It's the billion dollar question in corrections: How do you keep good employees and, better yet, How do you bring good ones through the door to begin with?

Many corrections agencies across the country are grappling with these questions - and for good reason. As the job market loosens, employees are gravitating towards higher paying jobs elsewhere. In addition, when green officers get through the hiring process, supervisors need to help them find meaning and reward in their new career - otherwise they may flee before they ever see a promotion.

"Turnover is very expensive and I think turnover hits your ability to provide quality service and overall reduces the productivity of the whole group," said Carl Nink, Executive Director of MTC Institute.

It's a big job to address these issues and one that currently weighs heavily on the minds of administrators. This is evidenced by the number of sessions on this topic at the American Correctional Association conference this week.

To turn this trend around, administrators need to better understand the problems and their staff, provide better incentives and ensure that they are interacting with employees in ways that meet their needs.

Taking on Retention

With almost one-third of the officer positions at Coffeewood Correctional Center in Virginia vacant and a sense that there was a reason behind the rate of attrition, the Virginia Department of Corrections took a bold step - it asked employees to tell them what was wrong.

Warden Jeff Dillman, who was installed to improve the facility's culture in 2004, decided to adopt a model of improving that culture and involving employees in the process. Dillman and others from the Virginia DOC will be explaining the process at this week's American Correctional Association Congress of Correction.

"The program we are putting on has to do with metrics or bottom line results and it's your employees telling you what is wrong with your organization," Dillman said. "It's a give and take an a balance in an organization - we can't have escapes and we have to pass inspections but on the human capital side we have to look at appreciation and [our employees.]"

To accomplish this, the facility followed an organizational identity model developed by Hatch and Schultz and formed eight groups of eight employees to come up with the top ways to make the Coffeewood facility a "great place to work."

"We asked what it takes [to be a great place to work] and believe me, when you ask employees, they will tell you," said Dillman.

Dillman said the groups brainstormed and came up with more than 400 suggestions. From there, each group was asked to identify the top three efforts the department and facility could make.

Top on seven of the eight groups' lists: pay. Pay was second on the eighth group's list.

"When an organization says one thing is wrong, you better change it or you won't keep them," he said.

Based on this feedback, the facility administration did an analysis both internally and externally of salaries, comparing salaries to those on the outside, including other law enforcement positions and the private sector, as well as how salaries increase on the inside.

According to Dillman, the salaries were not increasing at a competitive rate at the facility.

A new salary scale was created for Coffeewood in which salaries would increase on a 45-degree scale. Then it brought those salaries that did not fall into the scale up and revamped the salary steps to reflect the skills that are valued by the organization.

Dillman explained that as a result the salary scale was more in alignment with what the local jails paid staff and the step changed made more sense for those applying for new jobs.

"I they came in with no experience they got one salary, if they had four years of stable job experience, they got another if they had military experience they got a different salary," said Dillman. "We value what people bring in."

The changes cost the facility $120,000 annually.

Another major change at the facility had to do with institutional culture.

"[Employees] said administration hasn't treated us well, supervisors haven't treated us well, so we implemented a more contemporary style of management. A kinder and gentler style," said Dillman.

One new program the facility administrators created is the warden's Pinpoint Program in which employees who meet certain specified goals for the facility are rewarded in a public setting and receive incentives. Employees honored with the award at the ceremony receive a letter of commendation with the warden's stamp, a pin and a $25 gift certificate.

"Everyone [knows what is] important to the organization. Recommendations come from everybody," Dillman said.

In addition Dillman created a referral bonus program for employees who refer others to the facility for employment.

The program offers $250 to the referring employee after the person is certified and $250 more after the employee they referred completes a year of employment.

Now in its second year, the program at Coffeewood seems to be having some success, said Dillman.

One sign is a comparison in the number of staff vacancies. In April 2004 there were 50 vacancies and in April of this year there were none. But that doesn't mean Dillman can rest on his laurels. He said recently the vacancies have started to "creep up" again. There are currently 16. But he is encouraged because staff no longer seem to be leaving out of frustration with the culture.

"They are no longer leaving because they are pissed off at their supervisor, now are going to other law enforcement agencies and making more money," he said. And that is a legitimate reason, Dillman believes.

"The reason we have been successful is the management style has changed, we changed the culture and employees see how the corporate office supports them. My style is no one person is more important than another. When we all do our jobs everyone is successful; it takes a huge load off of the quasi-military structure that is typical in corrections."

Understanding Employee Needs

Desert Waters Correctional Outreach in Colorado recognizes the day-to-day stressors of corrections can take a toll on staff and has set out to educate decision-makers on how to improve the work environment for their employees.

According to Caterina Spinaris, PhD, Executive Director, Desert Waters
Correctional Outreach, if corrections leaders understand some of the basic psychological needs of their employees, they may be able to keep them longer.

"There are some fundamental psychological needs that are higher up on the scale that if people do not take active steps to learn those needs for their staff and to target those needs, then people are going to be miserable and unsatisfied. Even with a good paycheck they will leave and go where those needs will be met better," she said.

