The folks in Crowley ISD know what a reduction in force (RIF) is like. They’ve been through two already and are in the midst of another one right now.
Like many Texas districts, they know how difficult it is to carry on with education’s version of “business as usual” when colleagues have learned that they won’t have a job in the fall.
In Crowley ISD, the job of delivering the bad news belongs to Marcia Kirk, the district’s executive director of HR. As Crowley’s only HR administrator, she is called on to inform all employees when their position is being eliminated. That way, if they are angry or upset, their emotions won’t be directed at the campus principal. The district wants employees to see principals as a means of support.
“The burden of looking at all those employees and giving them the news, including some single parents, some the only breadwinner in their family…I felt a real conviction to help them,” Kirk said. “I could have just given them the number of the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), but that’s not how you treat family.”
Kirk followed the lead of district superintendent Dan Powell. When the employees who were part of the RIF had been notified, he went out of his way to remind everyone to be sensitive to their needs and include them in normal activities and events. He made it clear that he expected everyone to treat them like valued members of the team in their remaining days with the district.
Kirk was thinking long-term. She wanted to be sure that laid-off employees had the best chance of a safe landing after leaving district employment. She arranged several meetings with Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) to be sure she was aware of everything they could do to help.
From those initial meetings came three TWC orientation meetings for affected Crowley ISD employees. TWC representatives provided a full overview of the agency’s services and walked employees through the process of establishing an account with them—a task that can be a bit overwhelming for those who go it on their own—and answered employee questions. The idea was to help employees get into the TWC system so they could begin to receive unemployment compensation benefits as soon as their employment with the district ended.
Kirk said that attendance was not mandatory but she did keep records of who signed in at each meeting to be sure everyone got to an orientation session. If an employee needed to attend a session that was scheduled during a work day, a principal or administrator covered for them. The district provided child care for employees who had to attend an after school orientation session.
Kirk and the district’s public information officer (PIO) also put their expertise to work. Kirk offered training sessions open to all affected employees on interviewing techniques, noting that some of the younger teachers had only interviewed once—with the district.
The district’s PIO offered résumé-writing workshops to help those who needed to update or develop a résumé. Kirk estimates that 50 to 60 percent of the affected employees participated in the interviewing techniques and résumé writing training.
Kirk also provided career coaching for teachers and paraprofessionals as needed. Many teachers who were part of the RIF met with her to ask about getting a second certificate to make them more employable. Kirk would help them by reviewing their college transcripts to ascertain their personal interests through their electives. If a teacher’s electives were largely focused in one area, say science, Kirk would counsel them to consider getting a second certificate in that area. Others asked for coaching in choosing a master’s degree track.
One of the most important things the district did was provide a packet of information to give affected employees some tools they could use to move forward. One of the most valuable handouts in the packet was a Q&A that detailed why they were part of the RIF and what would happen from that point forward. Employees appreciated getting something in writing to help them understand the process. Many indicated that they were so shocked to hear that they were losing their jobs that they really couldn’t take in the additional information that Kirk provided at that time.
The packet also included a COBRA insurance information sheet, a list of area job fairs for teachers, a list of temporary agencies for paraprofessionals, a list of Web sites for job hunters, TRS information, and a letter from HR that candidates could use in looking for their next job. The letter stated that the district’s RIF resulted in the employee losing his or her job, not a performance issue. It was a nice gesture designed to reassure other HR administrators about the reason the employees no longer had a job with the district.
Campus principals did their part to show appreciation for affected employees. One had ice cream sundae parties for each employee who would be leaving, with colleagues gathering to wish them well. Another made a scrapbook page and asked campus staff to sign it and offer a few words of encouragement.
The principals also went beyond those personal touches. They made a concerted effort to help their employees find new jobs. They networked with friends and colleagues in other districts to gather information about job openings, shared what they knew with one another, and made calls recommending employees when they could.
Finally, the district kept a close eye on laid off employees who might need additional help. Employees could meet with a professional counselor at the central office to discuss their concerns and get help to deal with their emotions.
Kirk made a point of keeping in touch with employees who were persistently absent following the RIF announcement, not to be punitive, but out of concern. Kirk would get in touch with any employee who was out for a few days in a row. “People are entitled to take their leave time but we wanted to make sure that no one who needed help was falling off the track,” Kirk said.
Early on, Powell promised teachers that the district would follow local policy to the letter in conducting the layoff and invited teacher organization representatives in to see the process. Kirk believes that being transparent really worked in the district’s favor because the teacher representatives knew the district was making a good-faith effort and could share that information when teachers called.
The representatives were helpful to the district throughout the process, particularly in counseling employees about their options in terms of resigning versus being nonrenewed.
When affected teachers called their organizations with questions about their personnel records, representatives would call Kirk. She and the HR staff put in plenty of hours verifying dates and other pertinent information to recalculate years of service, when needed. “We researched the documents in each employee’s personnel folder. There can be mistakes with data entry because humans do it, so we would verify it,” Kirk said.
To Kirk’s surprise the district got through the process without having a single grievance filed, a result that would not have been possible without the assistance of local teacher organizations. “Some districts have a more adversarial relationship with them, but they worked with employees to let them know that the district was being fair,” Kirk said.
One other result of the RIF was survivor’s guilt. Virtually everyone who wasn’t laid off had “survivor complex,” so Powell tried to focus everyone on remaining positive and doing the things that needed to be done through the end of the year. Principals tried to keep the climate in their buildings upbeat but that was a challenge. Employee morale was lower than usual for the final three months of the year.
One thing that helped morale somewhat was the district’s decision to let anyone who found a job—teachers included—step right into the opening, releasing those with contracts and improvising to take care of classes or other responsibilities through the end of the year. Another thing that helped was letting staff know when the cuts were over. “It was really important for the staff to hear that the RIF was done so they could breathe,” Kirk said.
The RIF initially included 145 positions, 40 of which were eliminated through attrition, so 105 people were affected. Kirk notes that from the time the RIF was announced through July, when someone left the district, HR would review the credentials of those who were laid off and place qualified candidates into open positions. About three-fourths of the people affected by the RIF were ultimately hired back.
Kirk didn’t do any formal analysis of whether the district’s efforts decreased its unemployment compensation costs but she did keep track of when those who weren’t hired back by the district got new jobs. All had new positions as of January.
The district is going through another RIF this year that affects 64 people and will duplicate its efforts to help them get through the process. “We’re watching for unexpected resignations and retirements so we can get some of these people plugged back in. We’ve done a lot of reassignments, too, and we get resignations right up until the last day (teachers can resign),” Kirk said.
With the Texas Legislature locked in an especially contentious battle over the public education budget, Kirk wonders if her district will go through a RIF every year for the foreseeable future. “It’s frustrating for our superintendent and school finance officer that we have to make personnel decisions well before we know what our budget is going to be,” Kirk commented.
Should the district find it has to lay employees off next year, Kirk will once again pull together resources and information to help. “It’s just hard,” Kirk said. “It is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done as an HR administrator.”
