Speaker 1 00:01:00 Um, good evening. Thank you for joining disability and progress where we bring you and give you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. My name is Sam I'm. The host of this show. Charlene doll is my research team. Good evening, Charlene, everyone, Annie Harvey as my engineer. Thank you, Annie. Tonight, we are with Ryan Ben Shu and Aaron Broughton. And Brian is the CEO of MRC I and a nonprofit provider of vocational and data services in Minnesota. And Aaron is a vice-president of human resources for rise. Thank you guys for coming on. Thank you for that to be here. Happy to be here. Uh, I want to start out by having you each take turns and kind of give me a little bit of clue of how you got to this place and how you each came to these companies.
Speaker 2 00:02:04 I can start Brian. Um, I started at MRC I actually 38 years ago as a direct service staff. So, um, did that for a number of years and worked my way into management and, um, became CEO of MRC about 10 years ago.
Speaker 3 00:02:28 Uh, and I think if, uh, my backstory a little bit, so I'm a human resources nerd, I think by nature. Um, and so I've built my career primarily in nonprofit human resources. Uh, and I had the opportunity to join the rise team about four and a half years ago, um, as kind of that perfect blend, perfect opportunity of some of my, uh, passions, both professional, um, being a human resource position. And, uh, and I had a human resource position, but also my brother's actually, um, someone with a disability and goes to day programs like the programs that rise offers. And so having the opportunity to work in an industry that had such an impact on my brother's life really allowed me to think many areas. Some of that personal passion was my professional passions and that's how I ended up at rice.
Speaker 1 00:03:12 Cool. So maybe a personal life had a little bit to do with how you, what you went into. Absolutely. Um, Brian, what does MRC stand for?
Speaker 2 00:03:24 Well, originally way back in the day was the Mankato rehabilitation center incorporated. Um, over the years, as we branched out and had multiple locations around the state, uh, we changed the name to manage resources, connections incorporated, and it's kind of a good, long name, but it talks a little bit about what we do. We really manage connections for people, with jobs and with, um, services and lots of different things. So, um, we pretty much just go by MRC, I though.
Speaker 1 00:04:01 And, um, Erin, does rice stand for something?
Speaker 3 00:04:06 No rise does not have an acronym. Um,
Speaker 1 00:04:11 Full name is just rising. Gotcha. Okay. Um, I want to talk about, um, DSPs, uh, from in a minute, but first of all, tell me, um, what does DSP stand for and what are they?
Speaker 2 00:04:32 Well, DSP is a direct service professional, and, you know, in our line of work, they are the P private. They are the most important people that we employ. Um, I tell them that all the time, um, when we hire a new staff, I meet with them and basically tell them they're the most important people in our organization. Um, I might have a lot of responsibility, but I'm not as important as they are because they're working with our customers are working with the people we serve. Um, they're the kind of make or break it for us. So, um, as far as providing quality services and do you know, a lot of what they do is about a relationship and, um, with the people we serve. Um, so they are kind of the direct service people. They're right there on the, on the lime, in the community side by side with the people we serve. So, um, there really isn't anybody more important in our organization.
Speaker 1 00:05:35 Um, what kind of background do they need to have to be a DSP or a training or anything?
Speaker 2 00:05:42 Um, you know, from my perspective, most people come to us without a lot of formal training. Um, you know, we don't, we don't necessarily get people with certificates or degrees, but, you know, we really like people with a lot of experience and, um, people that are creative people that are personable. Um, we look for problem solvers because they're oftentimes working independently with the clients they serve. Um, we want people that are, um, have initiative and, um, can kind of run with things. So yeah, we look at them to be leaders.
Speaker 3 00:06:24 Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think the other thing we look forward to is compassion. Um, you know, we want to see people who are very compassionate and very supportive of the people that we serve. Um, I think one of the other things that we look for is it's great if somebody has nonprofit experience or experience either in their personal lives or if they've had prior work experience working in disability services. But I think Brian's absolutely right. There's a lot of folks that, you know, we, we kinda look for, I think those key competencies, um, and if you can kind of find the right person in terms of they're compassionate, they're hardworking, they're going to be a problem solver, um, and really support the individuals that were supporting you. You have somebody who you can train and you can teach them a lot of what they might need to know for licensing for first aid CPR, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 00:07:13 So for the last year and a half, it has been about that. I think, um, it seems like an incredible amount of time, um, day programs and whatnot took a pretty big hit, not just in this state, but every state I imagine. And tell me how this affected DSPs.
