we can. Employees are united by a desire to feel protected and anticipate change. Leaders emphasize being realistic and planning ahead, and that's an important element in this ... in over the last 2 years, isn't it?

The next one is order. Order is focused on respect, structure and shared norms, where work environments are methodical places, where people tend to play by the rules and want to fit in. Employees united by cooperation. Leaders emphasize shared procedures and time-honored customs. This comes to us from an article in the 2018 "Harvard Business Review," and I'll put this in the chat in a bit. I'm sorry. Folks can't see the chat there, but we'll ... OK, yes. I'll put that in the chat in a bit, I'm sorry ... what the article is. Let's do the poll. Let's pick one. Pick one of these eight that best describes, perhaps what's the most prevalent in your organization. Is it caring? Is it purpose? Is it learning? Is it enjoyment? Is it results, authority, safety or order? Jacquie, we just went through eight styles very quickly.

Jacquie: Mm-hmm. Let's see ...

Steven: And I know you're real familiar with all of these, but it'll be interesting to see what we come up with here.

Jacquie: OK, let's see.

Steven: Yeah, let's see. Let's see the results.

Jacquie: One thing, too, Steve, is that when we're thinking about these cultural styles, I think someone said it, that you may not just have one. It's a combination. They talk about that more in the article and in the research about these cultural styles, so that's something to think about as well ...

Steven: Right, right.

Jacquie: ... as we're doing this. You want to ...

Steven: Have we given them enough time?

Jacquie: Yes, mm-hmm, please.

Steven: All right. Let's see the results. So interesting, OK. Jacquie. Initial responses?

Jacquie: Yes, I see that caring, and caring and safety. I could see how safety because safety should be a part of everyone's culture as ... because of who we are.

Steven: And purpose.

Jacquie: Exactly, mm-hmm. OK.

Steven: Pretty good mix there, Jacquie, isn't there?

Jacquie: Yeah, it is. It's a pretty good mix.

Steven: Yeah, yeah, it's probably not surprising because I think there's elements of all of these in all of our organizations, aren't there? Yeah.

Jacquie: Yes.

Steven: Jacquie, I think you're going to take us to this notion of re-recruiting your workforce.

Jacquie: Exactly. When we think of retention as re-recruiting your workforce, it attracts a candidate to a particular job. It is often different from what keeps that person there. While salary is a key consideration, but one of the things that I found in doing all of this kind of updating all of our content around this, that there are other things that are important that may not be salary, so that's something to think about. And then once you've paid the people that are there, what are you going to do now that they're still there? Pay alone won't keep them in the job. It may have gotten them there, but now you've got to do some other stuff, and those other things are things like mentoring, communicating in different ways, instilling a positive culture, creating a better work-life balance. We've talked about that earlier and training.

We've talked about how training is really an important part of this current workforce environment, and so those things are important, and of course we talked about the coaching, the providing the feedback and that piece. These things are really important as you're considering the re-recruiting your workforce. This is just something to consider and think about as going back to strategies that can be useful. There is a program in Region V. They did what you call this employee experience journey, and I don't think they realized it, but they did this mapping thing, and it starts with the recruitment, the onboarding, engaging, developing, progress, and then they leave, the exit. And this is a good strategy for recipients to have to do with each of their staff members, maybe the supervisor. This employee experience journey mapping is something to think about. Just wanted to share that with you.

And then as we get to employee experience engagement and employee engagement and retention, we think about this piece from Bersin. He says that employee retention now is a big issue and how can the tide turn, and why has the tide turned? How can the tide turn? And the studies show that the total cost of losing an employee can range from tens of thousands of dollars to one-half to two times your salary, and so that's an important thing to think about. And what I like to say about employee engagement and retention is that engaging your staff is a major strategy for retaining them. When I see employee engagement and retention together, I look at it like that. Engaging the staff is a great strategy to retain them. I keep that in mind.

