Star Choices Community,

 

It has been my continued honor to serve alongside each of my fellow Star Choices member.  While the last few years have been hard, I appreciate your sacrifice for the folks that we have dedicated our lives to supporting. I’m sure many of you have been questioning upper management, wondering why we have not been making changes to improve our position and decrease the strain on our workforce. We have heard your feedback and are acting on it.

 

I’m pleased to announce with this email that through a four-part strategy we plan to spend an additional ~$95,000 each year moving forward to help Star with our top two priorities:

  1. Retaining quality staff that have stuck with us through these trying times and new staff who joined us in these circumstances.
  2. Recruiting additional staff so we can provide better quality supports, give relief to current over-worked staff, and expand services to so many more in the future.

 

The following changes will take affect 2/21/2022 to help us accomplish the retention and recruitment of quality staff.

 

  1. Increase in mileage reimbursement

First, we will increase Mileage reimbursement. Gas is over $3 per gallon now, $.30 per mile is not sufficient. Starting 02/21/2022 work-related mileage reimbursement for all staff will increase from $.30 per mile to $.37 per mile.

 

  1. 5% Pay Increase for all Star Choices employees.

We need you all and we value each of you. We are increasing pay for all Star Choices employees by 5%, excluding Carla & Robert.

 

  1. Increase in Community Staff Pay

Community staff consistently take home the least amount of money each month of any Star employee. We know this role is vital to quality support and helping folks to access their community and we are increasing community staff hourly pay by an additional $1 per hour. Community Direct Support Professionals are defined as staff working in categories of CAI, CAG, SEI, SEG, CLS, Transportation.  This $1 an hour increase for all community Direct Support Professionals will begin on February 21, 2022.

 

  1. Increase in New Hire Signing Bonus

We are going to increase our signing bonus from $600 for new employees to $1500 per new employee.  Our hope is this will give folks the incentive to try Star out. I’m convinced that if we can get time with new staff, develop their skills, and show them all the benefits of working with Star, they will be excited to continue a career with our company. In addition, we will continue to offer our Employee Referral Rewards Program where current staff can receive $300 after the person they referred has been employed for 6 months.

 

We will be tracking many metrics over the next 6 months to a year to see what effect these changes have on retention and recruitment and what is having less of an effect.

 

Please continue to welcome new staff with open arms as they join our team.  We can turn our hiring challenges around together. If you should have any questions, comments, or concerns please ask your favorite administrative official at your earliest convenience.

 

Thank you for your continued service.

 

Robert Chandler