Speaker 3 00:07:35 Yeah. Well, I can speak a little bit to how it impacted rice. Um, so both for when we shut down, so rice, we were forced to shut down, um, at the beginning of the pandemic, um, many of our DSPs that we were able to keep on and keep working, who weren't for load. Most of our workforce, we had the furlough almost immediately, um, shifted gears and actually did a lot of production work. Um, while we tried to figure things out. And then as we were able to reopen and we rehired as many team members as we were able to. Um, but we had a very large layoff. And so now skipping forward as we're trying to continue to reopen, I think to Brian's point earlier about DSPs are the most important position or one of in our organization, we're having a difficult time reopening and returning people to our programs because we're having such a hard time hiring. And so it it's absolutely impacted how, you know, rises even functioned having our DSPs need to both shift gears, be, you know, very agile with some of the changing regulations, how things have shifted with CDC guidelines, DHS guidelines. Um, we've really had to, I think ask a lot of our team members and they've absolutely stepped up and been there to support the people that we serve. Um, I think especially with a lot of compassion for the people that we serve and what that's been like for them. Um, but it's been really challenging.
Speaker 1 00:08:58 And Erin having you, you know, you mentioned this, it was really hard getting all the people back, why was this, did they go find other jobs? Did they decide they didn't want to come back to that particular, um, career? Why was it so hard to get people to come back?
Speaker 3 00:09:19 Yeah, I think part of it is a combination of people did find other positions. Um, some other people, I think they've had challenges in their personal lives because of COVID. So things like childcare has become a huge, um, I think issue for a lot of our workforce, uh, there's challenges with having a need for childcare is really difficult to then return to the workforce. And so you get that childcare in place. So that's definitely been a barrier. Some of our team members have experienced. Um, and I also think, you know, we already had a workforce shortage in disability services before COVID. And so I think to some degree, as people found other positions or maybe worked for residential providers, um, you know, they then I think were able to find good fit positions. And now there aren't enough available workers for some of the positions that we have open.
Speaker 1 00:10:07 And, um, Brian, how did this affect MRC?
Speaker 2 00:10:11 Well much like all the providers in Minnesota back on March 18th, we closed our doors, um, to most of our, most of our programs, all our, our day services and community employment. Um, and pretty tough time. I mean, we laid off 450 staff, um, which we thought would be temporary and turned into a long-term a furlough. Um, and so, you know, probably the most painful thing I've ever gone through in my organization in terms of, you know, when you, when you talk about how important these people are, they're also incredibly gifted, talented people and to have to tell them they can't work. Um, you know, we kept the skills in crew on board, but it was mostly running the business. Um, and so, you know, much like Aaron said when it's been a, it's really been a crazy three years, not just one year, because we were really struggling to fill positions prior to COVID because we had a really great economy going and, you know, unemployment was down on the small numbers.
Speaker 2 00:11:25 Um, we had a hard time filling positions and it was affecting our program capacities at that time. So all of a sudden then he would go to the other extreme and have to let a lot of people go and then coming back, same story. It's been very difficult for us to, um, re staff. Um, we have clients waiting for services, uh, because we can't find enough people. And I do think it's a combination of different things. Um, um, some of our staff found new jobs, um, you know, number of them have kids at home with distance learning. Um, um, I know that one, yeah, unemployment benefits where we're good and, you know, some people, because having kids home, it made sense just to stay home and, um, we're, we're struggling, we're finding or hiring people, but, um, it's, it's certainly not at the speed or capacity that we'd like to have at this point.
Speaker 2 00:12:30 Um, so, you know, we're starting to think out of the box a little bit. Um, like I think part of what our industry has to do is start helping people know who we are, helping people get introduced to our field rather than just advertising per position. So we're spending a little bit of time thinking of ways to long-term solutions to this because it was there even before COVID, how do we get people into our industry? How do we get people interested in working young people that are still, maybe in high school or starting post-secondary that don't really know what we do? Um, it is a fantastic documentation. So, so yeah, it's, it's not easy. And we get excited when we have a Monday where we start more than three or four people, but we still need probably a hundred employees. So now
Speaker 1 00:13:27 Talk about the, excuse me, relationship and connection between the families that, um, DSPs serve.
Speaker 2 00:13:38 Well, I think, you know, that's a really strong connection and it's oftentimes based on trust and, um, and that's really important when we talk about finding staff that we also retain the staff, um, entrails air, parent, it's the same feeling. It's like, um, what our families like is continuity. They want the same person or Cain with their son or daughter. They want somebody that, you know, they can trust and know and have a relationship as well. And so, um, it's really important for us when we get those employees to keep them families have that connection and our clients have that connection. Uh, for a lot of people we serve change is not easy. So if we have a lot of turnover, then it creates problems. So
Speaker 1 00:14:29 Yeah, I guess I think the most thing I hear about DSP is is that, you know, they struggle. They're, they're pretty passionate people. You would be to go into something like that. But, um, the idea that the pay is not always all that, is there anything that is going to happen to help them have better pay,
Speaker 3 00:14:56 But Brian, I think if you want to respond to feel free, but I know it's something that's discussed regularly at the legislature. Um, our CEO, Lynn Norin, um, advocates quite regularly, but some of that comes down to how our rate methodology is set as well.
