“We help people with barriers to employment,” Carpenter explained. “We coach and guide them to get the resources.”
Those skills have been important because Developmental Disabilities administrators were finding that after employees were successfully hired, they still had job performance issues that prevented them from staying.
“They didn’t understand the job when they got there, didn’t understand about interacting with peers, coming to work on time,” said Jennifer Wade, human resources director for Developmental Disabilities.
As a result, retention for entry-level jobs hovered around 30 percent.
“That meant two-thirds of our staff was turning over,” Wade said. “And (retraining) can be a very expensive process.”
Since Work Plus has been involved, though, the retention rate has increased to 75 percent, saving Developmental Disabilities in retraining costs.
“Seventy-five percent of (60 people hired over the past two years) are still with us today,” Wade said.
Considering that work force training costs about $3,000 a person, Wade estimates that the partnership with Work Plus has saved $120,000 over the past two years.
“And that’s a conservative estimate,” she said.
The partnership streamlines the application process for entry-level jobs and leaves Developmental Disabilities administrators to handle applications of professional-level job seekers.
Developmental Disabilities is the only local government agency that uses Work Plus for screening, Wade said.
“This really is efficiency in government,” she said. “It’s unique.”
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