Think Differently

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Think Differently Get More Jobs

• What Successful Organizations are Doing?
• March, 2006

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Credentials

• 15 years in Voc Rehab business, 12 years
  specializing in the hard to serve
• 10 US States use these models, FL,NC,KT,MN,OK,KN,N
  E, MI,NM,HI
• Florida legally blind 95 174, 02 503
• Most organization see 50 - 100 increase without
  new resources

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Thinking Acting

• How we think guides how we act
• How we act reflects how we think
• Your organization might need to think differently
  to get more jobs

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Complex Caseloads

• Caseload complexity defined by the quantity and
  variety of employment barriers
• Harder to serve clients have more employment
  barriers, such as
• Culture, race, gender, age, accommodations, skill
  limitations, social status, disability etc.

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Complex Caseloads

• Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies
• Continuum of consumers with all levels of skills
  and employment barriers
• Complexity of caseload determined by numbers with
  more significant employment barriers harder to
  serve clients
• Stakeholder pressure for better results
  regardless of caseload complexity

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What Makes a Case Harder to Serve?

• Employment barriers prevent access to jobs
  through traditional means
• Not seen as a typical employees
• Not cooperative with rehabilitation employment
  process
• Real skill limitations
• Post employment issues

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Traditional Responses to Harder to Serve Clients

• Intensification
• Wage subsidies
• Perpetual training, stalling, abandonment or
  finger crossing
• Statistics manipulation or there are no jobs

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Where to Start Change?

• The way we think and plan needs to be expanded
• Need new employment models
• A conscious change strategy a more dynamic
  balance between the 2 key intervention options
  development marketing

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What Arethe Strategic Interventions?

• Developmental interventions that focus on the
  development of client competencies (focus on the
  client)
• Marketing interventions that focus on employer
  acceptance of your candidates (focus on the
  employer)

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3 Employment Elements

• Employability
• Ability the skills to do the job
• Motivation the willingness to do the job
• Accessibility
• Will the employer consider your application?
• of jobs qualified for
• of interviews you get

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3 Employment Elements

• Credibility
• Does the employer trust your qualifications?
• Trust qualifications are true
• See fit of needs and qualifications

The client or someone else must manage each of
the employment elements
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4 Employment Barriers Profiles

• Profiles
• Profile A Can get a job on their own (motivated
  skilled)
• Profile B Should be able to get a job on their
  own but cannot (skilled motivated)
• Profile C Want to be able to get a job but
  cant (Limited skills motivated)
• Profile D Wont work or cannot hold a job
  (maybe skills no motivation)

• Key Barriers
• Profile A Does not know how to self market to
  the employer
• Profile B Cannot get by employers perception
  of external characteristics
• Profile C Limited abilities and cannot get by
  employers perception of external characteristics
• Profile D Not motivated to work regardless of
  skill level

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Evaluate Caseload

• How many
• As -
• Bs -
• Cs -
• Ds -
• How complex is your caseload?

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Service Delivery Models

• Job Readiness
• Placement Ready
• Cognitive Development

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Harder To Serve

• Harder to serve get more jobs through the
  employment industrys marketing interventions
  than through development interventions
• Must view the issues of the harder to serve more
  from a marketing and not a development perspective

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An Alternative ModelMicro vs. Macro

• If we cannot get the client to develop to
  employability standards we need to reframe the
  hiring decision to meet the clients ability
• At a macro level, employers will not reframe
  their employability standards whereas they will
  at a micro level
• Employability standards at a micro level are
  changed through marketing interventions because
  hiring decisions are highly volatile. They vary
  by employer, time of hiring, task, competitive
  pressure, employee mix, organization, resources
  and through time

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Getting Jobs

• Order taking getting an employer to list a job
  opening with you and finding a match between that
  order and your candidates
• Job Development getting an employer to consider
  a candidate that they would have not typically
  considered by emphasizing particular employer
  needs or advantages

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Development/Marketing Balance

• A development to point of self marketing
• B limited development, order taking and
  specific job development
• C very limited development and no order
  taking mostly job development through reframing
  strategy
• D cognitive development

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A Third Strategic Employment Model

• How do you succeed with clients who are not
  motivated to go to work?
• Small profile but significantly threatens staff
  energy and is overall discouraging

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Cognitive Skills Social Competency

• Cognitive skills are the skills we use to think
• Thinking guides all acting
• If the thinking skills are limited and faulty,
  than so are the potential actions
• Cognitive skills produce social competency
  social competency produces motivation and
  employment

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• Cognitive Deficiencies Characteristics

• Cognitive Skills

• Self Control thinking before acting

• Action oriented not thoughtful
• Impulsive unable to consider consequences of
  their actions
• Advice, warnings or punishments have little
  impact as no reflection on their behavior and its
  effects

• Abstract Reasoning becoming less rigid and
  narrow in ones thinking

• Concrete in their thinking
• Hard time thinking of something not in their
  immediate perception
• Tend to rigidity, narrow thinking, inflexible
• Dogmatic, intolerant of ambiguity
• Will not understand the reasons for rules and
  regulations (difficult time in relationships)

• Interpersonal Problem Solving early recognition
  of problems, ability to examine alternatives,
  assess consequences and interpersonal goals and
  respond appropriately

• Cannot solve problems encountered interacting
  with others
• Difficulty considering alternative solutions
• Unable to calculate the consequences of their
  behavior on others
• Conflict with co-workers, customers - boss

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• Cognitive Deficiencies Characteristics

• Cognitive Skills

• Will behave and act in ways inconsistent with
  their values
• Say getting a job important, but turn down
  opportunities not worth it get more on social
  assistance
• Values are in conflict with their behavior

• Value Reasoning acknowledge values that govern
  ones behavior and learn to identify
  inconsistencies between what we believe and how
  we behave

• Social Perspective Taking acknowledging that
  the behavior of others has impact on ourselves
  and that there are consequences of ones
  behavioral choices for other persons

• Can be egocentric
• See world only from their own perspective
• Have not learned to consider thoughts and
  feelings of others
• Impairs ability to work with others and form
  close relationships

• Cannot critically analyze information or own
  conclusions
• Reasoning is simplistic and illogical
• World constructed in absolute terms, fail to
  appreciate subtleties and complexities
• Accepts simple solutions for complex problems
• Cling to own conclusions stubbornly and rigidly
• Thinking inflexible, maladaptive and not creative

• Critical Reasoning evaluating ideas objectively
  and considering a variety of sources for
  information in the process of decision making

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Our Strategy Adjustments for Complex caseloads

• BCD profiles planned rebalance of staff, time
  and financial resources to emphasize marketing at
  micro level for hard to serve clients
• Employment outcomes marketing strategy is
  fundamentally different than training/
  preparation strategies
• Nonlinear, more reactive, influence vs. control,
  needs synergy, longer term, external
• Requires different thinking and planning

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Summary

• Hard to Serve clients do not fall into job
  readiness model planning
• Profiles outline the time and resource balance
  needed between Development and Marketing
  strategies
• Marketing strategies for the hard to serve focus
  on reframing the hiring decision
• Complex caseloads are served with conscious
  combining of marketing and development strategies

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Techniques

• Avoiding competition
• Focus on employer primary needs in the moment
  create value
• Timing viability
• Build for evolution not perfection

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More Information

• Bill Santos
• EMP Oakville
• [phone]
• bill_at_employmentoutcomes.com
• www.employmentoutcomes.com