Speaker 2 00:15:11 Yeah. You know, our, our, um, our wages are going up, um, based on labor pressure. So I think, um, I sit on the same, um, board is as Lynn, um, our state association. And that's a conversation that we're having a lot, um, to be competitive. You know, we start people not at $15 an hour, where two years ago, that was closer to 12. Um, so, you know, you have to, the market really drives the pay. And as Aaron mentioned, we don't unfortunately have a rate system, however, that goes up with market market Florence. So, um, it puts a real pinch on organizations right now, uh, to be competitive, but we, we compete with a lot of other organizations, um, residential providers, um, you know, um, senior citizen residences. I mean, the world of DSPs is bigger than just us. So, um, and that, that competitiveness, and of course you look around McDonald's is paying $15 an hour and target is paying. So the wage pressure is very high. Um, we also, you know, have to offer good benefits and we have to offer training and I'm a firm believer. We also have to offer ways for people to advance within the organization. So if you're a DSP, you also want to know that there's a future where you can be, do other things and, and, um, and gain some, some experience and, and they advance in the company. So, um, a lot of challenges, so,
Speaker 3 00:17:03 Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say, you know, Brian kind of to your point earlier about there's both that recruitment piece, and then also that retention piece, it's something we've had to look at at rise. Um, and we actually split out some of what we call levels for our DSP is, um, so that we're able to recognize kind of areas of specialty where there's additional autonomy or extra tasks being asked of someone. And then we can offer kind of an appropriate wage that matches that. Um, it also gives people the opportunity to move up, um, and to build some of that talent pipeline across the organization, have those opportunities for advancement, but you're right. It's really, really difficult and very competitive. We also feel a lot of pressure to, from just minimum wage moving up in Minneapolis. So, you know, trying to not only compete within our industry, but as Brian was saying, just for standard entry level positions at target Walmart, Menards, there's so much pressure right now on wage. So I would a hundred percent agree with we're feeling that pressure to move those wages up, but it's really difficult that rate methodology it's based on bureau of labor statistics data, that's more than two years old. And so we're always having this rate methodology that's behind what the current market pressure is on wage, and that makes it really difficult to try and compete and offer those wages as we'd want to.
Speaker 2 00:18:24 Yeah, there will be, there will be organizations that will operate at a deficit this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:18:30 Yeah. Um, how have D S D I'm sorry. DSP is, um, adapted to, you know, continue to bring services to the community during COVID. How did that work?
Speaker 2 00:18:46 Uh, it's been, it's been challenging because we have them, um, really driven by guidance. We've received by the department of human services, as well as CDC and the department of health, but DHS, um, from the beginning, put significant restrictions on how we could provide services, um, um, numbers of people that could be together course for a long time. They couldn't be in-person at all. Um, I think both of us probably develop virtual services, Aaron, um, pretty early in the, in the game so that we could just stay connected to our clients and, um, you know, provide them with, um, something to do every day. And it was pretty difficult times for them as well as us, but, um, little by little, those restrictions have come off, but it's been a very slow process. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:19:43 Yeah. I would say absolutely. I think the development of remote services, I think might be one of the most sort of transformational things we've seen to adapt to COVID. Um, but one of the things I think that's also really exciting about it as it's given our DSPs, I think some opportunity to take a lot of that passion that they've had in their roles and really be innovative, come up with curriculum, come up with ideas, things that we could do virtually and then became out additional activities we can offer in person. Um, I think about how we've adapted. We have a art speaks program, which is art therapy, and we have now offerings, both in-person and we haven't remotely available. Um, and so materials get shipped to people's homes or dropped off at their homes as needed, but it gives people, I think, some of that opportunity, but I do think that having the ability for people to participate, interact, um, and just even have that outreach when we weren't able to offer services or as people still haven't been able to return yet has been so critical. I think just to have some of that social interaction with people are used to seeing every day being able to have those touch points. Um, I think is one of the things that you've really needed to adapt to
Speaker 1 00:20:49 No, Aaron is rise a day program, or is it residential as well?
Speaker 3 00:20:54 Where are they program? Okay.
Speaker 1 00:20:57 So now as people are coming back to you, are you guys fully accepting people? Are you having to introduce much smaller groups?
Speaker 3 00:21:06 Uh, what we've had to do actually is we have basically a, almost a wait list of people who are wanting to return and we don't have the staffing to support them. So I've got about 120 people that have wanted to return to one location or another for our services. We've got about 26 locations across the Metro. Um, and the vast majority of those are day service and vocational, um, service supports. And so we have a lot of people who want to come back to work or to their day program, and we're not able to support them yet with the staffing
Speaker 1 00:21:37 120 people, they were there previous.
