The Leading Edge of Corrections

 

To Stay or Not To Stay... That is the Question

by Dr. Mark Harris, Research Manager

Winter 2010

Wyoming residents often sport a love/hate relationship with the state. They love the hunting/hate the wind…love easy access to the great outdoors/find the shopping lacking…enjoy the lack of traffic/but wish for better entertainment. In the eyes of many, the State offers a wealth of positive elements worth exploring. One major factor in the state’s favor is the beautiful wide open spaces and accompanying small population. At times, though, the “challenges” of life in the Wild West or better economic opportunities elsewhere may begin to tip the scale and cause workers and their families to consider other options. This is true for most Wyoming employers, including the Wyoming Department of Corrections.

When asked about their jobs, employees of WDOC are found to be generally satisfied with their work. Even so, we’re still facing challenges with employee retention, and the Department of Corrections wanted to know why. The answers lie within the Employee Survey administered in 2009. The survey represented an opportunity for WDOC workers to register their opinions with the agency. The Department of Corrections is using this information to shape the agency’s retention efforts. The challenge was for department administrators to seek out and understand how employees, who have been in their current positions for one to three years, felt about their work and community environments. In response to the need, eligible employees were invited to respond to a survey questionnaire that addressed major areas of concern. The results took our initial suspicions and clarified the picture, telling the story of WDOC employees and their reasons for staying with their jobs or pursuing other opportunities.

Generally speaking, survey respondents expressed high levels of satisfaction with their work environment across a number of dimensions. They overwhelmingly agreed that the organization is a good place to work and have high levels of overall job satisfaction. Along those same lines, employees were typically content with their benefits packages but felt concerned about their pay and promotional opportunities. Group consensus was harder to establish when discussing community factors. In fact, responders to the survey registered opinions that varied substantially across community and lifestyle issues. Available outdoor activities were a strong point for the state. In fact, they stood out as the community factor that employees were most satisfied with. Retail shopping didn’t surprise anyone as an area of frustration for respondents. That and the cost of housing were serious low points for WDOC workers. In a nutshell, serious shoppers found the state lacking, but your outdoorsy-types found plenty to enjoy.

After considering the balance on the work/community satisfaction scale, the vast majority of respondents plan to remain working with the department over the next twelve months. So for the short term, the community and job experiences of WDOC employees are positive enough to keep them working for the department. The three factors having the greatest impact on retaining these employees include job stability, benefits, and pay.  Most of these respondents only listed better pay as a lure for pursuing employment elsewhere. Of those planning to leave the department in the next 12 months, more chose difficulties with promotional opportunities and supervisors/management as their reason for leaving than other factors.

Overall, respondents express relatively high levels of satisfaction with the department, their supervisors, and their individual jobs. Although respondents are quite satisfied with their current jobs, they appear to be concerned with their futures. The opportunity to promote and progress is perceived as somewhat limited and there is some risk that respondents may be attracted to employers who can offer better promotional opportunities and associated pay. This may become more problematic when the State’s private sector economy rebounds from the current economic downturn. At the same time, others may be enticed away by more favorable community features offered by larger metro areas or more moderate climates. Many of these factors are out of the influence of the Department of Corrections, but there are others that can be adjusted to “sweeten the deal” and motivate more employees to commit to the state and WDOC.