Job Connection Incorporated -- Annual Report

Measures	Time of Measure	Applied to	Data Source	Obtained by	Goals	Actual
Effectiveness* 1a. Maintain 80% retention of people working over the year.	Yearly	People available for work	Database Client files	Administrative Coordinator	80%	93%
1b. 80% of people in classes profit from attendance in classes.	Yearly	People in classes	Class Satisfaction Reports	Vocational Specialist	80%	85%
1c. 35% of replacements are in upgrade or more desirable position	Yearly	Currently Employed but requested better job	Database	Director Administrative Coordinator	35%	54%
Efficiency** 2a. Ratio of client earnings per dollars spent in SE program will be under $1.00	Yearly	Work history of all clients in work	Bookkeeping Database	Bookkeeper Administrative Coordinator	<$1.00	$.77
2b. 80% of VR referrals will be placed within 120 days of referral.	Yearly	VR Referrals prepared to accept employment	Database	Administrative Coordinator	80%	84%
Satisfaction*** 3a. Aggregated individual service satisfaction	Yearly	All Clients	Individual Outcomes Satisfaction Survey	Vocational Specialists Administrative Coordinator	>3.5	4.38
3b. 90% of employers would rehire through our program or recommend us to another business.	Yearly	All Employers	New Placement Surveys	Administrative Coordinator	90%	100%

We measure effectiveness by determining how many people in supported employment continued to work once they had obtained employment. Stability in income and activity are important variables to clients, professionals and families. We are pleased that people find work that is satisfactory and continue employment. Retention is affected by many variables. Some factors are internal such as staff competency and flexible service design and some factors are external like the economy. We have also had varying results depending on the disability. We have high overall results this year. We engaged in more marketing efforts after last years comments from stakeholders and want to improve our speed of placement and diversity of employment. We continue to hear that variety in job descriptions is important and we will continue our marketing efforts. The average wage of people in our program is $5.63 per hour.

JCI continues to conduct classes that are helpful in many areas of a person’s life. We believe that the classes are beneficial to the great majority of people who participate. We have classes in driver’s education, forming relationships and making friends, self esteem, stress management, introduction to computers, anger management, and taking responsibility. Most of the participants are people in our living or vocational services but we have received some referrals to provide these classes to people not in long term services. We are meeting our target on this goal and as a response to input from our consumer survey, will start a monthly refresher class for some of the participants.

A topic that came up in our surveys was giving people a chance to upgrade jobs or try new jobs. As a result we added an effectiveness measure to track our progress in this area. We expected at least 35 % of our replacements to be client initiated for upgrades. In actuality, 54% of our replacements were for this purpose. 46% of our replacements were because people were out of work for various reasons.

As stated in the preface, people with disabilities continue to be among the poorest groups in our nation. Our clients have let us know that increasing their spendable income is important to their quality of life. Community programs are under scrutiny to achieve results. The average monthly wage for people in our program is $605.00 per month. It costs taxpayers 77 cents for us to help clients earn a dollar in wages. This is an increase in efficiency over last year. This measure can be affected by our efforts as well as the economy. The unemployment rate continues to be low and employers are open to hiring through our program. Our stable workforce and the economy have helped us to do well in this area this year. As we have been able to increase salaries for staff as a result of legislative efforts it will be interesting to see if client earnings correlate to staff salaries and our efficiency rate will maintain.

The amount of time it takes for us to find employment for clients has been an issue for us in the past. We measured the length of time to find jobs and we were able to find employment for 89% of people within 120 days. The average days to placement were 58. Our staffing, the economy and the type of employment people want affect this variable. If people want work that has few openings or that they are minimally qualified for it can take us a long time to find a job for them.

Satisfaction***

We gather information from clients, families, professionals and employers to get as broad a perspective as possible on customer satisfaction as well as customer input and suggestions for change.

Our clients, when compared to any figures we see regarding workers in the general public, are very satisfied with their work. Our rating for overall satisfaction for our services was over our target but slightly less than last year. A few clients suggested that they would like more time with their job coach outside of work. That desire is frequently based on having a supportive relationship and liking to spend time with staff. We would like to be able to provide more time for everyone to do extras. However, right now we are primarily responsible for maintaining jobs. When the DD system changes in the next couple of years we will hope it is funded to allow for more time for other supports. We also asked the question, “How helpful were we in tough times?” This inquiry received the highest rating of any of the questions asked in this area. 85% of our clients rated us as very helpful and 8% rated us as helpful. We did have one person rate us with a “not helpful.” We do not want anyone to feel we were not helpful when they needed a support system and our goal next year will be to have a zero in that column.

Our employers are the most satisfied group. We have been in this business for almost 20 years and we are continually in awe of the great number of wonderful businesses and co-workers we are fortunate enough to work with. While supported employment on an individual level is meant to increase the quality of one person’s life, as a service it has done a great deal for community awareness and education regarding disabilities. Employers appear very interested in finding ways to support a diverse workforce. They have been very supportive in working with our agency. We pick up some specific suggestions for working in some businesses in our survey but do not see any trends. Staff is aware of the survey results and will clarify any issues and try to incorporate any comments into their provision of services. We did have one employer suggest we develop more models of supported employment. We may do that sometime in the future, but our funding is limited and we would have to decrease our individual placements to provide this. As for now we refer to other agencies in town that do this and they are doing a great job.

Families find our friendly atmosphere, overall involvement in the well being of our client’s lives and social activities to be very important. 97% of the families felt that our agencies contribution was important to their family members life. Last year families had expressed concern about turnover and pay for staff. They expressed continued concern about that this year. Turnover has been reduced significantly. Job Connection played an active part in the legislative effort to increase pay for direct care staff. The legislature did allocate funds for this cause and people received a raise in July. We have had no turnover in full time staff positions in the last year. We will continue to work on statewide efforts to fund appropriate pay levels for direct care staff. Parental support on this issue is greatly appreciated.

Last year parents also commented that they would like to see employment with more advancement and we are happy to report that 30% of our clients received raises this year.

A few parents mentioned that staff is out of the office a lot. We increased the number of job descriptions we trained by 25% in order to accommodate requests for advancement or change. That means staff have less time available for other routine duties. We invite all parents to call us whenever they want an update.

One parent mentioned the difficulty of transportation on the weekends because of limited bus routes. We have talked to the regional manager of the DD Division about the problems lack of transportation causes in supported employment. We set aside some money in our budget to pay for cab rides and we have been successful in securing funding for a route to and from Laurel. We will look for opportunities in the upcoming year to give input to City County planning for transportation needs.

All groups let us know that they like us to find jobs quickly when a client needs one and that they like a variety of job opportunities. Clients and families noted this need last year also. We provided job training for 55 job descriptions this year. The average length of time to find a job was 58 days. The economy, staff skill, stability, as well as our marketing have all helped us to achieve this result.

Effectiveness*

Efficiency**

Satisfaction***

Satisfaction***