Helping people can be a rewarding experience. 

 

But sometimes it can be a stressful job.

 

Sherburne County Health & Human Services (HHS) is dealing with a high turnover rate in its department, partially because of stress, but also for a number of other reasons.

 

“Agency staffing is on the top of my list,” HHS Director Mary Jo Cobb told the board of commissioners last week. “It’s been a very big challenge - 2015 was a busy year as far as staff turnover.”

 

HHS had 44 open job postings in 2015, about 25% of the entire department.

 

Eight were new positions. The rest were a result of resignations, retirements and staff switching positions within the department.

 

Cobb said currently, 10 people have more than 30 years in the department. Five of those are supervisors and four of those are talking about retirement.

 

“So I don’t see that 2016 and 2017 are going to be any better for me in terms of staffing,” she said.

 

Planner Amanda Larson said she has been tracking the reasons why people leave. There were 19 resignations in 2015.

 

“There are very typical reasons for resignations: advancement opportunities more money, people decide to stay at home again,” she said. “People are finding more choices. The economy, at least for job seekers, is picking up. It really is an employees market.”

 

Larson said many of the younger employees have a different view of their job.

 

“Because employees have more choices within the job market, they’re starting to cite different reasons, like dissatisfaction - they want more flexibility,” she said. “Millennials are less likely to tough it out.” 

 

Cobb said stress is another reason people either leave the department, or switch jobs within the department when they get a chance.

 

“There’s a ripple effect. People within the same job class can move into a position if it opens up,” she said.

 

Last year, when HHS received additional child protection funding, one staff person moved into that area. 

 

“That opened her position, which was vulnerable adults. Then someone moved into that position and someone had to move into the next position,” said Cobb. “So we had quite a bit of transition at that point.”

 

She said all the problems with MNsure have led to people leaving. 

 

“It’s been a lot of stress on receptionists who take the calls and try to put them through to the MNsure hotline,” she said. 

 

Child protection staff are leaving because it’s too stressful. The decisions are so difficult and the expectations have gotten higher. 

 

“After you watch families implode and you watch kids hurt, that can cause a lot of internal stress. People can only do child protection for so long, then they need to do something else,” said Cobb. “For the first time I can remember people are actually saying, “I can’t do this job anymore”.”

 

Larson said job duties have changed over the years, making some positions difficult to fill. Lynn Cox has 35 years in the department and will be retiring soon.

 

“She was hired to be the director’s assistant. Since then, she’s added supervision of all clerical staff,  human resources, doing all the data retraction and program access security,” said Larson.

 

“So when she utters the “R” word (retirement) we know trying to find one person that will fit her position and all those different competencies will be very difficult.”

 

“In my unit of nine clerical workers, in 2015, six of them turned over,” said Cox. “It’s taken time to train those people on phones again.”

 

Training new staff is a big issue. Cobb said a study of training procedures shows it costs about $549 in other staff hours to train an office assistant. It costs $630 to train a social worker.

 

It takes 240 hours of training for new MNsure staff before they can start in the system.

 

Cobb said the department is dealing with the turnover by streamlining the orientation process to become more efficient, so it takes new employees less time to learn their jobs.

 

The department will also be installing a new phone system that directs callers to their application, instead of having a staff person answer the phone and spend time doing the research.

 

“About 70% of our calls are for income maintenance-related issues,” said Cobb. “We’re really hoping this will save us a lot of time.”

 

The department is also looking into more flexible hours and work locations, which may prevent some people from leaving.

 

“We’re hoping that investing in our employees a little bit more, they’ll be a little happier,” said Cobb. “We’re supporting our staff as much as we can.”