MANSFIELD – Area employers will learn new ways to invest in their employees during a professional workshop presented by 1Richland on Tuesday.
“Workforce Stability” with Ruth Weirich, a management professional in the publishing industry with 30 years of experience, will focus on teaching employers how to improve employee retention, productivity, and their bottom line.
Weirich is a consultant with the aha! Process, an award-winning training and publishing company providing workshops, publications, and consulting services to help improve lives and build sustainable success in communities, schools, and higher education. The company creates an understanding of the dynamics that cause and maintain poverty from the individual to systems level.
“Poverty, middle class, and wealth are about an abundance or lack of resources,” the aha! site says. “Our work helps individuals, businesses, students, and communities build resources for a more successful, sustainable future.”
She is also the author of “Workplace Stability: Creating conditions that lead to retention, productivity, and engagement in entry-level workers” and the subsequent “Workplace Stability” training supplement provided for the workshop.
Weirich brings to the table a thorough understanding of business practices and finding ways to reduce employee turnover and increase productivity. With a love of maximizing an organization’s operating performance and achieving its financial goals, Weirich has held responsibilities ranging from communicating with all stakeholders to preparing operating budgets to overseeing a strategic plan.
“Employers do a lot to stabilize us,” Weirich says. “They offer us vacation, 401(k), paid time off, holidays, maternity leave, and all of those things stabilize us. Not everybody gets those benefits, though, and so we’re looking at ways to talk with employers about stability that will stabilize our employees and improve retention and profits.”
Employee instability is another measure of diversity in the workplace, with low-income environments being a major contributor to instability. This could be brought on by problems with resources like transportation, healthcare, childcare or eldercare, housing, language or communication, or managing financial or legal matters.
Weirich teaches employers that creating workplace stability by helping employees build resources makes business sense. Employee instability creates business instability and eats away at the bottom line. Simple, inexpensive solutions can be implemented to help stabilize employees’ lives while boosting profitability.
Tuesday’s workshop will begin at 8 a.m. at Ed Pickens’ Cafe on Main. The half-day diversity training will provide the knowledge and tools to:
• Recognize the range of factors that create instability for employees
• Understand the connection between instability, employee performance, and profitability
• Identify the most effective techniques and tactics for increasing workplace stability
• Create an action plan best suited to your business and its culture and employees
• Network with other business interests to share resources, training, and more
Those interested in the workshop can RSVP to mwarren@toledodiocese.org. The cost is $40.
The 1Richland group evolved in 2014 as part of Catholic Charities’ “Do Something” project, and strives to help bridge the gap between employers, organizations who provide services to the community, and the individuals and employees in the local community. The group believes community transformation takes a community working together to become a catalyst for change.
