2. DATIS HR Cloud is a HR & Payroll software
company. Our fully unified solution is based
around Position Control and was built to
meet the unique, complex needs of the
nonprofit sector. With over 20 years of
experience with Health and Human Services
and Nonprofit organizations, our software
has empowered hundreds of organizations
around the country to control their costs,
maximize their budgets, and better achieve
their mission.
3. WE ASKED. EXECUTIVES ANSWERED.
DATIS surveyed over 400 executives in the nonprofit sector. Multiple
industries, from Mental Health to Child and Family, were represented
in this survey. The responses from participants helped build the 2018
State of Workforce Management report, which identified top industry
trends and strategies for success in this ever-evolving industry.
5. RESPONDENT DEMOGRAPHICS
How many employees do you
currently employ?
Which best represents your job function
within your organization?
48%
28%
5%
9%
4%
1% 5%
22%
9%
27%
1%
41%
CEO
HR
Finance
IT
Operations
< 250
501 – 750
1001 - 1500
250 - 500
751 - 1000
1501 - 2000
> 2000
6. TOP 3 PRIORITIES
• Recruiting & Retaining Top Talent
• Increasing Employee Engagement & Satisfaction
• Maintaining Regulatory Compliance
9. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
What is the biggest obstacle your organization faces
when it comes to recruiting top talent?
Lack of Recruiting Strategy
Posting Positions to the
Correct Job Boards
Long Recruiting Cycles
Lack of Qualified Applicants
Offering Competitive Pay
and Benefits
8%
33%
1%
53%
5%
11. Disagree
THE GOOD
The employees at your organization
are emotionally invested at work.
Your organization makes a conscious effort
to engage employees.
18%
55%
21%
5%
1%
24%
51%
2%
16%
Strongly Agree
Neutral
Strongly Disagree
Agree
7%
Disagree
Strongly Agree
Neutral
Strongly Disagree
Agree
12. 34%
Yes, We Currently Have a Plan
That Was Recently Updated
No, We Currently Do Not Have a
Plan, But Intend to Make One
Yes, We Currently Have a Plan, But It
Has Not Been Recently Updated
No, We Currently Do Not Have a Plan,
Nor Do We Intend to Make One
Does Your Organization Have a
Plan to Increase Employee
Engagement?
STRATEGY STRUGGLES
28%
34%
4%
14. Disagree
Your organization struggles to keep up with with the
latest rules and regulations impacting your industry.
To what extent has your organization experienced
compliance issues within the last 12 months?
23%
22%
33%
18%
4%
14%
62%
2%
Strongly Agree
Neutral
Strongly Disagree
Agree
22%
No Issues
Many Issues
Few Issues
Several Issues
KEEPING UP
15. CONTRADICTING DATA
Your organization has the adequate tools in place to
maintain compliance with current and future regulations.
Strongly Agree
Neutral
Strongly Disagree
Agree
Disagree
15%
51%
26%
8%
1%
17. Other
How often does your organization
perform employee appraisals?
Your organization currently struggles
communicating between departments.
14%
73%
6% 7%
15%
51%
1%
Quarterly
Annually
Bi-Annually
13%
Disagree
Strongly Agree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Disagree
20%
20. Slightly Likely
How likely is your organization to
increase its headcount in 2018?
How do you expect your workforce management
budget to change in 2018?
27%
25%
11%
21%
10%
50%
3%
Extremely Likely
Moderately Likely
Very Likely
10%
Decrease Slightly
Increase Significantly
No Change
Increase Slightly
Decrease Significantly
28%
17%
Unlikely
(Quick overview of survey)
Back in December the DATIS team surveyed 428 nonprofit executives about their current priorities, challenges, and goals. This is our second annual State of Workforce Management Survey, and we’ll be discussing key results and findings throughout this presentation.
Before we go into the results, I wanted to quickly run through the respondent demographics. The vast majority of respondents were nonprofit executives, with more than half representing the mental health industry.
More than 75% of respondents worked at organizations with 500 or less employees, and assumed a title in HR, Finance, or active CEO.
Early on in the survey, we asked participants to reveal their top three priorities for 2018 and provided them a with a list of the top trends experts had predicted for the year ahead. From that list, the top three priorities identified by respondents were Recruiting & Retaining Top Talent, Increasing Employee Engagement & Satisfaction, and Maintaining Regulatory Compliance. The major difference from last year’s State of Workforce Management Survey is that employee engagement has gained a lot more attention, and has become a hot topic for nonprofit organizations over the past few months. Additionally, Maintaining Regulatory Compliance replaced the Drive Towards Digital as a top 3 priority from our survey conducted in 2017.
