Working on next year’s budget? What’s your people plan?
Photo by rawpixel.com from PxHere
As we turn the corner into fall, many organizations are planning for their next fiscal year. Attention is usually focused most tightly on budgets. But where are people in your planning?
If you recognize people as the most important part of delivering your mission, making sure that you have a plan for them just makes sense.
If you are fiscally concerned (and who isn’t right now?), not investing in your people might seem logical. Most of us have heard the axiom “no money, no mission.” And your people are likely to be your biggest expense. In 2018, median staffing costs were 48% of operating expenses for all nonprofits across the country with paid staff. But consider the cost of not keeping your people:
30-150% or more of salary to replace someone
Loss of continuity
Loss of organizational knowledge
Loss of confidence and/or morale if handled poorly
Plus, transitions are always trickier and proportionately more expensive for small organizations, younger organizations, and if the person leaving is a CEO or Founder.
Retention and building a talent pipeline are key strategic activities for nonprofit organizations. Yes, strategic. Yes, the board should care and pay attention. Like a finance committee pays attention to balanced revenue mixes and reserve policy, the board should strategically care about fair pay, growth opportunities, and a healthy workplace culture. These strategies should consider your paid staff at all levels, your operational volunteers, and your board-level volunteers.
So, my people are both critically important and my biggest cost? Yes! And you can protect them and your investment in them with some basic tactics that are well worth the small investment.
Provide Supervisory Training
Another axiom is that people leave their managers, not their job. Yet, many of us are promoted into our first supervisory role with absolutely no training. The least expensive “training” may be a supervisory book club reading of Rita Sever’s classic Supervision Matters: 100 Bite-Sized Ideas to Transform You and Your Team. Have all your supervisors read it together and brainstorm how to implement some of those 100 bite-sized ideas. The investment here is time – another scarce resource. Doing this together and adapting it to your organization will be more impactful than any class.
Use incremental stretch assignments to teach your people “how to drive”
If you’ve ever taught a teen to drive, you know that it takes time, patience, and may cause anxiety on the way. You start slowly in a controlled environment, watch the learner show competence, and then move to progressively more challenging settings or tasks. The investment here again is time. It will often be quicker and easier to do something yourself than to set aside the time to get in the car together. But if you don’t make the time, it’s like tossing someone the keys and expecting them to be completely proficient from the first time they start the engine.
Reach out to peers at partner organizations
Where missions are aligned, there are opportunities to learn more about the overall work in your area that goes into it. Talk about the effectiveness of shared products and listen to their ideas for how improvements could be made.
Communicate, Communicate
It’s easy to assume that others know what we know. But they don’t. Instead, they speculate and fill in the blanks the best they can. Try to be as transparent as possible. Tell folks what’s happening and then tell them again. Encourage their questions. Listen to their concerns.
Take these “Management 101” concepts as basic strategic investments in retention and succession. Then hold accountability as you would for other strategic initiatives.