Spinaris will give a presentation about what she calls Correctional Fatigue at this week's American Correctional Association Conference. Included in that presentation will be information about what she says are the six basic needs of correctional staff.

The first, she says, is the need for physical safety.

"You need to feel like administration is taking steps to protect their staff. Sometimes staff feel like this is not the case," she said.

With understaffing and cuts to corrections budgets staff safety can be compromised. How much staff ca do with less assistance and with a rise in the number of inmates can dramatically affect safety, she added.

Emotional safety is another need of staff. Spinaris said people don't want to feel they are vulnerable and want to know that "they won't be torn to shreds and someone isn't waiting for them to screw up to nail them."

Trust is another important quality in the workplace. It is a quality virtue for staff to be able to feel they can trust their co workers across the ranks and that administrators have their best interests at heart and what they say is the truth, she said.

"This is interconnected a bit with emotional safety. If they are in a trustworthy environment then they will feel emotionally safe," she added.

Power and contribution is another need.

"In corrections much is about power. It's a very big issue, especially for men. Men need to feel like they have power. When men in particular feel they have no say, they get distressed," said Spinaris.

She said it is important for administrators to allow staff to have a say in decisions and that power isn't being used against them.

Another important need for staff is respect. Spinaris said it can be difficult in the "hustle and bustle" of detention to remember to be respectful, but it is necessary.

"People can forget that and get pretty brash with each other," she said. "It can be a forgotten commodity."

Another need that is particularly important for women is to feel emotional attachment and closeness.

"In the prison environment where people work by themselves, people don't have a sense of connection. [But] there are skilled supervisors who manage to fuse that and connect people," Spinaris said.

The final need for staff that Spinaris ties closely with retention is the need for meaning in their work. Supervisors, she said, need to find ways to inspire their staff.

"People need to build up the meaning of corrections because it does not readily lend itself to a positive meaning. Security personnel need to be taught how to find meaning, then it is more than just a paycheck. No one flourishes just for money," she said.

Spinaris said that corrections should begin to pay attention to employee needs if the field is to stop the flow of employees out the door - which is at an all-time high according to recent research.

"These are hard issues we are talking about. It can be so easily forgotten when we have political fights, lawsuits and budget cuts, but as a result you have the risk of having unfulfilled officers who are looking fro jobs elsewhere all the time," she said.

She added that here are some supervisors in corrections who have these skills and for their employees; they are legendary - like a coach - who bring out the best in their staff. More in corrections need to adopt this approach, Spinaris said.

Learning from Employee Loss

Nink, who will be speaking about employee retention issues at the ACA conference this week, suggests that agencies look at retention from both the front and back ends.

In his own agency, employees are given surveys regularly to determine what problems they may have with the workplace or their work environment with an eye to addressing those issues and improving performance. But asking questions at the end of employment is more common.

"There are a number of organizations that use exit interviews, surveys or both but I don't think they fully comprehend the value of how much information they can collect from exiting employees," said Nink.

If they do collect information from employees leaving the agency, then, Nink said, agencies need to be sure they are asking the right questions at the right time.

"They should be using information to help improve the work environment, compensation benefits whatever may be at issue including developing supervisors and career ladders," he said. "The value that I really see with some of the exit interview information is to learn on a uniform basis why people are separating."

Questions could cover whether an employee saw room for improved efficiencies, or in compensation or benefits as well as ways to reduce stress. They may even divulge concerns about discrimination.

Beyond this, there need to be structures in place to obtain useful information. Asking an employee why he or she is leaving on the last day of employment may not be conducive to gathering useful information.

"The employee may wonder why are they waiting until now to ask?  And, is anyone hearing my input?" Nink said.

In addition, depending on who asks the questions may elicit a different answer. Employees may worry about burning bridges, creating a negative reference check situation or may not want to divulge information if they are considering a lawsuit.

Nink advocates using a third party to conduct the interview to address some of those concerns. But ultimately, agencies should be doing more than exit interviews.

"You want to look at the reasons why people stay. It almost seems like you are closing the gate after the horse is gone if we [only] look at why people are leaving," he said. "Clearly you want to hire the right people the people who want do that kind of work. Presumably you hire people who are interested in that kind of job."

Nink said the research shows that people do not leave employment, for the most part, because of money - but agencies need to learn from their own employees specifically where they are falling down.

"Most of the research supports the notion that employees who are exiting are doing so more around organizational commitment and job satisfaction issues and relationships than [for] competitive compensation," he said.

Forward thinking agencies are asking questions of their staff and improving the workplace before they have retention problems.

"It's a topic that has been overlooked in general. There are some agencies that are doing a good job of using the information and [providing] it to legislative staff so that people understand what the employees who are leaving are saying," Nink said. "There's a lot of things we could be doing."

Resources:

Desert Waters Correctional Outreach - www.desertwaters.com

MTC Institute - www.mtcinstitute.com