As many Baby Boomers who work in the community corrections field creep closer to retirement, some agencies are scrambling to the fill the holes those employees will leave behind.  With veteran staff exiting the workforce, probation and parole departments are struggling to replace them with equally qualified and committed staff.

In an effort to support community corrections agencies as they usher in a new wave of officers and promote existing employees, NIC began its Community Corrections Workforce Development Initiative in 2004.  Through focus groups, an advisory work group and a cooperative agreement with The Center for Innovative Public Policies (CIPP), NIC's goal is to create a guidebook to assist agencies in dealing with workforce issues.

"That Baby Boomer generation is leaving us and we have a real void in future leaders," said Drew Molloy, and NIC Program Specialist, at the recent American Probation and Parole Association conference in California.  "[The guidebook] is going to, hopefully, be a how-to book for agencies to use [in addressing staffing issues]."

According to Molloy, the guidebook, which is currently being developed by CIPP, will provide strategies for dealing with the issues that have been identified by the advisory work group and from focus groups from a variety of correctional conferences in the past year.

"Primarily, [at the focus groups], I was looking at what are the issues and challenges that the folks in the audience were facing as far as recruiting, hiring, [retaining] and, then, developing first line supervisors," said Molloy, who is also President of APPA.  "That is where we gathered information from [staff working] at all levels."

From these focus groups, NIC extracted information about the changing roles of probation and parole officers, the changing workforce issues that impact the job and the attributes and skills required for community corrections officers and first line supervisors.  The focus groups also discussed evidence-based practices and retention issues.

According to Molloy, some common themes emerged from these groups, such as:

* Community corrections officers are increasingly being asked to serve dual roles as social workers and law enforcement agents.
* Technology is changing the way probation and parole officers work.
* Caseloads are higher and offender populations are changing.
* Resources are lacking.
* New college graduates who start out in the field are less likely to stay in the same career.
* Multi-tasking is required of community corrections personnel.
* Communication skills and cultural sensitivity are necessary to work in community corrections.
* Employees need to be motivated and understand the mission and values of the agency.
* Supervisors need to act as role models and have vision and courage.
* Evidence-based practices can impact recruitment.
* Career development should be a priority.

While all of these issues were laid on the table during the focus groups, the advisory work group, which met twice in 2004, identified similar problems, as well.

"We've spent a lot of time talking about the challenges and where we need help and guidance," said Judy Sachwald, Director of Maryland's Division of Parole and Probation. 

Sachwald serves on the advisory group along with correctional and human resources professionals from Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, New York, Colorado and Pennsylvania.  She and her peers from around the country had already focused on workforce development in their own jurisdictions when they were tapped by NIC to join the project.

"We were identifying these issues, tossing them around and looking for potential solutions," she said.

According to Sachwald, Maryland has been facing a variety of staffing issues, including managing different generations in the workforce, and official have been hammering out some solutions.

Making Strides in Maryland

"We're really experiencing a generation gap," Sachwald said.

As Veterans and some Baby Boomers retire and a growing number of Generation Xers and Millennials enter the workforce, agencies need to take new approaches to how they manage their employees, she said.

"As the agency leader, I have to find effective ways to communicate with all the people that are in our workforce - the people [who] are 22 and the people [who] are 62," Sachwald said.  "They have different frames of reference for what's important, different understandings of technology and how it use [it] and different expectations for what makes one's work life rewarding," she said.  "It really is a myriad challenge."

To meet that challenge, Sachwald said uses a simple tactic; she asks questions and listens to her employees. 

"While at first it may seem like the issues and concerns are as far apart as one could imagine, when you start looking at the human element and really [listening], they are not always that far apart," Sachwald said. 

According to Sachwald, while older employees may have elderly parents they need to care for, younger employees may have children at home.  Although their situations are not the same, both generations need family friendly work policies to tend to their personal responsibilities.

"So the trick then becomes sitting down with groups of employees who represent the range of life experiences and talking through what are [their] concerns and how, within a state system, [where there are] always limitations, can we try to address these things and make work productive, meaningful and satisfying for everyone," Sachwald said. 

Another strategy Sachwald uses to connect with employees and ensure that their experience in Maryland is positive is greeting them before they even set foot on the job.

When new hires begin Maryland's 10-week academy, Sachwald and her executive deputy director spend time welcoming them to the agency, visit with them frequently during their training and ask for feedback about how the academy could be improved.

Additionally, all of the new employees attend a luncheon during their eighth or ninth week of training with all of the agency's leadership.

"We want to be sure people feel welcomed to the agency," Sachwald said.

While a warm reception from the administration is one way Maryland ensures that new probation and parole officers feel good about their job choice, once they are working in the field, the agency works hard to ensure that they remain happy there, despite the fact that the pay can sometimes be lower than it is in other states or other professions.

"[Pay scale] is always a big challenge," Sachwald said.  "There's some states that pay better than other states, but it's still government and people who select parole and probation as their occupation, obviously, don't think they are going to become millionaires.  So it's really important that we find other ways to help people feel like their work is meaningful and feel like there are intrinsic rewards associated with their work."

One way Sachwald said her agency tries to provide people with those intangible rewards is by acknowledging their hard work.

"We try to pat people on the back and say thank you for a job well done," Sachwald said. 

