By Gregory T. Miller, President and Chief Executive Officer, Penn-Mar Human Services | Chief Executive Officer, Penn-Mar Foundation
Gregory Miller President/CEO Penn-Mar Human Services
Penn-Mar’s fiscal year began July 1 with a continuation of wage increases for our Direct Support Professionals (DSPs).
You may recall that last year we announced a major increase in our compensation structure, investing over $3 million in our team. That followed the tremendous success of our Building Bold Futures Campaign where we raised over $7.6 million that affected other resources in the organization, allowing us to free up dollars to invest in DSP wages.
And while this latest increase is not quite as substantial, we are able to continue that upward progression by raising starting wages for team members by 50 cents an hour and passing along additional increases to our existing team members.
On top of that investment, we have also created a percent pool that will give our nearly 500 DSPs the opportunity to earn a merit increase at their annual evaluation.
We continually strive to put as much money in the pockets of our DSPs as we can, and this effort is definitely having an impact.
We have seen a significant improvement in our ability to attract and retain team members in the last year and are determined to never again fall behind in the wage curve. In fact, we are moving toward the leading edge in our industry.
By offering a competitive salary range, more and more applicants are considering Penn-Mar as a viable employment option and those already on our team are choosing to stay with us. To date this year, we have seen a 50 percent reduction in available DSP openings.
Contributing to that statistic has been our Belonging Initiative, an organization-wide, research-based program launched in 2023 that gave our team members the opportunity to describe the realities and challenges of their work environment.
Their input is helping us develop a successful “Culture Solution” around each area of concern, designed to create and sustain a dynamic workplace at Penn-Mar.
The term “essential workforce” was not invented during COVID. Our DSPs have always been that for us and we could not achieve our mission to support people with disabilities without their unwavering dedication and professionalism.
So, as we continue to enjoy the longer days of summer, and hopefully time away with our friends and families, I am ever thankful for the contributions of all our team members and look forward to achieving even greater things together as we begin this new fiscal year.