2004-2005 Annual Report

Job Connection, Inc.

Connecting People to Work & Community

 

 

 

 

 

Our VISION

 

Job Connection, Inc. will be well known for excellence in the execution of services provided to clients, employers, and our community. 

Job Connection, Inc. will expand and deliver flexible services, which command and exceed the expectations of valued stakeholders. 

We will use a holistic approach to offer growth for adults with barriers to employment and the community.

 

 

Our MISSION

 

Enhancing lives by connecting people to work and community,

 and helping people with disabilities to live

meaningful and productive lives.

 

 

 

Board of Directors (2004-2005)

 

 

Donovan Kelly, President

 

Jean Bradford, Vice President

 

Bernice Korwald, Secretary

 

Rita Schilling, Treasurer

 

Joni Michels

 

Pam Bailey

 

Annual Report – Strategic Plan Redesign

 

In order to effectively use our Annual Report to reflect our Strategic Plan results, we assembled all of our staff to redesign and update Job Connection Inc.’s goals and objectives.  The Strategic Plan was completed late in the fiscal year and encompasses five years of progressive objectives.  It is published in the appendix of this report.  As a small company with few mid and upper management personnel, our staff and board are involved in the planning process as well as the accomplishment of our two main goals. 

 

Job Connection, Inc. has made great strides in accomplishing the objectives set forth in our Strategic Plan for the 2004-2005 fiscal year.  These objectives are stepping stones to our goals and we are proud of our progress this fiscal year. 

 

 

 

Our two goals that will move Job Connection into the future are:

 

 

“To protect, maintain and grow our viability as a business in our community, region and state.”

 

and

 

“To maintain a high level of customer care and satisfaction through growth and change of services.”

 

 

 

 
In our Annual Report as well as our Strategic Plan, we have broken down our objectives into six strategies:

 

Strategies and Objectives

 

Financial & Management Strategy

To acquire stable, broad based, financial and non-financial resources to support the programs and growth envisioned in this strategic plan as well as to develop and maintain an effective, active, and informed Board of Director whose governance and support roles help the achievement of Job Connection’s mission

Human Resource Strategy

To attract and retain qualified staff that will enhance services and activities

Infrastructure & Technology Strategy

To increase the operational management efficiency and effectiveness of Job Connection

Marketing Strategy

To increase the visibility and community awareness of Job Connection and to make sure that Job Connection is properly recognized for its achievements and closely identified as a premier provider to people with developmental disabilities

Network & Collaboration Strategy

To attain closer communication with other agencies in order to maximize community involvement and ensure increased coordination and collaboration among similar service providers.

Program Performance & Planning Strategy

To guarantee that we meet the needs of our constituencies and that all programs provide the highest level of service to our clients

 

 

Each of the above strategies is achieved through actions that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.  The following are our achievements in these areas.

 

 

Achievements

 

Finance and Management

 

Financial growth has been paramount in the development of Job Connection as a viable growing company.  This year we were able to grow our reserve balances.  We have done this through increasing revenue by providing some additional services and some wise investment strategies.    During the fiscal year we developed several Community Based Assessment sites.  Three “regular sites” have been identified in order to better serve Assessment needs of VR clients.  We also added Job Placement as a service that we provide to the Voc Rehab system.  As a direct result, the number of referrals from VR was up for the year.  Along with this change, we also added a check and balance system in order to maximize the number of hours reported on our billing.  We found that this increased our accuracy of reporting as well as raised many issues that we would like to track in a new database program.  We will be updating this procedure as we update our computer system.

 

Increasing our cash flow through grant writing is still a goal but we feel that our tracking and reporting system should be our first priority.  We do have a large base of in-kind donations given to us for our Celebration Auction as well as donations of tickets to events and food for JCI sponsored events.  This year those donations increased through hard diligent work by staff.