Speaker 3 00:21:40 Yes. Yep. So previously,
Speaker 1 00:21:42 Let alone, now, not even to talk about you have them on the wait list and there's where do the new people go.
Speaker 3 00:21:51 Yeah, absolutely. And so a lot of the people who are on that wait list, many of them are still receiving remote services. So we're providing some service to them, but it's not necessarily full day service. And that was actually one of the goals that we had as we were shut down during kind of the peak of the pandemic was we wanted to try and make sure we were able to offer at least a service to every person that we were supporting as much as it sort of fit within what was going on in their lives. And we were able to, so either to try and get people set up for remote services or if they were able to return to program to have them do that safely. But that said our demand and Brian, I'm sure you're running into this too. The demand for remote services is immense. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:32 We have people that prefer it to coming back. Um, it kind of opened
Speaker 1 00:22:36 Pandora's box.
Speaker 2 00:22:38 Yeah. You know, but clients really, really had a difficult time and, um, you know, we were locked on, you know, but they were literally locked down sometimes and wrote poems for, they couldn't leave their bedrooms for, or leave the house, you know, for months. Um, we know that a lot of people we serve, you know, suffer from depression and, um, you know, then you add that, that same feeling to the people, the staff, we used to work with them, not being able to do that. Um, it was, it was a very difficult time and we still probably have both, you know, we, we terminated services to 1300 people, um, when we closed down. So, um, we're not even halfway back yet on bringing those folks back for services. So, um,
Speaker 1 00:23:31 I want to talk a little bit about that because, um, you know, it's kind of, I think going to be the new norm or people get services outside of not just your programs, but a lot of other things, you know, um, that they'll be, they're going to want to keep kind of having those services brought to them instead of going to, do you think that's good? Like I know it puts an extra stress on you cause you can't serve as many. You can't. I mean, it seems like you wouldn't build a service money. It's kind of a one-on-one. Um, how does that affect you guys? And do you think that's really the best for the person? I think it's easy for the person to say, well, I want to have services in my home, but isn't it good for them to be, you know, kind of introduced to, to everyone else and at least be trying to, um, have social relations,
Speaker 2 00:24:34 You know, for the most part, most of our clients are really very social. And I think sometimes it's just a matter of, you know, they got into a routine with the virtual services, but even the virtual services in our case, you know, it's a group of people it's not one-on-one. So, um, they get to interact with each other, you know, in a group like we are right now. Um, there might be eight people on the screen. Um, but our, our goal really originally was once we got back that would fade away. But I think we're going to try to keep it a permanent part of our, um, offerings, not a hundred percent of the time. You know, we see a world where somebody might be working in a job three days a week. They might do a virtual one day a week, you know, it's not all or nothing. And we'd see it still as a, as a good way to learn things and to, um, kind of enriching in some ways, but you're right. Maybe, you know, for some people who would isolate it may not be the best situation, but that's kind of how individual programs are developed around. What's good. And what does the person need? Um, sometimes we have to push people a little bit to maybe do things they don't want to do, but to encourage, but you know, if one, one thing doesn't fit everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:26:05 I would agree with that. I think, you know, looking at offering both customer support, um, to people, so making sure that we can kind of honor their, their wants and their needs and what's going on in their lives and then also to getting that blend. But I think it's almost like what a lot of employers are having to look at for, you know, return to office and offering hybrid models. So I think Brian, you're absolutely right. Having that ability to blend remote services with what in-person service might look like, I think is really critical. You know, one thing I do think about, so I shared my brother is kind of one of my reasons for why I work at rice. He's actually somebody who receives remote services. And I can tell you she's one really excited to be able to return to day program when he can.
Speaker 3 00:26:44 Um, but he really thrives on having that social interaction. And we saw such a huge difference in his demeanor, his family, um, when he was able to finally get remote services versus being at home, he was somebody where he was kind of stuck at home and he has great roommates and wonderful staff in his group home, but you couldn't really go anywhere. And so I think having some recognition that also has people return, if they're more medically fragile, they may have more complex needs being able to balance out what their return looks like and then still continuing to offer some of that service I do think is really critical for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 00:27:18 When you talk to a DSP, you always hear, um, that they, uh, direct support professionals that they really love their job. And what do you think makes that, that they love that job so much and what keeps them there?
Speaker 3 00:27:37 I think it's the people that we serve. You know, I think it's so engaging to be able to see the difference you can make in someone's life. Um, I just think about, you know, our DSP is where they may have just stopped and had the conversation with somebody that we serve. You know, we have a gentleman that we support, he really needed. I think somebody to be very, very engaged, great advocate, um, ask good questions and help make sure that he kind of got the services he needed. And it took a lot of work. It took probably six months. Um, but our DSP who did that support Jennifer, she did such a wonderful job, making sure he eventually ended up with the transportation support team needed the programming he needed. She was competitively employed, you know, and just seeing those kinds of things come to fruition, I think is why people work in this industry is you, you can see that impact you can have in somebody's life and whether it's, you know, fully transformational services or you're seeing that spark, that engagement, that smile, the joy that it brings them to be able to have that social interaction succeed at the job they're working at or a life skill that they're developing.
