At the NAPSEC 2024 Annual Leadership Conference, we had the opportunity to engage with leading professionals in special education. We shared strategies, current trends, and our commitment to employee engagement. We are thrilled to be a part of this community serving students with special needs!

Startling Statistics Revealed

During our presentation, we highlighted some concerning statistics about workplace trends in the United States.   

If you missed our presentation, a few stats we shared are worth repeating here: 

• Low Trust in Leadership: Only 23% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they trust their organization’s leadership. 
• Recognition Deficit: Just 23% of employees strongly feel they receive adequate recognition for their work. 
• High Job Monitoring: Over half (51%) of global workers are seeking or open to new job opportunities. 
• Disconnect with Organizational Culture: Only 22% of employees feel connected to their organization’s culture. 
• Values and Daily Work Misalignment: Merely 25% of U.S. employees can strongly apply their organization’s values to their daily work, and about 33% strongly believe in these values.

For more detailed insights, you can refer to the original Gallup articles: Diagnosing a Broken Culture and Worrying Workplace Numbers  

Are these areas where your organization needs to focus to enhance employee engagement and retention? They were for The Children’s Guild – and this is how we did it.  

The Children’s Guild’s Approach  

To address these challenges, we asked our staff three critical questions during our ‘listening tour’: 

1. What do you want to keep? 
2. What do you want to throw away? 
3. What do you want to renovate? 

 We gathered responses in various formats and compiled a task list to ensure that employees felt heard and leadership remained accountable for implementing changes. 

Tools and Success 

At our NAPSEC session, we shared some tools like the Energy Check tool, Culture Card, and Awards Recognition which you can use to adapt to your needs.  

Since implementing these and other initiatives, we’ve seen increased trust between front-line staff and management, improved recognition of staff, and engagement, including 100% participation in donations from upper management during the annual fund year-end campaign.  

Join us at NatCon 24

We’re excited to share similar insights at NatCon 24, hosted by The National Council for Mental Wellbeing, April 15-17 in St. Louis. We hope to see you there for another round of valuable learning and networking!