Things are different in the world of recruitment and retention of employees these days. Ask anyone in human resource management. It is getting harder to find competent, effective staff members. Not only is it getting difficult to find good employees, it is also getting increasingly challenging to keep qualified and experienced personnel. In fact, the more technical or skilled the job is, the harder it is to recruit and retain someone.  With unemployment at or below 4% every industry is feeling the pinch. However, in the world of community behavioral health and social services the feeling is much more than a pinch. The reality is that there are not enough highly qualified and licensed staff in the market to satisfy the need. In today’s community behavioral health job market, 

1. The qualified people currently interviewing at your agency are also interviewing at several other places and a race is on to offer good people a job. If you wait too long you miss out. 
2. The salary of qualified staff is a constantly moving target.  What is a very competitive wage today is on the low end of average after six months. 
3. Credentialed staff are being actively recruited by your competition and could go at anytime. 
4. The competition community behavioral health centers is up against is not only other community behavioral health centers but it also includes large hospital systems, government agencies, and insurance companies. 
5. Community behavioral health centers are nonprofit organizations with slim margins. It is difficult to compete with the wages and benefits of the much larger more deep pocketed entities that make up their competition for highly qualified employees. 

In order for community behavioral health centers to hire and keep highly qualified staff in this phenomenally competitive market they must embrace four truths.  

1. The work culture has become an essential asset. A culture that is supportive, affirming, growth promoting, safe (physically and emotionally), flexible, and employee-centered is a necessity. These are all things that community behavioral health centers can provide. 
2. Front-line managers often serve as mentors, coaches, and  even surrogate parents or grandparents to younger staff members. 
3. Wages and benefits must be competitive. Community behavioral health systems must find ways to offer wages and benefits that are at least in the ballpark of what others can offer. 
4. A skill set grounded in Transformational Leadership theory for people in supervisory roles is essential for the retention of good employees. 

So how do community behavioral health and social service centers respond to the current labor market? We cannot live in the past. If we do, our agencies will fall behind. The only choice is to adapt to the new world of recruitment and retention. This is not easy and requires painstaking self-reflection and adaptation at all levels. Leave no stone unturned. At the agency I work for recruitment and retention is a constant conversation amongst our leadership team. It is an ongoing process and we keep at it. Here is a list of actions we have used to guide us that may be helpful to your organization as well. 

1. Realize that the environment which your agency or organization exists in has changed. Former  assumptions about hiring and retaining employees will not work in these new circumstances. We are experiencing a new generation of workers, a new economy, new technologies, and new priorities in the workplace. 
2. Clearly identify what your agency’s true mission is and focus all resources on who or what supports that and let go of anything else. 
3. Frequently reevaluate your human resource assumptions. This is not something that can be done by your organization’s upper echelon by simply thinking about it. It requires asking employees questions about what they like and don’t like about the work environment and the wages and benefits. 
4. Research what your competition is doing and adjust and adapt to it. 
5. Identify the policies, procedures, and practices that are holding you back. Is your hiring protocol too cumbersome? Does your process of interviewing, checking references, and making an offer take too long?
6. Revise your budget. Revamp it so that it enhances getting and keeping the best employees because without them you won’t have a budget. 
7. Be willing to change your management and supervisory structure to meet the needs of the current generation of employees. Do you need more individual supervision? More group supervision? Ask your team what they need or want and develop your supervisory structure  around their feedback. 
8. Look at creative ways to offer benefits such as health insurance. Find an insurance  broker who understands the most cutting edge ways to offer incentives to your team. You may find you can cut costs while adding benefits for staff engaging in healthy living practices. 

Community behavioral health and social service agencies have a lot to offer the current generation of workers. We can be competitive in our pursuit of good team members. To do so requires a major overhaul of how we think about recruiting and retaining the best of the workforce.  Change is never easy but it is necessary; however as community behavioral health centers the work we do, often to serve the most vulnerable in our communities, is calling out to us to do what is required.