Speaker 3 00:28:45 You have the ability to think, to really make such an impact on how somebody perceives their world. And I think that's why people do this work.
Speaker 1 00:28:55 So we kind of talked a little bit about the shortage of DSPs, um, and how the it's the competitive rage wage thing can be very difficult. Do you see any help for you guys with the competitive wage problem at all?
Speaker 2 00:29:18 I'm not seeing a lot of health. I think, you know, again, I think it's, um, the burden pretty much is on us to figure out how to make it work and to attract people. Um, you know, I think a lot of ways we, again, I've mentioned earlier, we have to let people know what a great job it is. Um, if they can make the same at McDonald's or work with us, we have to convince people that we're a better long-term career and, you know, um, they might be, um, uh, we want people that will be with us for 25 years, not grow out of a job and, and that it's not an entry level necessarily kind of position. So, um, I think that's the burden on us as to, um, help people understand that what a great job it is. And, um, we're starting to do more advertising with testimonials from our staff and, um, you know, talk about personally what working with our clients means to them so
Speaker 1 00:30:26 Well and they get to change people's lives. Right?
Speaker 2 00:30:30 Absolutely. I mean, that's, um, we get a all staff, we do an all staff meeting once a month and then it's afternoon. Um, and part of our meeting, but that's great technology. We have, we just share success stories. So for half an hour, I had staff talking about, um, a great success story they've had with their client this week. When you hear those stories, it's remarkable people with very severe complicated disabilities, getting jobs and, um, problem solving with employers to get around, you know, difficult work histories and, uh, things like that. And these staff put everything they have and to make, you know, success stories happen. And that's really gratifying for them. Um, not just for the person that are serving, it's like a challenge that they take on and when you succeed, um, it's a big deal. So when you hear those stories, you want other people to hear that and say, wow, you know, that sounds better than flipping hamburgers all day. Um, so I think again, we got kind of complacent in the past and because there were a lot of people to hire. Um, now we have to tell our story a little better.
Speaker 3 00:31:51 Yeah. I think that's a great point. Brian. We were really fortunate. We had the opportunity to partner with spring lake park, high school back in, I think it's 2019. Um, and one of the things we asked a group of high school students who kind of took our proposal to do, um, was give us feedback on our job postings. And they did some market research for us with other high school seniors. You know, do you know what a direct report professional is or a direct service professional? You know, what does a DSP, uh, what does it mean to work in disability services and overwhelmingly, they found that the vast majority of the people they pulled and they fold over a hundred other students, they just didn't know even the terminology. And so some of it is about that outreach, you know, what does it mean to work in our industry?
Speaker 3 00:32:31 What does that look like? I think the idea of having the testimonials is a great one. Um, so then you've done as we were partnering with adult basic and we go and do a presentation about different DSP roles. What does it look like? There's also talked about helping to make sure we can sort of help find the best fit, um, DSP position for any given candidate, you know, at any given time at rise, we probably have between five and 15 open direct support positions. Well, not all of those look identical. Some of them are in life enrichment focused programs. Some of them are more in vocational services. So it might be out at a site where we work within that company. Uh, and so we want to make sure we can also help candidates find the best fit. And so we're looking at what tools and features do we have available with new technology to try and help do that. But I think, again, it gets back to your point, Brian, it is about that outreach. It's about bringing people in sharing our stories, sharing what this looks like and doing it in a way that I think also translates well to a job market. I think people know what it means to go work at. McDonald's you kind of have a sense of what does that look like? I don't people necessarily know if you say I'm a direct support professional, what is that? What is your day-to-day look like? Can
Speaker 1 00:33:43 You, can you kind of give us an idea of what a day to day might look like to a DSP?
Speaker 2 00:33:50 Yeah, it can be pretty wide ranging is there said, you know, we have people working in so many different settings. Most of our work now is in the community. So, um, the DSP in some cases literally picks the clients up in the morning, spends a whole day with them engage in activities or their job, coaching somebody on a job or, um, helping them look for a job. So I really can be different from, um, program to program. But the common thing I think is, you know, they're pretty much with those folks all the time and yeah, but it can be pretty diverse and the tasks can be pretty diverse. So yeah.
Speaker 1 00:34:34 You know, you talked about how the families felt about the direct support professionals, that, how they wanted someone they could trust and who will be there and not have a quick turnover. What is that like? You know, what are the, your clients say about the direct support professionals?
