Workplaces that offer a healthy culture and invest in the career paths of their employees are on the right track for retention. National CLAS Standards and DPH's Strategic Plan to Advance Racial Equity highlight the importance of supporting the leadership of people of color. Local public health departments can strive to improve overall retention and support the promotion of underrepresented populations by implementing some of the following measures:
- Invest in the leadership potential of people of color.
- Provide professional development opportunities for staff at all levels and across positions; encourage your staff to attend trainings hosted by DPH and other entities that are both industry specific and focused on leadership skills, implementing CLAS Standards, and other topics related to your staff’s profession.
- When possible, allow scheduling flexibility to support those who want to attend professional development events or enroll in courses related to advancing their public health career.
- Offer mentorship, coaching, and job shadowing opportunities.
- Create leadership opportunities, such as inviting staff of underrepresented populations to participate on committees and take the lead on projects. As you provide additional opportunities, offer to take other work off of their plate to maintain a balanced workload for employees.
- During an annual employee performance review, discuss their professional interests and goals and develop a plan to support the professional growth and advancement of staff.
- Conduct climate surveys to better understand the workplace culture – such as feeling a sense of belonging, feeling respected, experiences of bias in the workplace – and to understand the impact of your CLAS initiatives.
- Maintain open lines of communication with staff at all levels and across positions and create opportunities for dialogue to increase awareness and empathy and to resolve conflicts.
- Review DPH’s Strategic Plan to Advance Racial Equity regularly, and keep action items to advance equity on your meeting agendas.
- Appreciate and celebrate the important contributions of your team members. Write about their accomplishments in an e-newsletter. Highlight activities that involve collaboration with underserved communities and the staff that spearhead projects to advance health equity.