The next slide, the next piece that we're going to look at is ... It's from Gallup. We can't talk about employee engagement and retention without thinking about Gallup, and I'm sharing this actual resource with you. It's going to be in that ... in the document in the box, the link that we've been sharing with you in the chat, and I'm sharing this with you because it is ... It has this valuable piece of information in there. This is some research that Gallup has been doing for 20 years around these 12 engagement elements, and it is what the best do. When you look at this, at the end of each section, it's going to have this piece that's called What the Best Do, and there are just a lot of strategies, now kinds of strategies. And for example, I know what is expected of me at work. One of the strategies is, paint a picture of what an outstanding performance looks like, so that could be a strategy.

And also, in there, we have a resource called Retention Strategies You Could Use Today, and so it's a document that you can use, and you can ... It's kind of like a fillable thing that you can talk about, and you can type in your thoughts. The next piece we have is actually taking an opportunity to look at those, Gallup's 12 engagement elements here, and we have all 12 of them on the screen just so you can have an opportunity to see what they are. And as you're looking at them, you see behind that there a balance beam, a kind of balance there, and that's there because one of the things that we know is that employee engagement and what keeps a particular staff person happy and OK, and they're working to get the best work out of them, it may not be the same, so that's why you see that kind of balance. We really have to take into consideration what it is that works. And some of the tools that are good for that, we've heard them before, the stay tools, stay interviews and engagement tools, engagement interviews, engagement surveys. And as you see with this survey right here, the interesting thing here is that this is a graphic we found, and look at some of those statements there. They connect back to those 12 engagement elements, so just wanted to share that as a resource.

Our next resource that we have that's also in there is called Retention and Turnover Metric Cards, and they're really important because the Human Capital Institute says that 80% of high-performing organizations use data to drive decisions and actions for staff recruitment and retention. And these metric cards here, I really like them because each of them ... It tells you how to calculate retention rate. It tells you how to calculate turnover. It tells you how to calculate retention rate of STARS which I think is an interesting thing to really calculate and think about. Then as we go on, and we look at our next piece which is upskilling and reskilling and thinking about that, reskilling and upskilling refers to the process of investigating your employees, by training them on new skills. When we think about that, we think about what a lot of programs out there are doing, the growing your own program, and people are taking that from different perspectives. There's a program in Region V that actually has resurfaced an apprenticeship program within her organization and is not ... It's a different frame on apprenticeships, and it's a really interesting concept, and it's a really interesting program that they have, but that is ... That's part of this upskilling, reskilling which is really, really important right now. It's actually the direction that the whole workforce is going.

Almost 60% of 1,260 learning and development professionals across the world identified upskilling and reskilling as their top priority. It's really important to think about this as where we're going and what's happening in terms of our workforce. And as you're bringing people in, as you're recruiting, and as you're retaining, that's an important thing to think about as ... in terms of what you're doing to keep them, growing them in their skills, finding out what else they'd like to do, reskilling them, upskilling them so ... And there's also this program, this reverse mentoring program that really encourages this as well. It's something to think about, and it's really something worth considering.

The next piece we want to think about is managing the multigenerational workforce. When we think about this, this whole piece about the multigenerational workforce, we have baby boomers, the Generation Xers, millennials and Generation Zers here, but we also have the traditionalists in the workplace as well. It's really five generations in the workforce right now, and it's so important that we consider, how do we get them? How do we work together in the workplace? Because some people are even actually bringing ... thinking of going back and getting some of their team members that have retired, and they're bringing them back. And so how do we make sure that everybody in that ... in the workforce, across all generations, are able to work together?

And that's where Haydn Shaw, the author of "How to Get" ... "Sticking Points: How to Get 5 Generations Working Together in the 12 Places They Come Apart," introduces this concept of 12 sticking points. He's identified through his research that these are the areas where generations come apart, and so these are the areas that you can work on. This series of handouts is in your ... is in that document as well. Our next piece, and we're going to get through this kind of ... We're going to get through this in a couple of minutes, is the contingency planning piece, and that's an important part of this work, right? If we're talking about being intentional, we've got to plan Steve is going to get us through this contingency planning piece, and then we're going to move on.