 

As a small company, we feel that keeping our employees aware of how we do business will lead us to a more profitable bottom line and well as more satisfied customers.  During our monthly staff meetings we plan on having short in-services that will help staff develop an understanding of how the company makes money.  We have worked on this but will be delay implementation until July of 2006.  At that time we hope to have a better understanding of the state’s new rates system for our DD clients and it’s affects on our corporation.    

 

Our staff felt it was important to have a more informed Board of Directors.  In order to achieve this they presented to them on what was “new” at Job Connection Inc.  Information was presented on how we place clients in jobs.  This presentation was successful and we will plan to implement this at regular intervals.

 

Human Resources

 

Attracting and retaining qualified staff is important to the success and effectiveness of Job Connection.  Surveying staff at their yearly evaluation has elicited interesting and helpful suggestions for our company.  Because this is done in a one-on-one meeting, we are able to listen to an employee’s concerns and are able to address any issues.  Job Connection’s retention of staff is one of the highest in the state and we are proud of this and our staff.

 

All of our staff has specialty areas that have become a sideline to their job.  This year we added vehicle maintenance as one of those specialties. This has made our maintenance more regulated and streamlined.  A checkout system for vehicles was also developed in conjunction with time management system on the computer.  As a person checks out of the office, they also check out a vehicle if they need to.  This has helped in scheduling and saving of gas mileage.

 

An important benefit identified by staff to keep them updated on issues in the world of human services is training.  We have developed a system on our network that lists training opportunities for employees.   This database identifies upcoming training opportunities and can be accessed by employees at all times from their office computer. 

 

We conduct staff surveys yearly.  The surveys are designed to give us feedback from our staff that correlates to four aspects of business that are critical to our company’s success: profitability, productivity, customer satisfaction and staff retention.  Last year our company scored highest in areas related to staff retention and productivity.  This year our score was highest in areas that related to profitability and customer satisfaction.  This change is reflective of our staff becoming more aware of the changes going on in the system.    

 

Infrastructure & Technology

 

We hired an additional staff person this year to help develop our client database.  The timelines for this development and implementation are listed in our Strategic Plan with most occurring in our next physical year.  After looking at numerous systems that were available on the market, we found that our needs are somewhat unique.  Because of this need to be able to track jobs as well as clients, we felt that we should develop our own system. 

 

Our first step in changing our system was to network our office computers.  We have purchased networking software as well as new office packages in order to have everything up to date.  We also purchased new desktops so all offices would have computers that would handle the new system. 

 

One of our new computers came from a grant through the DD system so that we could run the Incident Management system that the provided.  By the end of the next fiscal year we will be able to produce most of our client information sheets through the computer system rather that hand writing it.  Our billing will also be done on the computer rather than through a paper process.

 

Staff training on the computer is an ongoing issue as our input changes.  We have offered and two staff have taken classes on computer through local entities.

 

With all of the changes we have planned, it was imperative that we update our technology plan to include our new system.  This plan is updated yearly in June.  Some of the plan includes information for data recovery.  This year we installed a backup hard drive on the server.  This backup drive is changed out once a week and the exchanged drive is kept off property for quick recovery of all data.

 

Planning for operational program management has been started by creation of a Procedures Manual.  We have identified some of these procedures and will add to them as they are needed.  Certain data collection and data entry protocols will evolve with our database as these procedures will change with its development.

 

As an issue in Job Connection’s infrastructure, we have talked about the idea of changing our name so that it would encompass more of the outlying things that we do such as Job Development and Living Skills Development.  Many ideas were discussed and it was decided that we could not change our name.  A better solution would be to ‘add to’ our name.  Many options were discussed and the decision was tabled until April of 2006.

 

In our effort to become less dependent on paper and lower the cost of reprinting, we created an electronic version of the policy manual.  It is now available to all staff on our network system.  Any changes to policies are available for immediate viewing.  The manual has an electronic table of contents for quick referencing.

 

Marketing

 

This year we felt our marketing materials needed to be updated.  We updated our brochures to reflect more information for our stakeholders.  We also developed a brochure for our driver’s training classes as well as a brochure specifically for new employers.  There is also a need to help people with filling out paperwork and so we developed a brochure for that as well.  The distribution of these brochures was set on a quarterly refill basis in order to insure that our coordinating agencies always have a supply.

