ESIT Staff Retention Toolkit

Protection from Harm is the first of five components of the Surgeon General's Framework.

Prioritize Physical and Psychological Safety

Avoiding dangerous situations and developing habits that support personal well-being will promote increased awareness, safety, and confidence. The links below provide resources for ESIT provider agencies navigating potential safety challenges found in home- and community-based services. These resources will help agencies as they develop safety plans, staff training, policies, and procedures. (Framework, page 13)

Videos:

6 Ways to Stay Safe During Home Visits

Home Visit Tag Along: Steps to Staying Safe

Web Resources: 

Oregon's Home Visitor Safety Guide (includes safety plan template) 

Home Visiting Safety: Be Aware and Trust Your Instincts (a training activity for early intervention staff)

A Guide for Domestic Violence Advocates

Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect (describes how to make a report and what happens once a report is made)

Ergonomics (at your desk, in the car, and moving children)

How Home Visitors can Protect Themselves and Families Receiving Services from Diseases that can be Spread from Person to Person. (CDC guidance addresses COVID-19 and other communicable diseases)

Enable Adequate Rest

Lack of quality sleep, possibly from stress caused by high caseloads and long work hours can put the physical, emotional, and mental health of providers in danger. Providers who do not get good rest are more likely to get injured on the job or make mistakes. Long work hours have also been shown to raise workers' risk for exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. Feeling constantly tired also reduces the rate of productivity. (Framework, pg.14)

Videos

Self-Care to Communities of Care (A systemic perspective on self-care)

A Self-Care Action Plan

Using Five Minutes of Self-Care to Survive Burnout

Web Resources:

Burnout, Vicarious Trauma, and Compassion Fatigue

Normalize and Support Mental Health

Organizations can 'normalize and support' mental health by modeling, communicating, and regularly promoting access to services. Providing comprehensive health care coverage that includes access to mental health benefits is an important first step. Agencies can promote access to care while also ensuring confidentiality by supporting access to quality and affordable mental health services—including telehealth, on-site, and off-site after-hours care—and encouraging time off for staff to support their mental health. (Framework, page 14)

Videos:

Why You Should Try Therapy Yesterday (a therapist's personal experiences with therapy and compelling reasons to give it a try)

Web Resources:

Let's Talk: Normalizing the Workplace Mental Health Conversation (A personal story of sharing a mental health diagnosis at work)

Mental Health Works Guide (from the Center for Workplace Mental Health)

Operationalize Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Norms, Policies, and Programs

Workplaces that are inclusive are those workplaces where employees, including those with disabilities, and from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, feel safe to be themselves and share their feelings. This applies to relationships between providers and families, supervisors and employees, and within interdisciplinary teams. Agencies can prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) norms through effective policies, procedures, and training programs. Team diversity and inclusive work environments start with inclusive leadership. (Framework, page 15)

Videos:

Let's Stop Talking About Diversity and Start Working Toward Equity (Outlines evidence and strategies for promoting equity as a core human need in the workplace)

Belonging, a Critical Piece of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (outlines key ingredients for belonging and how to achieve them)

Web Resources:

True Confessions: Checking My Biases with Family Centered Practices

Race and Poverty Bias in the Child Welfare System: Strategies for Child Welfare Practitioners  (has application for ESIT providers, also)

Competitive Wages and Benefits 

ESIT provider agencies employ a variety of highly sought after and specialized direct service providers. While salary and benefits are not the only reason an employee chooses to stay or go, it is a foundational factor in staff retention. PricewaterhouseCooper conducted a survey of 3,000 workers from a range of industries and found that 56% were financially stressed about finances. Among that group, 49% reported that concerns about money "had a severe or major impact on their mental health in the past year." (page 25)

Wage and Benefit Study

A common theme across conversations with local ESIT program administrators is the need for more competitive wages. Planning for a wage and benefit study that will inform approaches to compensation for ESIT provider agencies will begin soon. If you have an interest in participating, or have clarifying questions, please reach out to valerie.arnold@dcyf.wa.gov, or call 360-485-7773.

Engage Workers in Workplace Decisions

Organizations that take an inclusive approach to workplace decisions support employees' personal investment in the process. Involving staff at all levels in the development of an agency's vision, mission, values, and strategic planning, promotes a greater level of employees' investment, enthusiasm, and commitment to the organization, and the important work being done. (page 25-26)

Videos

From Employee Engagement to Employee Experience (62 minutes. How dynamic organizations conceptualize and create a truly great employee experience.) 

Employee Engagement- Who's Sinking Your Boat? (4 minutes. Learn from employee engagement research what engaged employers can do to keep their organizations afloat.)

What Makes us Feel Good About our Work? (20 minutes. In this TED Talk, Dan Ariely presents two experiments that reveal our unexpected and nuanced attitudes toward meaning in our work.)

