What am I supposed to do with this guide?

The QIC-WA Workforce Conversation Guides are do-it-yourself (DIY) needs assessment tools. They are based on the work done by the QIC-WA and reflect evidence-informed best practices. These tools were developed to support agencies in exploring their workforce challenges independently. They provide a structured way for teams to walk through key questions and spark meaningful discussion about various aspects of their workforce.

We recommend assembling a small group of dedicated staff to work through this Guide. This may include child welfare staff and leaders as well as human resources, IT, training professionals, and analytics team members. Select individuals who care about workforce issues, understand the available data, bring relevant experience (such as in hiring, training, or supervision), and demonstrate openness and a commitment to data-informed decision-making and information sharing.

Download the Guide and schedule time for your team to review it together. Select a facilitator to lead the discussion and identify someone to take notes. Gather the data and resources needed to answer each question, and keep everything in a shared location for easy access. As you work through the Guide, document areas that need further analysis and capture actionable ideas. This information will help you establish a baseline and clearly understand your starting point before making any changes.

How much time does it take to go through the guide?

We recommend you dedicate a few meetings to work through these questions with a select group of team members. The more time and reflection you invest, the more beneficial your assessment will be to your agency. We recognize that time is limited in child welfare agencies, but dedicating focused space to discuss these questions—and to follow up on them—is essential to get the most from your time. The Guide serves as a starting place for your workforce team to dive into available data, identify gaps, and make informed decisions about how best to allocate your resources.

What do we do when we are done?

What is next is up to your team! We encourage you to work through as many of the Workforce Conversation Guides as possible to gain a comprehensive understanding of your current workforce strengths, processes, and needs before selecting or implementing any sort of workforce intervention. You may identify a couple of key areas where you need to learn more. The Guides provide a data-informed foundation for your next workforce intervention. After you implement a change, evaluate it and use the guide again to consider its effectiveness in achieving your goals.

How do we provide feedback?

These tools were created based on our work in the field, but they have not been tested in a DIY setting. We want them to be valuable resources for child welfare agencies and your input is essential to improving their usefulness. After you have used any of the Guides, share your experience through the survey link below.

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Workforce Conversation Guide:
Recognition

Rewards and recognition are strategies to acknowledge workforce performance and commitment. When aligned with agency values and expectations, these strategies can support employee engagement. This Guide provides a series of questions to help your workforce team examine current practices. After you use the tool, we encourage you to provide feedback via our survey link at the bottom of this page.

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Check out additional Workforce Conversation Guides

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Workforce Conversation Guide:
Hiring

Use this Guide to have a meaningful conversation about your current hiring process so you can establish a baseline and identify opportunities for improvement.

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Workforce Conversation Guide:
Onboarding

This tool provides you and your colleagues a way to identify strengths and opportunities to improve your agency’s onboarding process.

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Five stylized human figures with a speech bubble above showing a rising bar chart and an upward arrow with a person icon.

Workforce Conversation Guide:
Performance Management

This Guide provides a series of questions to help your workforce team examine your current performance management practices.

View tool

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Workforce Conversation Guide:
Recruiting

This Guide provides a series of questions to help you and your team assess your current approach to recruiting child welfare workers.

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Workforce Conversation Guide:
Recognition

An overview of our Workforce Conversation Guides

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Related Resources

A Performance Management Self-Assessment

Key Factors Supporting Tenure