Written by: Susan Marks, Human Capital Partner, USHCA
While there has been a great deal of coverage in recent months about the great resignation and concern around the teacher shortage, districts are facing a lesser talked about staffing struggle. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, PK-12 schools were experiencing staffing shortages beyond classroom teachers, special education positions and administrators. Many school districts reported significant vacancies among classified employees, such as bus drivers, security staff, food services, maintenance, and custodial staff. A lot of this is due to the considerable competition for this type of talent from companies such as Amazon, local government and local companies that allow telecommuting. Staffing shortages in school districts extend across all job categories.
Attracting classified staff requires targeted recruitment strategies unique to the many different roles and positions available. While traditional recruitment strategies such as referral bonuses, signing bonuses and retention incentives can be helpful, understanding the distinctive needs of your district’s context is important in setting the recruitment strategy for your classified staff.
Use best practices to source and recruit candidates for your various classified vacancies:
- Promote your district/school as an attractive workplace. Consider your employer value proposition and total rewards offerings.
- Make your compensation competitive!
- Identify sources of high-quality candidates.
- Make the application process easy so candidates can apply via mobile phone.
- Have information available in multiple languages that represent your community.
- Analyze the external labor market and address the gaps in your workforce plan.
- Create effective job postings.
- Engage existing high-performing classified staff to be ambassadors.
- Build partnerships/programs to expand your talent pipeline including apprenticeship programs for trade positions.
- Hire retirees for hard-to-fill positions.
Use targeted strategies based on your district’s context and shortage areas to recruit and hire classified employees.
- Pair Recognition of Employees with Targeted Job Fairs and Activities: For example, partner with the transportation office and recognize bus drivers for their great work and also hold a job fair at the same event. Current employees can act as ambassadors. These events can be held for different critical need positions.
- Hold recruitment events for classified staff at specific schools that have Special Programs or critical needs: For example, schools that have several special education programs can source paraeducators from the community the school serves. These targeted fairs have been successful, particularly for part-time paraeducator positions.
- Hold Pop-Up Job Fairs based on critical need areas. Pop-ups can be easily set up at shopping malls, at Farmer’s Markets and other Community Activities
- Hold Drop-in sessions at HR – Hold office hours to answer questions, and assist candidates in applying for positions. Have current employees available to connect with potential candidates.
- Expand employment for individuals across departments – Help classified employees obtain full-time and/or year-round employment. For example, bus drivers can also be hired as student monitors and paraeducators (to give them 8 hours of work a day). Guarantee summer work to provide 12-month schedules for other classified positions.
Make sure your website highlights and features classified positions: Here are some examples:
- Highlight the Career Opportunities for classified staff in your district. Often classified staff enter the district in entry level positions but advance to higher levels of leadership. As such, highlighting the opportunities in your district can be a strong recruitment tactic. Creating Career Pathways for classified employees to improve their knowledge and skills that will enable them to achieve their career goals is a hiring incentive.
- Having current staff create testimonials about specific positions. Here are some examples:
- Substitute Teachers: Consider hiring permanent subs for buildings with higher pay and benefits. On days the building is fully staffed, use subs to provide additional support elsewhere.
- Partner with local companies and your city’s Workforce Development Initiatives: Reflect on your community context and think about these questions:
- What companies have part-time employees that may be interested in supplemental income and/or benefits?
- Are there small business owners that may be interested in supplemental work that provides benefits?
- Are there companies that had recent layoffs?
- Can we partner with small businesses to train candidates for trade or specialized positions?
Our classified employees are critical to the operations, and are often the heartbeat of school districts. Seek feedback from classified employees about their experiences as a candidate and their work experiences in your district. Provide high quality professional development and implement programs to recognize their contributions to your school district. Provide a great first year experience and ensure that there are career pathways for your classified staff. Their retention is as important as teachers and administrators.
We encourage you to learn more about USHCA by heading over to our website- https://ushcacademy.org/ or contacting us to help you navigate your HR strategies for your school system – https://ushcacademy.org/contact/