Steven: Thank you, Jacquie. I know we're running ... getting close to the end here, and we want to give Gretchen a little time at the end to cover some things. But just this idea of contingency planning which is so critical, and I know in one of the recent Program Instructions, 21-04, it really spoke to this, where it said, "All programs must have in place a plan that allows for an adaptation to changing guidance and to changes in the community conditions which may affect achieving full enrollment or cause programs to temporarily suspend in-person services." That's Program Instruction 21-04 that Heather has shared this with us over the last couple of webinars. I remember speaking to this particular section. And I think Patti asked a question earlier about, "Can ... If the data shows that COVID cases are going up, then can we shift?"Yes, you can.

Just four reasons why it's important to contingency plan. Why is it important to have plans in place? Number one, you want to be quick. The cheetah is quick. You want to be fast. It's a fast-pacing world out there, so we have to be ready. The second one is, we want to improve our reaction and think about how we might react, and a contingency plan will really lay out those action steps, this idea of being proactive, being predictive, as best we can, being practiced and prepared. The third one is to really bounce back quickly, and you can see the balls bouncing here in the next visual. When disasters occur, when you're faced with challenges, when something comes up, you want to be able to quickly tackle any challenge and bounce back to normal in as quick a time as you possibly can. And the fourth reason is that it gives you confidence. When you have contingency plans in place, it gives you that level of confidence that you can tackle almost anything that comes before you.

 We've got a couple of slides here that we'll show here really quickly. Gretchen, I think, will show the next one and the one after that, but we just wanted to give you ... And you will have access to a copy of these slides in terms of how important it is to plan, to have contingency plans. And, Jacquie, just lastly if I could say before we – you may have some final comments is that we know that this is a challenging time for many of you, and some of you have been very ... have been struggling with even getting applicants for jobs. What can you do? And I point back to kind of some of the recruitment strategies that Jacquie laid out earlier. We've got to start to think differently in this world today.

And there's a source that Nicole is going to put in the chat here. You might want to take a look at that, and it refers back to the slide where we talked about some of these strategic sourcing strategies for recruitment, things like passive candidates, really engaging around word-of-mouth opportunities, no quick fixes, but some ways to think about how we can attract those people that we need to do the work. That's all I have for today, and I know we went through a lot of stuff in a short amount of time, and we're going to turn it back over to Gretchen.

Jacquie: OK.

Gretchen: Thank you both, Steve and Jacquie. So many of the resources that we've included today, both in the chat and what you're seeing on the screen now, might be useful in your workforce development. The Strategy Resources to Address the Early Care and Education Workforce Shortage is a compilation page from the Office of Early Childhood Development and includes Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care and other resources, so it's important to check that website often. The iPD Portfolio is a learning management system that contains sustainable self-paced modules based on staff roles and interest, and participants can earn CEUs and clock hours towards a CDA credential. Steps Local Agencies Can Use to Determine Credential or Degree Equivalency is exactly what the title says. EarlyEdU Alliance learning modules which are specifically designed for the preschool as well as the zero to 5 workforce, and the Early Educator Central designed specifically for those working with infants and toddlers can provide resources that trainers or high education staff can use to develop training and courses.

And finally, the Head Start Coaching Companion is an online platform that supports video sharing and coaching feedback applications. As a reminder, the first two videos in the Enrollment Forward series are now available on the ECLKC. Today's webinar will be posted shortly. Next in the webinar series, Grant Recipient Strategies to Address Challenges Related to Enrollment on March 15th will highlight grant recipients who will share their practices related to enrollment and workforce development, some of whom you heard Steve and Jacquie reference today. And then the final webinar in the series held on April 12th will include those FAQs that have been submitted by participants throughout the Enrollment Forward series. Then finally, registration is now open for the ERSEA Institute 2022. Join the National Center on Parent, Family, Community Engagement in partnership with the Office of Head Start and in collaboration with the National Centers on Program Management and Fiscal Operations for this 3-day virtual professional development event for Head Start and Early Head Start program staff to support continued ERSEA priorities.

And as always, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you again back in March to hear from our grant recipients and the strategies that they're excited to share in their best practices. Thank you.

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