Finance Highlights 2008 0729 - Laserfiche WebLink

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hours. By plan, this department turns over its counseling interns annually, who only intern for one year as a condition of their graduate programs. b. Result: May Cheng, the current Director (since 7/07) has worked with her staff and the Executive Director to put a new operational plan into place and is still working out details and letting things stabilize. For example, the department is now separating counseling activities into prevention and psychotherapy, which more closely matches the requirements of supporting grant monies. One of her 3 supervisory positions is open and she is actively interviewing to fill the position. 5) General: There have been several comments from program directors that there is too much work and not enough resources. This is a common refrain among non-profit organizations in particular (though the private sector knows this tune well too). The consensus at DSFRC from both the staff and executive team levels seems to be that upon request, they are expected to fill in the gaps for missing personnel and to respond to urgent special project requests -which happens quite often. However, when the crisis at hand is over (and sometimes the crisis continues for very long periods -such as waiting for a new CFO), instead of being relieved of their work overages, staff are simply reassigned to new projects that reflect the newest or most urgent crisis-of--the-moment. As a result, a significant minority of the staff feels that they are continually involved in some level of crisis management and are consistently doing more than their own jobs. While the dedication to the Center's clients and mission, along with their loyalty to Ms. Padilla-Johnson, is what keeps most of DSFRC's staff reasonably happy, there is a general feeling of fatigue and overwhelm, and some reports of resentment because of these continued staff shortages. In addition, the counseling interns shared comments that showed their morale was low because they think that if they don't hit certain financial targets, their program maybe shut down. These indicators of slight unrest can affect agency sustainability (because, especially when they hit the chronic level, these issues can lead to increased personnel turnover). As a result of these instances of key personnel turnover and program reorganizations, DSFRC has been able to test how well its interim management and workload-sharing efforts have worked. Though some programs were shut down (childcare) or significantly stressed, all of them were re-created or survived (sometimes in new formats) and seem stronger for it. The Succession Plan: Leadership Personnel The Board of Directors and the Executive Director recognize the importance of having a well-thought-out succession and emergency plan ul place in case key executives leave the Center or become temporarily unavailable. Succession plans should include an organizational outline that identifies which main, key people in the agency need aback- up person and plan in place. Especially because of her experience with these recent staff turnovers and departmental reorganizations, DSFRC's Executive Director has already taken steps to formalize a succession plan as follows: sustainability Study: Davis Street Family Resource Center - 4/08 Page 3$ of 96