Web Resources

Why Managers Should Involve Their Team in the Decision-Making Process (Harvard Business School Online makes a strong case for an inclusive decision making process as leading to better decisions.)

Here's how you can engage employees in decision-making processes (Seven simple strategies from LinkedIn that support shared decision-making.)

Build a Culture of Gratitude and Recognition

Organizations, and especially supervisors, can promote a culture of gratitude and recognition at work "where workers feel seen, respected, needed, and valued." Promoting a culture of gratitude goes a long way in supporting healthy teams that are required to provide comprehensive, high-quality services at all levels of the ESIT statewide system. Recognition for a job well done prevents employees from feeling like they have a thankless job, or work in a thankless profession. (page 26)

Videos 

The Power of Appreciation (18 minutes. Explains the difference between being recognized for performance and genuinely appreciated for who you are.)

How to Show Your Team You Care (17 minutes. Team-appreciation ideas that will motivate and inspire your team.)

Why You Need to Show Employee Appreciation and 3 Ways to Do It (6 minutes. Describes what employees really need to feel valued at work.)

Connect Individual Work with Organizational Mission

Regardless of the type of work an employee does for an organization, having a collective understanding of the idea that all of us are working toward a common vision, mission, and set of shared values is motivational and provides context, clarity, and meaning to the work. "Organizations can help workers see the connections between their day-to-day work and the organizational purpose and mission." (page 26)

Videos:

Connecting Employees to Purpose and Meaning (2 minutes. Why leaders need to engage employees by connecting employees to a sense of purpose at work.)

Three Things that Make a MEANINGFUL Vision (4 minutes. Simon Sinek outlines three critical factors that lead to a meaningful mission.)

Podcasts:

How to Keep Hybrid Workers Connected to the Organizational Mission (On this episode, Berkely Hass Business school professors answer a question from HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan about how to keep employees connected whether they're at home or in the office.)

Web Resources:

How to Connect Employees to Your Company's Purpose (Harvard Business Review describes the importance of an inside-out and bottom-up dialogue, as this is how we human beings can ultimately connect with a broader mission.)

Three Steps to Gauge Your Team's Connection To Mission (Outlines steps organizations can take to connect individual works' impact on achieving the larger mission.)

Create a Culture of Inclusion and Belonging

Organizations can foster social connections and a sense of community at work by promoting what scientists refer to as "prosocial" behavior. This behavior encourages positive social interactions by supporting, assisting, and comforting others. Cultures within the workplace that emphasize belonging can serve as a strong defense against bias, discrimination, and exclusion. By creating environments that encourage connection, organizations can ensure that employees from all backgrounds feel valued and included.

Videos:

• How to Go Beyond Diversity and Inclusion to Community and Belonging (14 minutes. Do you ever wonder if people who "have it all together" really know what they're doing? Could it be they've just become experts at pushing through ambiguity? Through personal experience and interviews with a few leaders at the height of their careers, this talk issues both a license-to-chill and a call-to-action.)
• Belonging, A Critical Piece of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Carin Taylor TEDx Sonoma County (16 minutes. In this powerful talk, Carin Taylor shares why belonging is the focus of her DEI strategy and the most important piece of the DEI discussion.)
• Creating Cultures of Belonging with Ingo Rauth PhD (49 minutes. Diversity and Inclusion in organizations is necessary and yet not sufficient. Extraordinary cultures create a true sense of belonging at the individual level. When people feel like they really belong, they thrive. Creating that outcome requires intentional action.)
• The Surprising Solution to Workplace Diversity. Arwa Mahdawi, TEDx Hamburg (15 minutes. Arwa Mahdawi shares research regarding the powerful positive impact of diversity in the workplace and how we can stop talking about it and make it happen.)
• Why We Should Promote Belonging in the Workplace. Destiny Fordham, TEDx U Cincinnati (14 minutes. Diversity and inclusion professional, Destiny Fordham, shares the importance of inviting courageous conversations centering around identity to create space for everyone.)
• From the Inside Out: Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. Wendy Knight Agard, TEDx Kanata (14 minutes. Wendy offers insight into diversity from the inside out, what it means, how to become conscious of it and how we can move forward on the path to true acceptance.)
• Inclusion over Diversity. Kenyona Matthews, TEDx Akron (11 minutes. Inclusion will actually change our rooms. Inclusion gives people the ability to express themselves authentically. The work of our society cannot focus on simply whose in the room anymore. All people must have a voice, we need to listen to them, and then we must act.)

Web Resources:

• Working Nation, Covering the Future of Work: People with Disabilities (Success stories in the news about successfully building stronger, more resilient company cultures through disability inclusion.)
• What does it Take to Build a Culture of Belonging? Harvard Business Review (A crucial way to galvanize support and manage complex change is to create a culture where every employee, regardless of their background, feels that they belong.)
• Tips for Creating a Culture of Belonging in Your Organization. Indeed for Employers (Before you can truly harness the power of a diverse workforce, you'll need to focus on creating a culture of belonging.)

