Our Collective Disregard for Frontline Staff

In all fields of work, staff want to feel both valuable and valued. This includes the nonprofit world, where, despite claims to the contrary, the work is not always the reward. It is true nonprofit employees have dedicated their careers to helping others and that this dedication is authentic, but this call to mission does not supersede the need for respect and a living wage. Most nonprofit leaders have some level of understanding of this and appreciate in theory the challenging conditions nonprofit staff, particularly those in frontline roles, face. However, too many accept these challenges as inevitable, absolving themselves of the responsibility to do something about it.  

With over 1.4 million organizations employing over 11 million people in the U.S. alone, the nonprofit sector is a major contributor to the culture and economy of our country producing nearly $1 trillion annually. Despite this, we have created and subsequently accepted the fact that the very lifeblood of these organizations- the frontline staff- are not worthy of reasonable benefits, career development opportunities, or, in many cases, a living wage. We have accepted the resulting turnover rates- far higher than those in both the public and private sectors– as the nature of the proverbial beast and as a result, have steadfastly refused to do a bloody thing about it.

Sure, we try to make it look like we appreciate and recognize the work of our frontline staffs, not with adequate pay and professional growth, of course, but we sure do throw a good potluck and shout out our teams during whatever national recognition week best captures the work they do. There is nothing inherently wrong with these acts, of course, but it is reprehensible to begin and end with them. What staff really want- in any field at any level- is the chance to do what they do best; the opportunity to grow and advance; the ability to successfully balance their personal and professional lives; and the security of adequate compensation. Yet knowing this, we continue to underpay, undertrain and undervalue our frontline staffs.

There is great consequence and irony to this decision. For starters, direct service organizations pride themselves on being relationship-based, yet we’ve created a system of staff management that essentially guarantees high turnover. Further, in the name of frugality and high ratings on Charity Navigator’s program expenses, many of us knowingly underpay our frontline workers, a financial strategy that directly contributes to high staff turnover, costing us far more than a mere pay increase would.

As a result, annual turnover in the nonprofit world hangs around 19%, higher than both the private and public sectors. Turnover rates vary depending on the type of nonprofit, with some, like the afterschool world, experiencing rates closer to 40%. Frontline staff consistently leave at the highest rate of any of our nonprofit members.

Despite our best efforts to convince ourselves otherwise, this high turnover rate is not inevitable, and in fact we, as nonprofit leaders, are the ones responsible for it. We have not only created it, but we continue to perpetuate it. Through systemic disregard for our respective frontline staffs, we are essentially pushing them out of the field. 

WE PAY THEM TOO LITTLE

According to the 2016 Nonprofit Employment Practices Survey, the number one staffing challenge for nonprofits has been the ability to offer a competitive wage. The second biggest challenge is finding qualified staff. These are not unrelated. In the same way most people who enter the nonprofit sector do not do so to become rich, they also do not do it to become poor. With all the other challenges that come with frontline work, financial insecurity becomes too much for many to bear. When the time comes, nearly half of the talent that leaves the nonprofit sector will never return.

Frontline staff in most nonprofits are inadequately paid. In particular, frontline staff in the early childhood, home and personal care sectors of the nonprofit world are consistently paid at a level that is considered below a living wage. In a field that advocates strongly for its clients, we are not doing such a great job of advocating for our teams.  

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, social service agencies pay workers less than any other sector of similarly qualified people and consistently rank among the five-worst-paying professional jobs available.  

Many argue that the problem largely stems from nonprofit leadership whose top priorities do not include compensation or professional development opportunities for frontline staff. This same leadership often accepts board and funding reluctance to provide these opportunities instead of advocating for the prioritization of developing and retaining high quality staff.

Compensation involves far more than pay, of course, and here too we fall short. In certain nonprofit areas- particularly in youth development- an emphasis on part-time staff generally means a lack of benefits, health insurance and paid time off primarily among them. Even for full-time staff, perks and benefits are often sorely lacking making an already too-low salary that much harder to accept.

WE WORK THEM TOO MUCH

Busyness has become a badge of honor in our culture and nonprofits play their part. We have convinced ourselves that skipping lunch proves how much we care about our work. We compete on who is most tired and take pride in leaving our vacation days unused. We work for executive directors who model self-sacrifice while waxing poetic on the importance of self-care. We have inadvertently and undoubtedly shamed our frontline staffs into neglecting their own needs for the sake of our clients.

We interpret these displays as examples of dedication and hard work when research has shown time and time again that this is simply untrue. Our minds, our bodies and our psyches are not built to work tirelessly without end. Rather, it has been shown time and time again that taking breaks improves productivity and that working extra hours is largely inefficient and ineffective.

Despite this, we plod on, ensuring higher turnover, as a result.