Recruiting and retaining top talent was the top priority for nonprofit executives for 2018.
For each priority that respondents selected, they were then asked a series of questions to dive deeper into the challenges they were experiencing and how they plan to improve their processes in the new year. When respondents were asked to rate their organization’s ability to attract top talent, only 22% described it as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good.’ More alarmingly, over 40% of respondents described their organization’s ability to attract talent as ‘poor’ or ’fair.’ It’s fair to say that most respondents believe there is room for improvement when it comes to their recruiting strategy for the year ahead.
We then wanted to determine why organizations were struggling to attract talent and recruit quality candidates to their organization. We found that more than half of respondents state that their inability to offer competitive pay and benefits was their biggest hurdle, followed by a third of respondents saying they are having trouble finding qualified applicants. Finding cost effective benefits such as PTO and work from home days can help lure potential candidates to compete with other organizations in their industry, while implementing recruitment software that automatically posts to top job sites can ensure that you’re job posts reach the the right candidates at the right time.
The second top priority for executives in 2018 is increasing employee engagement and satisfaction, with executives looking for ways to have a more productive and happy workforce.
Fortunately, we found some positive data that indicated that organizations have a solid foundation for employee engagement. For starters, almost three quarters of respondents admitted that their employees and coworkers are emotionally invested in their work. An emotional connection to one’s work is a key driver for engagement and satisfaction. Additionally, 75% of respondents also said that their organization is already making a conscious effort to engage employees.
Unfortunately, we start to run into problems when it comes to strategy. It’s great to make an effort to engage employees, but it’s useless if those efforts are not backed up by an official plan or strategic process. Only 34% of survey participants said that their organization has an updated employee engagement strategy, remarkably 8% less than last year. 38% admitted to not having a plan whatsoever. If executives want to have a more engaged workforce in 2018, they’ll need to set time aside to come up with a strategic plan to engage employees and stick to it throughout the year.
The final priority that we will dive into during this webinar will be maintaining regulatory compliance. Obviously, nonprofit organizations, especially those in the Health and Human Services sector, have an obligation and are required to comply with all local, state, and federal rules and regulations, so it’s no surprise that regulatory compliance is a priority.
When it comes to compliance, as just stated, its crucial to stay on top of changes, additions, and updates to all local, state, and federal rules and regulations. We found that over 25% of organizations are currently struggling to keep up with the latest rules and regulations impacting their industry. Additionally, 78% of organizations reportedly experienced compliance issues in the past 12 months. This number has gone up almost 25%, where last year 53% of respondents revealed they encountered compliance issues.
Oddly enough, with so many organizations experiencing compliance issues, a majority of respondents believe that they have adequate tools in place to ensure compliance. This presents an interesting contradiction, and indicates that either their tools are ineffective in eliminating compliance issues, or they are unaware of more efficient tools out there. Today’s modern HR software features go above and beyond to ensure compliance and make sure that all employee credentials are collected, up to date, and organized correctly.
Since we have some time left, I also wanted to share some other interesting stats we discovered outside of the top three priorities.
For starters, we found that 73% of organizations still rely on annual appraisals. With employee engagement a popular topic this year, it’s important for organizations to assess performance more frequently than once a year. Studies also show that more frequent performance appraisals increase productivity and help managers assess the effectiveness of employees. Another interesting stat we found is that 66% of organizations are unable to effectively communicate between departments. This is likely due to the fact that many organizations have too many systems in place throughout their numerous departments.
On that note, we wanted to see exactly how many systems these organizations had in place, and why they were experiencing trouble communicating internally. We found that almost HALF of the respondent organizations have 3 or more systems implemented. From experience, I’ve found that different systems often speak different languages, which causes problems when departments need to transfer and understand data from another department within their organization. In 2018, executives who are experiencing these issues should seriously consider a unified system that encompasses all aspects of an organization, from HR, to Payroll, to onboarding, and so on.
Now let’s look forward into the year ahead to see what we can expect from nonprofit organizations in 2018.
We found that almost half of organizations are extremely or very likely to increase their headcount in the new year. This means that executives will have to reevaluate their recruitment strategy and make sure they have all the right tools in place to hire the right people at the right time, without going over budget. We also found that 60% of organizations expect their workforce management budget to increase. With more money circulating, it’s important for executives to identify the areas of their organization that need the most improvement. From our research, we found that compliance and internal communication are a couple of those areas.