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Do We Have Enough Data @ Work? When I talk to
directors they will tell me data about how many employees they have, how
many clients they see a year a year, how much it costs per placement any
thing that helps the state capital see if everyone is doing their job.
They even know how long a person is on the job before they quit.
These are important facts. When
I ask for data of “why
people are quitting jobs, or what
is the motivation level when they come in, how many clients are
considered depressed or have
lost hope”, I hear, we don’t keep facts like that.
The reason I ask these questions is that there are three basic
premises made by most about why people are unemployed:
These are all
valid reasons but until we start keeping some stats on why people really
are taking so long to find a job, we will never be able to change our
mode of operation. We may
be running our organizations on the wrong premises. I started a job
club many years ago before there were many in the country and I think
they are important. I also
think that we spend too much time putting information into the computer
but I do not believe that we have enough data to make us the best we can
be. For example if we
surveyed employers we might find that they are interested in employees
that show up on time or follow through on what they say they are going
to do. This information
might change what we do in training. What kinds of data does your
organization keep and what do they do it.
Do you do surveys of employers on what that want?
RESPONSES: Motivation levels are a very important factor in our evaluation process. Our referral sources don’t just want to know if a participant is attending, but what their attitude is while they are here. Are they motivated to work, to learn, to participate? Is that motivation self-motivation or simply a result of someone making them be here? Is there motivation steady or do they have lots of ups and downs? These are all questions that we track and answer.
Have a great week!
Reni Good
morning, this is the first time I have written but have been receiving
your “thoughts” for some part of the past year. The questions that
you pose today are very relevant to the work that I am performing daily
right now. The program I work for services low-income families in the
city of Our
data collection includes educational levels and work experiences (if
any), assessment testing shows us results used for work placement
assistance and education/training needs. Data collection also includes
education and employment services that we provide them and, because we
are a new program, eventually our results will reflect the outcomes
(goals: long term employment and/or educational attainments which will
lead to family self-sufficiency). The
question that you pose about surveying what employers want is not done
in my work necessarily, but this type of question is posed to the
employers that we work with when seeking a job placement for the clients
that we work with. These placements are usually short-term work
experiences so the answers that we receive from employers tend to be
made in consideration of the need for short-term employment and made by
their knowledge of the training levels and work experience of the
clients we would like to place at the employer’s site. We
are presently working on keeping record of potential job sites to place
our clients with. Solicitation for employers includes gathering the type
of work hours they can provide, plus the training and materials, job
duties and supervision they may need an employee to have and whether
they provide these things themselves. This information can be helpful to
identifying what our clients need (level of experience and level of
training/education and the cost associated with that training, childcare
to meet work hours, transportation to get to work and on-time, tools and
materials needed to perform the duties). Yet, it does not always tell us
all the reasons why our clients take so long to find a job. This is done
with 1:1 career planning sessions where we provide more counseling type
services to our clients. During those contacts, often times other issues
are identified that may be in correlation to them not getting
employment. These such issues, as well as the needs already mentioned
above (work experience, education and training, costs, transportation),
also can include problems like substance abuse, homelessness, domestic
violence, criminal history, lack of childcare support, self-esteem and
not having a HSD or GED. These issues are all very real in our society
today yet many of them can be kept “hushed” by families and
themselves because they our society views these things as wrong or
rather that they are the problem of the individual, not the communities
or our society’s. Therefore, the employer cannot or is unwilling
to deal with them. “Dealing with them” may mean that the client
needs more flexibility in scheduling to attend school or training,
transport children, participate in mental health related activities
(counseling) or plainly needs a “chance” to start work in an
environment that is supportive, provides valuable training, and is
understanding that their employees are also parents with real-life
problems. Although our society poses that employees should “leave
their problems at the door”, the rate of minimum wage does not support
the needs of our working families in this country and therefore, coming
to work to “make ends meet” might be better understood if employers
could provide more of these ideals to their employees. This could
possibly make for maximizing employee retention in the work force. Hope
this response gets some more wheels and feet moving…Thanks! Melissa A.
Silver, Career Development Department Coordinator for the Washoe Tribal
TANF Program, Paul,
hope your Holidays are going well. We are doing fine in Interesting topic and very valid. As a caseworker we are required to keep notes on each of our clients. We are also reminded that case notes should be objective in reporting behavioral observations and should not include a mental health judgment lest we risk the danger of "getting sued by someone." I agree that your points as to why some people don't find employment are valid but we are constrained by organizational policy. Our solution is to actively listen to the client and then ask open-ended pertinent questions that may lead to the person realizing the problem for themselves, or referring the person to a mental health agency. Our organization does not have to survey local employers about what their employee expectations are because the employers complain to us in advisory meetings and in other community based gatherings. The complaints include everything you mentioned. I don't think the Feds really want to hear that depression, loss of hope and poor work ethic are the reasons that people are unemployed. These reasons are too abstract and intangible. The Feds want to hear about reasons that they can touch and feel. Anonymous
in I
supervise exits and follow up. We
track performance data during these processes.
