By Deb Risden
El Paso County School District 49 is in the process of renewing its annual Voice of the Workforce system. The VoW received national recognition from the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program earlier this year.
VoW is a year-round process that asks the workforce to help identify areas for improvement and explore possible solutions.
Paul Anderson, D 49’s executive director of people and culture, said the district’s VoW system formally began around 2014 with an employee survey. Today, it operates on an annual cycle that includes a workforce survey, learning tours, a workforce collaboration team and a spring rollout to share the findings.
Paul Anderson, D 49’s executive director of people and culture, said the district’s VoW system formally began around 2014 with an employee survey. Today, it operates on an annual cycle that includes a workforce survey, learning tours, a workforce collaboration team and a spring rollout to share the findings.
The survey
The workforce survey begins in late August. Employees are asked to review matters such as advancement opportunities, compensation, communication with managers, coworker relationships, workplace safety and having the right tools to do their jobs. Participation is consistently above 90%, which Anderson considers one of the strongest indications that employees believe their responses matter.
“We acknowledge what our workforce is telling us,” Anderson said. “We take what they tell us, and we make changes based on what they tell us.”
An outside data analysis firm analyzes the data and benchmarks it against high-performing educational organizations.
Surveys are sent to students, parents and the workforce by email and are also posted on social media.
In-person conversations
Beginning in the fall, D 49 Superintendent Peter Hilts conducts VoW Learning Tours, meeting with employees at every school and department.
About 20% of the workforce participates in the tours each year, with different employees selected each year. Groups include various roles and levels of experience — teachers, paraprofessionals, office staff, facilities workers, nutrition workers and others.
The in-person conversations provide in-depth information and context. Employees provide input on the reasons for problems, identify what is working well or describe how various groups support one another.
“Teachers might praise paraprofessionals, and they’ll tell us how much they rely on front office support,” Hilts said.
District employees identify needs
The Workforce Collaboration Team is where much of the information collected comes together. The team has about 80 members, with two or three representatives from each school and representatives from district departments such as transportation and nutrition services.
Justin Mendell, a teacher at Falcon High School who has served on the team for five years, describes it as D 49’s continuous improvement strategy specifically centered around its workforce.
The team meets quarterly to look at survey results, feedback from the learning tours and ideas brought forward by employees through their individual schools or department representatives.
“We want to bring that to the team,” Mendell said. He said ideas that begin informally in a school can become potential district initiatives.
Beth Rohr, a teacher at Falcon High School who served on the team for five years while teaching at Falcon Middle School, said the opportunity to represent coworkers makes the time worthwhile.
“People generally feel more satisfaction in the workplace when they feel like their idea was heard and considered,” Rohr said.
Margaret Jurek, a Vista Ridge High School teacher, said transparency is important. Jurek has been with the team since the early days, when it started as a teacher compensation task force.
“Getting the (information) upfront about what’s going on in the budget helped us understand that we run on a shoestring budget. If we’re taking care of our teachers, we may not be able to take care of another group,” Jurek said.
Teacher housing, for example, was discussed by the team but ultimately did not move forward because of financial and practical concerns.
Hilts said employees understand that the district cannot act on every suggestion and that it matters that the district responds and explains its reasoning.
Alyssa Nicholson, now an assistant principal at Sand Creek High School, was involved with the collaboration team as a new teacher. She said one of the most valuable parts of the experience was getting direct access to district decision makers early in her career.
“As a newer teacher in my first couple years, I got face time with the powers that be,” Nicholson said. “I got to sit in front of the superintendent, CFO, director of HR and say, ‘Here are things that are important to me as a new employee.’ So many times in a workforce you feel like you’re spinning your wheels. Genuinely, we got to do things that had a real impact on change.”
As an administrator, she cannot be a member of the collaboration team.
From voice to change
The list of changes connected to the VoW process includes salary schedule revisions, paraeducator compensation, bereavement leave, professional development opportunities, years-of-service awards and remote work options for eligible employees.
Mendell said a major salary schedule revision was driven by concerns expressed through the workforce survey and learning tours. The team worked through the issue over the course of a year, with the goal of making D 49’s compensation more competitive in the Colorado Springs region.
Nicholson participated in a subcommittee that examined how the district could recognize employees for years of service. The resulting milestone bonus structure was implemented the following year.
Anderson points to paraeducator compensation as another significant example. When D 49 was having difficulty hiring and retaining paraeducators, teachers on the collaboration team advocated for increased compensation. The administration responded with a recommendation to the Board of Education. Anderson said the change had a dramatic impact on the district’s ability to attract and retain paraeducators.
For Hilts, however, one of the most meaningful results is not a particular policy. He said he is proud that employees have learned to advocate for other workforce groups, not just themselves.
Continuing to evolve
The process has evolved over the years, just as the collaboration team itself evolved from a teacher compensation group into a workforce-wide organization.
As part of D 49’s broader 49 Voices system, Hilts conducts Voice of the Student listening tours with students from every middle and high school, including charter schools.
The district has added a Voice of the Parent component with a survey and Voice of the Parents tours in each zone.
Jurek said the result is a district culture in which employees feel decisions are made with them rather than simply handed down to them.
“I really feel like this process makes it feel like things are done with us and not to us,” she said.
“The biggest thing is the ability to give voice to the workforce. … This is one of those things that we really try to live out our district’s mission to be the best place to learn, work and lead,” Nicholson said.