Cultivate Trusted Relationships

Supportive work relationships can boost performance and are linked to higher employee engagement and innovation. These relationships exist between leaders and employees, among colleagues working in teams, and between service providers and the families they serve. Clear and consistent communication between frontline staff and leadership is essential for establishing trust. 'Promoting trust among leaders and workers begins with listening to worker concerns and explaining why key decisions are made within an organization. Leaders can build trust through small, everyday interactions, for example, by modeling and inviting others to share small moments of their life with them.'

Videos:

• How to Build—and Repair—Trust at Work Christine vs. Work. Harvard Business Review (6 minutes. Innovation Editor Christine Liu talks to Tyree Mitchell, assistant professor at Louisiana State University, about the building blocks of trust, how to embed it in your work culture, and what to do when it breaks down.)
• BRAVING - The 7 Pillars of Trust by Brene Brown (3 minutes. When we TRUST, we are BRAVING connection with someone. So what are the parts of trust? How can we trust others and be the kind of person others can trust? How do we rebuild trust that's broken? Once you know these pillars you'll understand what it takes to trust someone else, to be someone people can trust, and to build or rebuild any of the 7 pillars of trust with someone where in the past perhaps trust had been broken.)
• How to Build Trust and Relationships (3 minutes. Learn some very simple tricks on how to build trust and relationships, based on the teachings of Dale Carnegie and his bestselling book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'.)
• The Trust Equation by David Maister explained: How to build trust (2 minutes. The ability to build trust is one of the core capabilities of any leader. And yet, while we have an intuitive feel for when trust is present, or when it's absent. It is difficult sometimes to identify the exact building blocks of trust.)
• Simon Sinek - Trust vs Performance. Gabe Villamizar (2 minutes. A classic presentation on the nature of and components of trust on teams.)

Web Resources:

• How to Build Trust in the Workplace: The Ultimate Guide for Today (This guide explores the environment of trust that we're living and working in these days, and provides practical steps for leaders to build and strengthen trust inside their companies.)
• 5 Powerful Strategies to Build Trust In The Workplace. Caroline Castrillon, Forbes (To create a culture of trust and resilience Castrillon offers strategies to create an environment where every employee feels valued.)
• 14 Tips for Building Trust at Work (And Why It Matters). Jamie Birt, Indeed (Defines what it means to strengthen trust in the workplace, the importance of a trusting work environment and provides a list of 14 tips on building trust among your colleagues.)

Foster Collaboration and Teamwork

The future of work will involve a mix of remote and hybrid models, with a range of full-time and part-time options. This creates a need for intentional efforts in building teams, fostering communication, and promoting collaboration. Leaders can emphasize the value of teamwork, encourage regular communication, and most importantly, lead with authenticity, providing effective collaboration tools, and creating opportunities for social interaction and community service outside of work.

Videos:

• How to Foster Prosocial Behavior in Remote Teams (4 minutes. Prosocial behavior in a remote work context refers to actions meant to benefit others or contribute positively to the overall work environment. These behaviors are particularly helpful in virtual settings, where employees may feel isolated or disconnected from their team members.)
• First Step to Collaboration? Don't be so Defensive! (18 minutes. Ever become angry and "see red"? Being defensive, as it turns out, is one of the greatest inhibitors to true collaboration. Jim Tamm shares years of experience in getting out of the red zone and cultivating a "green zone" attitude.)
• Communication Hacks: Fostering Collaboration & Dealing with Conflict (27 minutes. After reading many self-help books, watching various TED Talks, and listening to a ton of podcasts, I've condensed my learnings to help you improve your communications skills, deal with conflict, and collaborate better than ever in open source communities--and everywhere else.)
• The Virtual Lunch Table: Building Community in a Hybrid Work World (2 minutes. This video tells the story on how #webex was used to replicate the lunch table experience by fostering new connections, enabling interesting conversations, and building a sense of community.)
• The Impact of Hybrid Work on Organizational Connection & Culture - Gallup (5 minutes. How has the shift to hybrid work affected workplace culture? How are hybrid managers experiencing the shift, and how can leaders support them? Gallup's latest data on the tie between hybrid work and the employee connection to organizational culture.)

Web Resources:

• DEC Recommended Practices: Teaming and Collaboration (Strategies from Virginia's early intervention system on how to incorporate the DEC Teaming and Collaboration resources into practice.)
• Interprofessional Teams Supporting Early Childhood Mental Health (Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention. This resource provides and rationale, examples and case studies that inform best practices in teaming with a focus on mental health.)
• How to build Effective Teams in Early Intervention
• Group Dynamics & Teamwork: An Early Childhood Leader's Ultimate Guide