This does not tell us anything about motivation but rather
whether or not the customer has entered employment, meets retention
quarter requirements and if they have a wage gain during that time. We
don't collect any data regarding motivation.
I wonder how/when we would even ask for that type of data. How
does one measure motivation...except by results? Ruth Whenever
we are job developing or an employer calls in a job order, in addition
to asking the job duties, we also ask what characteristics they would
like in an employee. Many say they can do some training,
what they need is someone sho has good
customer service skills, shows up on time, etc. We then send only
the outgoing enrollees to that employer. BarBara Hi
Paul-in response to your question this week - my agency does not keep
hard data on why people loose their jobs but I can tell you from working
with businesses that the three criteria they ask for universally are: 1.
Read & Write at an 8th grade level 2.
Do Basic calculations - 8th grade math 3.
Be at work every day We
know that many of clients and job seekers in general struggle with life
skills and how to manage getting to work on time every day.
Many have so many obstacles such as car problems, day care
difficulties and having enough clothing to make it through the week.
We are seriously considering reviving our Life Skills Class in
our One Stop. The trick is
to market the workshop so that we have attendees.
Our previous attempts have not been successful. Sandi We
are blessed and had a good holiday feast then just laid low for the few
days. On
this subject: Our
data base (Workintexas.com) provide the medium for our job seekers to
paint a picture of themselves and desires. Those
who are case managed address their known barriers and we focus on
removing these barriers. In
our twist system, which is shared interagency, we case note all the
barriers and setup a plan of action contract with the job seeker to
eliminate as many barriers as possible as fast as they can. On
the employer feedback which is conducted mostly online and through mail
out surveys, several of the items you mentioned on this subject are
included. We
constantly seek information from both parties to help fine tune and
target what is needed to get the right person to the right employer. Further,
we also want to place or point the job seeker to the job best suited for
them. This
will at least put both parties on a win-win shotgun start. Keep
in touch Frank
Here at the department we keep alot of data on clients such as "Are they returners?" what this means is that has the client returned to welfare within a 6 month time frame and if so why? Motivation plays a big part in the welfare circle. What I mean by this is that some of these individuals have not worked in several years and this does create a motivational roller coaster for some clients, they will be uppppppppp and then dowwwwnnnn. This seems to stop once the client has passed a point where the motivation is high and stays this way..on track so to speak. If the roller coaster goes off the tracks then we have a "Returner". Thank you Donna We really don't keep that kind of data on my providers. It's just pretty much if they are or are not in compliance with our Regulations. Now there are times when it does appear that some of my providers are getting to the point of burn-out. Faye
Sometimes
we need to collect data and sometimes we need merely to be aware of
data. Each
job club, or other group, is comprised of individuals and it is
knowledge of their issues, rather than a focus on data collection of
their issues, which should be important.
The make-up of each group is different; each has its own
personality. One
personal complaint is that the giant data-collection monster is driving
the system, much as testing is permeating grades K-12.
We spend too much time divising which
specific data elements need to be collected and verified, in order to
justify what we do and to whom, when more time should be spend helping
staff listen to the issues and help the participants in the group reach
resolution. Your comments about why people don't get work are extremely relevent to why I believe my program (when I was running it at Palms/Mar Vista) was so well attended. Depression, anger, and resentment were the common emotional denominator in the professionals who came through my program. Unitl they got beyond that and stopped taking those emotions into their interviews with them, nothing happened for them except rejection. The second common denominator was a complete lack of knowledge of how to talk about themselves in terms of the job they were applying for. Even job seekers who were not displaced from a long-time profession tended to talk about themselves in the context of former jobs and not in the context of the job they were applying for. For people staying in a profession they've been in this is a subtle distinction and fairly easily overcome with a little coaching and practice. But for those making a career transition out of a job they've been in for 20 or 30 years and into something even slightly different, this is a huge hurtle and becomes terribly daunting.
It was my experience that both challenges (depression and job context) were best addressed in an environment that provided some skills coaching with lots of peer group interaction. Job Clubs, Job Search Support Groups, whatever you call them, they work. And they work for any skill level, any age bracket, white collar and blue collar. I'm currently volunteering to coach job seekers coming out of drug rehab and/or prison. While this is a vastly different population than the displaced professionals I used to work with, they face the same issues and find they same strategies useful.
As for employers, I chair a Job Developer Network and recently focussed one of our monthly meetings on employers and why they are or are not willing to hire employees with barriers (disabilities, ex-offenders, etc.). Every employer who attended this meeting had hired employees with, in most cases, multiple barriers. When asked why they were willing to do this the unanimous answer was, they hired them because they always showed up on time and they smiled. While this might be an oversimplification, the message was that punctuality and a cheerful, willing, positive attitude overcame a multitude of barriers.
So if we can help our clients overcome their depression and anger, and help them learn a few skills about how to talk about themselves so that the employer can see them doing the job, we've accomplished something significant.
--Cindra-- |