How This IDD Agency Keeps Staff Year After Year

You can’t pay people to stay. You also can’t write them up into caring. So how does one IDD agency keep its direct support staff year after year, with wages above its competitors and health insurance costs held steady for over a decade? Nick, Susan, and Jessie of Core Services didn’t start with a raise. They started by flipping the org chart: the people on the front line matter more than the office. Then they backed it up with a shadowing program, new promotional roles, a night-shift support role, and a habit of looking at data they didn’t always want to see. If you lead an IDD organization and you’re tired of watching good people walk out the door, this conversation shows what it looks like when retention is a leadership decision instead of a hiring problem. You’ll hear where they invested, what they learned the hard way, and the one move they’d tell any executive to make first. Learn more about Core Services: https://www.coreservicestn.com/ Free resource: 7 Warning Signs Your Supervisors Are Burning Out Their Staff: https://iddleader.com/burnout TIMESTAMPS 00:00 "You can't pay" 01:39 The annual report and the key decisions behind it 02:25 Why DSPs matter more than the office 03:37 You can’t pay people to stay 04:36 Wages, and insurance costs absorbed for over a decade 05:35 The internship and shadowing program 06:33 The remote support specialist role 08:33 The data they didn’t want to see: “All the time” 10:06 Where they want to be in five years 14:41 Change before you have to 15:50 Push decisions to the front line 18:01 Humor and the office puppy 21:10 “I never said we were functional” 25:11 The one move to make Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: VWGDUO1RBUYZEQ6K