Speaker 2 00:34:55 I was saying, I think it's the same kind of response. Um, they want, they want routine. A lot of times they want to know that the same person's there. Um, every day. Um, it doesn't always work out that way, but continuity, I think is kind of the sticky across the board for families and our clients and, um, you know, trust what they know what to expect every day when they go to work. And sometimes you see behaviors that pop up on their staff changes. And, um, it's kind of like back in the day when I was in school and we had a substitute teacher, sometimes the class didn't the same way as it did before and stuff. Um, I, you know, I think as much as possible, we like to keep that continuity
Speaker 1 00:35:47 And I'm sure it's really hard when you do get turnover with a client because they get pretty attached.
Speaker 3 00:35:55 Well, and I mean, I think if you, if you think about what that looks like, right? So if you're supporting, you know, four people or you're supporting 10 people to know them and to know them pretty well, know their communication preferences, their styles, what a good day looks like for that person, what a bad day looks like for that person and then how to support them, you know, just like regular average, every single day, any employer's workforce, you know, your coworkers, there's somebody you might approach one way and somebody would approach a different way for the same topic. If you think about that for a direct support professional, you want to make sure that, you know, those different sort of tips and tricks for how you support any given individual. And at the same time you're doing that for multiple people, trying to make sure that you have that continuity.
Speaker 3 00:36:38 Then for that knowledge, that knowledge it's often learned. And it's learned probably by supporting somebody's day in and day out. It's really hard to ensure that that just gets documented as well and case notes and sort of transfers to the next person. Right? So I think, especially when you look at what the impact on turnover can be, there's a lot of knowledge loss that happens. And then the burden personally, I think, falls to the person supported to sort of reteach. And whether that's reteach by, you know, the person may try something and it doesn't go as well versus, you know, being able to really know or advocate for yourself. Well, it, ultimately the burden does tend to fall on the people that we serve and that's really difficult. Um, and I think can just be really tiring.
Speaker 2 00:37:21 I would agree a hundred percent. It's just, um, the body of knowledge they have about that person they serve. Um, people recognize when somebody might be sick, they pick up on cues. Uh, we work both our agencies work with people with mental health issues to be in tune to somebody's mental health changing, um, can be really critical. And so, um, you, you start all over again then. I mean, all of us in the workplace like continuity, I like to be around the same people too. I mean, change is hard for a lot of people. So, um, if we can minimize that, it's a lot better
Speaker 1 00:38:04 Talk about the ways that each year companies is reaching out and recruiting an advertising, defined people. Yeah. Now it's working.
Speaker 3 00:38:14 Yeah. Uh, I would say, uh, for us, it's working moderately. Well, I would start there. Um, only in that we have a talent pipeline. We do have candidates coming in, but we see certain jobs where we have no candidates for weeks. And then other positions where we'll see, you know, four, five, six, 15 candidates. Um, and a lot of it becomes, uh, location, uh, were impacted a lot by wages. So for posting a higher level position, we'll see more candidates typically for the higher wage. And then we will, for our more of our entry level position, um, a lot of our strategies kind of involve everything from reaching out to community partners. So whether that's doing the presentations with adult basic ed going to job fairs, which right now mostly are virtual, um, or partnering with local high schools, we're doing a lot of that kind of outreach at the same time needs you just advertisement.
Speaker 3 00:39:04 So we do a lot of pay-per-click and things like social media sites. So Facebook where we post our jobs, we might do pay-per-click on indeed. Um, we use some other, uh, tools right now one's called job target. So it optimizes where a job is listed on any given, um, job search site. So monster ZipRecruiter, wherever it might be, uh, tries to help keep them current, keep them posted, um, and visible, uh, at the same time, we're actually doing a lot of review right now, just the language on our job posting. So how attractive is it? How much does it translate to that external market? Like when I was talking about before, you know, are we using too much industry language? Um, and do we need to shift how we're advertising? Um, and we're taking a pretty serious look at ways.
Speaker 2 00:39:50 Yeah, we're doing a lot of the same kind of things we use. Um, you know, indeed is probably our number one, uh, web based, um, recruiting tool. Um, we've also put in place six months ago, that incentive program for staff who refer people, who we hire and stay, they can earn up to a thousand dollars if the person makes it through, um, a number of milestones. So, um, you know, but you know, even that, which just seems pretty lucrative. We've had some results, but, you know, that's kind of the base problem still there that, um, even they have a little bit difficult time finding people to, to bring in. Um, we also do social media and that's where we've been doing a lot of the, um, highlighting our staff, current staff, um, doing testimonials a lot of Facebook posts, you know, and getting our staff to share those. So they get spread out wide, but it's hard to know how much impact they're really has. Um, despite all that, it's still still kind of a tough mole, but, um, and like Aaron mentioned, I think getting on track and getting into the high schools and getting people again, exposed to what we do for the future. You know, we're dealing with a short-term issue. I think, um, it's a good time to be looking at more long-term solutions that will help us down the road. So, um, hopefully it's a short term situation, but yeah. Brian
Speaker 1 00:41:32 Is the MRC eye. Are they going all community now or are you just still having some? Okay, so what's that like?