In a sector already filled with contributing factors for turnover, we exacerbate the situation by demanding more than is reasonable. As a result, roughly half of nonprofit workers describe themselves as burned out or in danger of becoming so. The most significant contributor to this burnout is unsurprisingly related to staffing. As positions remain unfilled or are eliminated altogether, the extra work is distributed among the remaining staff. This extra work generally does not replace current responsibilities but instead adds to them.

WE TRAIN THEM TOO LITTLE

In the same vein of busyness, we have decided that taking time to adequately prepare and train our staffs is time poorly spent. Instead we proudly declare that we are going to “build the plane while flying it” and “throw ourselves into the fire”. We accept this strategy as an inevitability because of our busyness and, much like our overloaded to do lists, we admire those who can adjust and adapt. What we fail to understand, however, is that, just because staff can jump right in doesn’t mean they should. Without proper training, staff cannot be expected to perform at their highest level.

This strategy or lack thereof is not without consequence. In fact, this lack of adequate training and support is a major contributor to staff turnover.

WE DEVALUE THEM TOO MUCH

As nonprofit leaders, we are quick to verbalize how important personal relationships are to fulfilling our missions, and we frequently acknowledge how hard frontline work is. In the same breath we devalue this work by undercompensating it, under developing it and offering it to people with little background or training. This is particularly true in the youth development world, which is all too willing to embrace those with a curiosity about working with children but without background or training in it.

Further, despite frontline employees having the highest rate of turnover of any nonprofit staff, we do next to nothing to prevent it. In fact, only 16% of nonprofits have any type of retention strategy, and over half of nonprofits admit to having no plans to change this. Imagine the true number if everyone answered such questions honestly.

Even if lower pay and less training were inevitable- and they most certainly are not- we have the capability and creativity to provide other benefits to our teams. Sadly, we do not. For example, despite over 90% of U.S. workers wanting telecommuting opportunities, less than half of nonprofits provide them.  Of course, there are natural limitations to these opportunities when working directly with clients, but this does not mean there are no opportunities at all. How much time does your staff currently spend on administrative tasks, case notes, database entry and the like? Is there any reason you can think of why they cannot do this from home?

An interesting note- when doing my research for this blog post, I relied heavily on the oft-cited Nonprofit Employment Practices Survey published in 2016 by Nonprofit HR. In perhaps the most glaring example of irony yet, 89% of data collected came from executive and HR staff, while only 2% came from frontline staff themselves. Aren’t we supposed to be the field that believes in empowering clients to use their own voices and speak their own truths? 

WE DEVELOP THEM TOO LITTLE

Although professional growth is essential to job satisfaction, in the nonprofit world, we have deemed it a luxury rather than a necessity. In the name of fiscal responsibility and time management, we prevent our staffs from taking full advantage of professional development opportunities, denying them, and our organizations, deeper opportunity for impact and growth. In an even worse iteration of this, some of us have the chutzpa to ask our employees to attend trainings on their own time with their own dime.

Money isn’t the only issue. As nonprofit leaders, we have every capability to sit down with our staffs at no financial cost and give them the proper supervision and feedback they need and deserve. However, instead of doing so, we fall back on our busyness and lack of time as an excuse not to offer this support. This lack of support helps ensure dissatisfaction and eventual exit. Even though we know that professional growth opportunities help increase retention and that limited advancement opportunities decrease it, we refuse to invest the time and energy needed to make this happen.  

Further, we do not advocate and advance the conversation with our respective boards and funders that professional development is essential to our success. As a result, only 1% of grants given from 1992-2011 supported nonprofit staff development. Instead of accepting this, it is up to us to change it.

WE TAKE ADVANTAGE TOO MUCH

Frontline staff are the lifeblood of any organization. They are the face of the organization to the clients and the ones who perform the most direct and impactful work to achieve our missions. We recognize their passion (and hopefully share it), yet we often take this appreciation several steps too far by taking our staffs and their dedication for granted. Consciously or subconsciously we hold our staffs hostage to the relationships and care they have for the clients they have committed to serve. And it often works. Temporarily. Staff will stay longer than they may have otherwise, out of obligation and dedication to our clients. But of course, this only lasts so long. Even the most dedicated of staff has personal and financial goals that can only be ignored for so long.

________________________________________________________________________________________

The tone of this post is intentionally strong. I’m quite sure many of you reading it will be quick to point out the challenges you face in properly addressing this very important issue. As someone who has been both a frontline staff and a nonprofit executive, I understand and have experienced these same challenges. It is not my intention to minimize them or ignore them. Instead, it is my hope that we begin to push back against them in a collective and systemic way. As long as we continue to accept this way of operating as just the way it is, our results will continue to be just the way they are. If, instead, we begin to educate, challenge and advocate with our boards and funders to change the way we operate, we can begin to make the changes our sector so desperately needs. There is a remarkable amount of talent and power in the nonprofit sector. Let us begin to more intentionally nurture it not just for the betterment of our clients but for ourselves as well.