As the Farm Bill allocation clears USDA and Food and Nutrition Services and funnels down to Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Ohio’s SNAP-Ed team is soon to be on a path of hiring and growth. The state team has been meeting frequently in anticipation of this occurring. What seems like a fairly straight forward process is very complex in part due to our infrastructure in Ohio State University Extension. As the article Hiring without Firing stated, as high as 30 to 50% of filled positions end in firing or resignation. (Fernandez-Araoz, 2006) One of the goals I hope to meet is for this number to be as low as possible. How can I assure that I hire the right people for these positions so that they will stay, enjoy their job, make an impact and be well received by their counties?
The topic for next week on orientation, training and on-boarding is a large part of this, in my opinion. If the people we bring in are not well trained to understand the position and what they need to do, I believe that is one major reason that people get frustrated and leave. Additionally, the idea of hiring the right people into the “right” environment is the other piece of this puzzle and the topic that I will further address in this reflection. Fernandez-Araoz stated that “the systematic approach can greatly improve the chances of hiring the right person. This approach takes time and discipline if it is to be accomplished in the best manner.” (Fernandez-Araoz, 2006)
Each of the four Program Assistants that will be in the first round of hiring for the Northeast Region will require different skills and personal styles to fit the county and the level of supervision they will have. I will be filling positions in Lorain County, which is a larger urban type county with numerous schools and agencies that a Program Assistant can work as well as Richland County, another suburban county, with a large number of persons on SNAP and living in poverty. Additionally, Crawford and Wayne County are smaller and more rural counties but the needs of the population are still great and the schools and agency requests continue to mount in each of these counties. The fact that the county culture is so different in each of these four first county hires is an important factor in this process, but the other important factor that can’t be overlooked is the OSU Extension Office staff and structure that these new hires will be working in.
SNAP-Ed has an interesting reporting structure for these positions. In counties with a Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, this person is the direct line of supervision for the program assistant. This FCS supervisor will be receiving a portion of their salary as release time to help write the grant and supervise the day to day operations of the program in their county. If that person is not the County Director, then they will not handle the human resource issues such as timesheets and performance reviews, but will assist the CED in those roles. The more interesting scenario occurs in those counties in which no FCS Educator is employed. In those counties the Program Assistant will receive the majority of their support from the Regional Program Specialist with the CED still handling the human resource portion of their positions. This is where this becomes tricky and I fear may have more of an influence on our losing people. With the Regional Program Specialist just an email, text or phone call away, it is still difficult for many people to not have as much day to day personal supervision. Dependent on the person and the county they are in, some people are more comfortable with this unsupervised and more independent structure and others not as much. Is this structure partially to blame for the loss of the 3 positions we had during our funding cuts? Were the program assistants not feeling supported in those counties? What could I have done or can I do in the future to help prevent this from happening again? Each time we lose someone we have to reexamine that county position, determine if we should fill the position in the county and start the process over again. Not only is that process time consuming, but the county is left with no services during this void and the training curve is rather steep for these positions. For each of these counties I plan a minimum of three weeks of training for the program assistants to feel they are ready to start getting out there teaching on their own. How much does flexibility and cross-cultural literacy play a role in the success of the program assistant? (Fernandez-Araoz, 2006) Are we trying to move too expediently to get these positions filled and not taking our time to find the right fit? What happens if we cannot find people with the right qualifications to fill these positions? As we have moved into the less supervised roles we have required some education/certification for the positions. What if this becomes a problem to find these candidates? For our interviews we do ask the candidates to do a short demonstration about a given topic. Is this helpful to us finding the best candidates?
Finding the right people so that we do not have to redo the search is a time and energy saver. I want to do the right thing from the start so that we have the best fit and quality people to deliver the programming in all counties. I hope through exploring and asking questions I will improve this process and have better fits for all counties!
Fernandez-Araoz, C. (2006) Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/1999/07/hiring-without-firing/ar/pr
King, J. (2014). Staffing and Staff Selection PPT.