Speaker 2 00:41:43 Yeah. I'll give you a little background. We bought two years ago, we did a strategic plan to move our organization to an all community service, um, with just a few exceptions. Um, and when COVID closed us down, we, once we kind of got our feet on the ground, took her the opportunity to make that switch. And we closed, uh, six facilities and, um, our providing all of our day services in the community. So they, they basically have a staff person with four clients and a minivan, and they spend their whole day doing enrichment activities and learning, connecting with people in the community. So what we're trying to do is build a large network of community partners, volunteers, business people, um, who will interact with our clients on a regular basis. And, um, we provided in house work for many years and our day services was basically a work program.
Speaker 2 00:42:48 And we just thought it was, um, our feeling is that we're kind of taking it to the next level of integrating those folks into the community. So, um, we also provide continuing to provide employment, but it's all competitive employment. So we're working with, um, all of our hires and placements are going to be competitive and that part of our business has been booming, um, for hiring, hiring more placement people lately than anything else. Um, and because of the job shortage, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a good time for doing job placement. Um, but so we're looking at a model where people may be part of the day service part of the week, again, maybe working. Um, but, um, we, we kind of took the step to close down our facilities and it has helped us. Resource-wise we're saving a lot.
Speaker 1 00:43:46 I was just going to say, I bet this has been quite a money saver.
Speaker 2 00:43:50 Yeah. So we're pushing that back into our employees. So we did a fairly large wage adjustment a couple of months ago. We're hoping this fall when our health insurance comes up, that we can make some big strides in reducing the costs to benefits for people. Um, so the combination of trying to fully integrate our clients into the community and same time bolster our DSP wages and benefits are kind of part of our big plan. So
Speaker 1 00:44:26 Do you think the socialization will suffer?
Speaker 2 00:44:30 Um, not right so far, it's been great. The people are having a blast. Um, um, they're socializing with a whole lot of more people than they were when they worked in the building. Um, they socialize maybe on a work line where they had 15, 20 people. Now they're out buying coffee, going out to lunch, um, doing lots of other activities where they're around other people all the time without disabilities. So, um, our first go at it and we've only been doing it since about January. Um, the talking to the clients. Um, I interacted a number of times recently with them out in the community. They're having the time of their life. And so other staff, um, I have staff telling me they're having so much more fun than when they worked in house. Um, and that's that enthusiasm that we want to share with, with other people. But, um, so far, I mean, it's, you know, there will always be challenges and roadblocks, but we have, you know, we have one small town in Southern Minnesota. It's adopted our group. I mean, every business in town knows our clients now. Um, so that's integration and that's kind of what, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:45:53 Yeah. I guess that's the best you can hope for is integration, right? Yeah. I want to talk about something and I've heard this talked about a lot and it's marginalization of people with disabilities and some people think that it got even worse in COVID time. And so do you want to talk a little bit about your feelings on that and how you guys see it?
Speaker 2 00:46:21 So I think definitely during COVID, you know, it wasn't a deliberate marginalization, but just because people became so isolated, um, I think our industry, um, you know, well we do for the last 20, 30 years has been moving away from that obviously because, you know, community-based services, community employment, um, you know, basically we're promoting the abilities of the people we serve and, um, helping convince communities and employers that people we serve are just like them. And, um, really are part of the community there. And I've been around long enough to see huge transformations and all services have been provided to people. Um, people live in homes and neighborhoods. Um, they don't live in giant congregate settings anymore. Um, people have money, they're consumers, they, they work. Um, and so they interact the community and I think that's the biggest change we've seen over the last 15, 20 years is our clients are part of their communities. And, um, you know, I, I see less discrimination and, and issues like that now than I did maybe 25 years ago. Um, um, employers are embracing our clients right now. Um, they want good workers and we've done a good job over the years of creating really good workers. So
Speaker 3 00:48:04 Yeah, I think that's a great point. And actually one of the things that I did find, um, heartwarming and encouraging, I think to see during even the peak of the pandemic, when so many employers had large layoff, typically even in program, you can just see the impact. And often, you know, when there's a dip in the economy, a lot of the people who are impacted are people with disabilities. We didn't see that, um, which I think was really encouraging. And I think does speak to the nature of the work that's happened in industry, especially over the last many years. And so I think having the opportunities to see, I think more partnership we've seen, um, that redoubled effort with a lot of those community employers, we have more demand for having sites, um, then we can keep up with right now. And so I think that's really encouraging.