Beyond that, the Maryland Division of Probation and Parole recognizes those employees who, during performance evaluations, receive a high rating, indicating they have exceeded the agency's expectations.  As part of that recognition, each receives a letter, signed by Sachwald.

"[In] many of those letters, I also write a personal note," Sachwald.  "I think a lot of feeling appreciated takes a personal touch."

But some agencies are finding that even when employees do feel appreciated, they don't necessarily stay with the organization. 

According to Sachwald, current research shows that younger people entering the workforce today will have between seven and 10 different careers.  The key to countering that statistic, she said, is making sure that younger employees feel like their work is important and valued when working for the agency so that, if they leave, they may return later on in life.

"Young employees entering [the workforce] today and over the next decade may not work for parole and probation as an agent for 20 or 30 years," Sachwald said.  "I think it's incumbent upon us as leaders in criminal justice to make sure that everyone who comes into our agency as a new employee has a positive experience so that later on they will entertain coming back in a different capacity or working with our population in a different capacity."

Making sure that employees enjoy coming to work is a priority in Ulster County, New York, as well.  Department of Probation Director Bob Sudlow, who is also a member of NIC's advisory work group for workforce development in community corrections, said that he employs a number of different strategies to ensure that his staff is satisfied on the job.

Keeping Staff Satisfied in Ulster County

"For us, I believe that one of the most important things is that staff really needs to be informed and to have the opportunity to show that they are appreciated in what they do," Sudlow said. 

One way in which the agency strives to make staff feel appreciated is by making weekly schedules flexible for employees.

According to Sudlow, his employees work a 40-hour week, but they do not necessarily work from 9 to 5; they have some freedom to arrange their schedules to suit their lifestyle outside of work.

"I think that has been a great success because people have the opportunity to schedule their lives not around work, but with work, which is great," Sudlow said.  "People have been able to, during the week, go skiing, play golf, be the Girl Scout den mother and be able to go to school functions - all the kinds of things that normally became a problem in the workplace."

Another added bonus for employees in Ulster County is the fact that they work a full, 40-hour week, rather than the standard 35 hours that most government employees in New York work per week.  According to Sudlow, those extra hours have resulted in a 14.7 percent pay increase for Ulster County employees.

Beyond flexible schedules and fatter paychecks, Sudlow said that he tries to provide his employees with some variety on the job.  This is especially important for younger employees who are hungry to move up the ladder fast, he said.

"They want to move ahead quickly and when they kind-of feel like they are not moving, they get very antsy and want another challenge," Sudlow said.  "We certainly try to spend a lot of time talking to them about what [they expect from their job and] we try to vary job assignments."

Sudlow said that when employees take vacations, he will often reassign other employees to take on their duties while they are gone.  That way, employees feel like they are contributing to the agency in a different way and have an opportunity to learn new things.

Another way that employees' work lives are enhanced in Ulster County is through a local probation officers association that the staff members started themselves.

The group sponsors events, like toy drives and murder mystery dinner theater nights, and is a great way for community corrections officers in Ulster County to bond, Sudlow said.

"That has been a great success because they build that camaraderie and pride in the agency that I can't do from the top down," Sudlow said.  "I think when [employees] have pride, then that really contributes in a positive manner to the organization."

The professional association is also mechanism for linking together various generations of employees, whose differences can sometime be a challenge for agency leaders, Sudlow said.

"When you bring in four different age groups into the same workplace that have different experiences and different attitudes, it does present as a potential issue," Sudlow said.  "We have, probably, from the youngest to the oldest, 40 years of age difference, so that presents scenarios where people are working side-by-side and the young guy is working next to someone 40 years his senior who could be his grandmother."

Another problem that could emerge from the generational gap among employees in the workplace is staff sexual misconduct, Sudlow said.  To effectively address this issue, Sudlow has been involved with another NIC project to train trainers on the topic.

"Comments and jokes need to be monitored, as well as the basic age references," Sudlow said.  "Even when people joke, sometimes it does borderline on some sexual innuendos."

Sudlow said that, in light of these problems that can crop up in the workplace, he will discuss both multigenerational issues and staff sexual misconduct at this year's staff retreat in June.  His mission is, in large part, to raise awareness of these issues in Ulster County, much like he hopes the NIC Workforce Development in Community Corrections Initiative will raise awareness of these issues nationwide.

"I think when we sat in [the advisory work] group, the biggest thing we wanted to do was bring the topic to everyone's attention.  I think that is critical," Sudlow said.

And, when the NIC guidebook is released in August, he believes workforce development issues will get pushed even further towards the front burner.

"I envision people beginning to look at it and to talk about the topic and to use the guidebook as another tool and maybe recognize problems that people don't even know they have," Sudlow said.

In Maryland, Sachwald has similar hopes. 

She said that NIC's project focusing on Workforce Development and other NIC initiatives concerning training, core leadership competencies, multigenerational issues and reinventing supervision are essential for correctional practitioners who want push their agencies to the next level.  There is a wealth of information on these issues out there, but it sometimes difficult to access it, she said.

"There [are only] 40 hours in a week and we need to rely on organizations like NIC and the consultants they bring in to help all of us weave [that information] together into strategies that make sense," Sachwald said.

Resources:

Molloy (202) 514-0100

Sachwald (410) 585-3517

Sudlow (845) 340-3200