 

Job Connection feels it is important to have a presence at community and employer events.  In September we will attend an Occupation Therapist Association conference.  We also invited all of our current employers as well as all of the legislators that represent our area and our state to our annual Celebration.  We also had a booth at 2 Job Fairs this year.  One was sponsored by Job Linc and the other by MSU-B. 

 

Our media coverage and public service announcements were discussed and it was decided to stick to the radio adds.  TV was not cost effective at this time.

 

Network & Collaboration

 

This year we had four staff attend the annual MAR conference in Bozeman.  We also attended Billings Rotary on a monthly basis as well as the Disability Coalition and the Chamber of Commerce.  Two of our staff attended the annual ANCOR conference in Phoenix.  Our friendship clubs participated in the Martin Luther King parade and made gifts and baskets for school children and rest home members.

 

This year the VR office had several changes in personnel.  Three new counselors were hired.  We felt it was important to insure their knowledge of our company and what services we offer.  We held an in-service at Vocational Rehabilitation and a smaller get together for the new counselors at our office.

 

Job Connection also finds it very important to stay involved on a national level by belonging to APSE, ANCOR, MAR, Disabilities Coalition, etc.

 

Program Performance & Planning

 

Life Supports Measures

 

 

Report Period: Annual

               

 

 

Effectiveness*

This year we are slightly under our goal of having people try new things.  We will continue to work on this.

 

Efficiency**

We have quite a few people in this program that would like to see us more frequently.  We are hoping the new rate system will help us to accomplish this.

 

Satisfaction***

We have been very fortunate to have stable staffing. We do have some people who wanted to see us more often and that have decreased their satisfaction with our services.  We will work with the new rate design committee to better fund individuals in this service. 

 

Work Related Measures

 

Report Period: Annual

 

 

 

 

Effectiveness*  

We have met our effectiveness measures.

 

Efficiency** 

We have met our earning goal although our costs per earnings are higher than last year.  We did not meet our goal on timeliness.  We have added staff and changed job descriptions in order to improve this measure.  Part of not meeting this goal was offering more services to people and we had more referrals than we expected. 

 

Satisfaction*** 

Our satisfaction measures have been met. 

 

 

Demographics - Clients Served

 

Throughout the 2004-2005 year JCI assisted 117 people.

    

Gender		Living Area			Disabilities
Male	62	Billings	106		MR – Mental Retardation		72
Female	55	Laurel	5		LD – Learning Disability		13
		Shepherd	4		TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury		2
		Park City	1
Age		Huntley	1		MI – Mental Illness		9
Under 18	0	Race			Other		21
18-30	52	Caucasian		103	Living Status
31-50	52	Native American		10	Independent	48
51+	13	Vietnamese		1	With Family	53
		Hispanic		1	With Help	16
		Black		2

 

 

 

Demographics - Exited Clients

 

Throughout the 2004-2005 year 29 people left our program.

 

Gender			Living Area			Disabilities
Male	12		Billings	26		MR – Mental Retardation		9
Female	17		Park City	1		LD – Learning Disability		5
			Laurel	1		MI – Mental Illness		5
Age			Shepherd	0		TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury		1
Under 18		0	Huntley	1		Other		9
18-30		13	Race
31-50		11	Caucasian		25	Living Status
51+		5	Native American		3	Independent	12
			Black		1	With Family	16
			Hispanic		0	With Help	1

 

Reasons these clients exited our program are as follows:

 

·        16 people were successfully employed and no longer needed services

·        1 person moved out of the Billings area.

·        3 people had medical issues that precluded them from work

·        1 person wanted to work in a workshop setting

·        7 people exited for the following: Needed more job experience, No contact or communication from client, Not able to job match with experience and pay client wanted, On hold until settled in community, Job assessment did not work out and 1 that was not happy with the time it was taking to place

 

 

Wage Report