Speaker 3 00:48:54 Um, and I also think that's where again, we've had the opportunity to, I think, see some of the change. I think many employers like MRC, I've had the opportunity to really shift their model or redouble efforts on how are we going to have really great community integration. And what does that look like? How do we think outside the box? And I think to a degree, some of the restrictions that we were working with from department of human services sort of forced us to really think about how are we going to make that work if people are outside, or if they're working in cohorts, how do we make it work, but we want to make it work and we want to get people back to our program. And so I think there's been some opportunity, I think that's come out of it. Um, and so I think we've been able to see some shifts there that I think are really, really encouraging and are very different than what we've seen in the past. But at the same time, I also do think we've seen the impact for people who have been, you know, more sort of stuck at home. You know, their homes look very different now than they do in a group home. But I do think we've seen some of that impact where people haven't had the same opportunity that they did a year ago or two years ago. But I think we're moving back in that direction to make sure that people can get back to program, get back to being integrated into the community. Well,
Speaker 1 00:50:10 And I do want to touch on, I don't know how, um, the people, you know, in your guys's groups did, but I know for even like getting COVID tests or getting the vaccine, even that when, you know, there was such a rush on it, people, if you didn't have somebody really assisting you or, you know, really trying for you, it was hard to get one. Uh, I know for a lot of people who are visually impaired, you know, there's these inaccessible websites, there's, you know, you don't call to get the appointment. You have to go online and if you're not savvy to do that, um, you kind of get left out or, um, you wait much longer, therefore of course increasing the time that you are isolated. So I'm not sure what you sign and your, you know, groups with that.
Speaker 3 00:51:03 I think it really depended on the population, um, and you know, what their living situation was. So I think a lot of the people we saw who live in group homes were actually able to get the vaccine quite quickly. Many of the group homes were able to deliver it with their nursing teams if people were able to get vaccinated quickly. Um, but I think for people who may live more independently need some of that assistance, especially if they may not be back in a program or have somebody who's able to provide that support then yeah, I do think we see people who've had more of an impact. Um, that said, I do think there've been a lot of providers. Who've tried to do the outreach, both for person served and for staff to try and get vaccines. I know we've had the opportunity to get many of our staff vaccinated and as those clinics opened up, we were also able to, um, share some of that information with people in our programs too.
Speaker 2 00:51:52 Yeah, I would agree. I would agree with pretty much what Aaron said. I mean, for us, it, depending on where the clients, where they lived and the resident, those who lived in a residential program, more part of the priority group that got shots earlier, earlier, I think we saw some frustration from families where the client lived at home and they weren't part of that, um, first wave of, um, so, um, and fortunately our staff were able to get vaccinated fairly early as well. So I think we've had about 80% of our staff choose to be vaccinated. That's excellent. We didn't mandate it by week, but you know, that's a good, and that's, those are the game changers to getting back to normal for us. And when the staff and the clients are vaccinated and now, you know, it's much easier if these restrictions have come off, but, um,
Speaker 1 00:52:45 Can you give us, uh, each of you tell us where people can go to find out more about your company and to maybe look at what your job offers are on your websites? No, go ahead.
Speaker 3 00:52:57 Uh, so ours is www.rise.org. Uh, and if you're looking for our job postings it's slash jobs, um, we also advertise on indeed, like I was saying, um, and we have social media pages as well. Um, but they can learn a lot about our programming. We have some really great pages that also just talk about what we do and the different programs that we offer. Um, we do programming beyond just our day services as well.
Speaker 2 00:53:21 Yeah. And our website is www my mrc.org and you go to the employment tab and we have a pretty wide ranging list of job openings and you can apply online also with indeed. So, um,
Speaker 1 00:53:40 Any final comments that either of you want to make,
Speaker 2 00:53:44 Thank you for having us, like, you know, this is a great forum to talk about what a great place it is to work in our industry. So I appreciate the opportunity to do that. You are so welcome.
Speaker 3 00:53:57 Yes. Thank you for having us on. And Brian, thank you so much for sharing what the experience has been like for MRC. I to move to such a community integrated model, I was really curious to hear, um, how that's gone. So thank you for sharing that. And Sam, thank you for having me on and for getting to talk a little bit about what it's like in disability services and working arise.
Speaker 1 00:54:15 Well, good luck to both of you in regards to, um, employment and, um, people coming back to your services. Thank you. This has been disability and progress. The views expressed on this show are not necessarily those, the cafe or its board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show, Charlene dolls, my research team and Annie Harvey was my engineer. This is Kathy I 90.3, FM, Minneapolis and KFC. I bet org our emailing list is disability and
[email protected]. Check out our podcast tonight. We were speaking with Brian Ben Chu. Brian is the CEO of MRC I, a nonprofit of a vocation and they service program in Minnesota and Aaron Grafton. Marin is a, um, vice president of human resources for rise, Inc. My name is Sam. Thanks so much for listening tonight.
