Pay & Benefits

Wages and Pay Cycle

At Accend, we are always reviewing staff wages and benefits in and effort to provide the best wages and benefits possible.

At this time, we pay employees in three ways: hourly, salary, and piece rate. Piece rate employees may be very part-time, or are in special assignments such as internships

Wages and salaries for each are determined by several factors and we review each team member's pay at regular intervals, no less often than annually, and based on goals and objectives in his or her career plan. Factors used to determine wages include:

• > Credentials/qualifications
• > Year of employment
• > Performance and skills - competencies demonstrated
• > Treatment Outcomes - are the people you serve showing progress and postive outcomes as a result of the services you provide?
• > Productivity - which we believe is a direct by-product of outcomes. If the people you server are experiencing improved quality of life as a result of the services you provide, they will be engaged in services and your productivity will reflect this.

Paydays are every two weeks on Fridays. We encourage all employees to arrange for automatic deposit. To be paid on time by automatic deposit, you must submit your time records at the end of each calendar week, and no later than 8 AM each Monday morning. If you are asked to edit or change errors in your time records after you submit them, the deadline for changes is Tuesday morning at 9 AM. Failure to meet these deadlines may result in a late paycheck.

Benefits

At this time, our benefits include:

• > Paid Time Off beginning with 4 weeks in the first year and increasing by one day per year over the first 10 years of employment.
• > Health Insurance, with several plan options, and 90% of the employee premium paid for full-time employees, adjusted downward relative to FTE to 50% for a 0.6 FTE (24 hours per week).
• > Dental insurance with similar match schedule to health insurance on family dental coverae.
• > Life, Long-Term and Short-Term Disability insurance, with the premium paid by us.
• > Optional vision insurance.
• > 401K Retirement, with a dollar-for-dollar match on employee contributions up to 4% of annual gross income.
• > Matches on technology equipment purchases by eligible employees.

These benefits are available only to employees who work 0.6 FTE (24 hours per week) or more. Different benefits have different eligiblity requirements and enrollment periods. Check with Human Resources if you have questions about your eligibility or enrollment.

Paid Time Off and Leaves of Absence

Read the Paid Time off and Leaves of Absence Policy here and then close the window to return to this page.

Personnel Policies

Read the Personnel Policy here and then close the window to return to this page.

Management and Staff Support Philosophy

Parallel Supervision

At Accend, you will receive two types of support and supervision. These are Treatment and Administrative.

Your Treament Supervisor, working with therapists for the people you support, oversees the clinical aspects of the services you provide. This includes reviewing assessments and plans to assure that the services you provide are medically necessary, clinically appropriate and sound, and are meeting the needs of the people you serve. Your Treament supervisor will also provide you with coaching and training on treatment modalities, strategies, methods and techniques for engagement and effective services.

Administrative Supervision, provided by your Team Leader, and directed by the Program Director and Associate, ensures quality with coaching, training, and direction on things such as: caseload and time management, productivity, adherence to policies and procedures, boundaries, ethics, and scope of practice, performance evaluation and career development, and performance intervention and problem-solving when problems occur.

Your responsibility as a Team Member is to participate in the process, develop your skills by using supervision effectively, and report and solve problems, or barriers to responsive and effective services, with the right people. This section describes the supervision process and requirements for each service type and position at Accend,

Our Goals and Intentions

Our intention in supervision is to ensure your success. Supervision is for you an opportunity to celebrate success, debrief on issues, incidents or problems you have encountered, identify barriers to quality, and hone your skills.

For your supervisors, supervision is an opportunity to do the same. You will find that you supervisors use a window and mirror approach to supervision. This means that they will look for opportunities to celebrate success in the work that you do, crediting you for this success, and that they will approach problem-solving with a mindset of first examining what we can do better to support you when things go wrong. Looking in the mirror when problem-solving means your supervisor will ask questions such as those that follow, and advocating on your behalf.

• Were expectations clear?
• Were you adequately trained and supported to meet expectations?
• Do you have the resources you need to meet expectations?
• Do existing policies and procedures cause obstacles or barriers to meeting expectations and can these be changed?
• What other factors, under our control, have impeded success that can be rectified?

Your role in problem-solving is to collaborate with us, identifying red flags (obstacles to success) while avoiding excuse-making and accepting responsibility to change what you can.

Read more about this in the Welcome Chapter of this guide.

General Supervision Requirements and Protocols

Each team member will receive individual supervision monthly. Others, depending on role, may be required to receive supervision more frequently. Monthly supervision consists of the following:

Administrative (Team Lead)

Element	Activity and Your Responsibility
Referrals	Have you contacted and engaged all new referrals you received this month? When you have not engaged new referrals, have you met expectations for efforts to contact them and documented these efforts? Are you making adequate progress on required assessment and planning with referrals you have met this month?
Engagement and Effort	Have you provided all of the services (frequency and duration) in the plan for each person, or made efforts to provide them and documented these efforts? When an individual is participating less or asking for more than the freqency and duration of services planned, what are the reasons for this? Should the plan for this person be discussed in Treament supervision and updated to match the needs/wants of the person served.
Caseload Management and Productivity	What is your producivity for the previous month? If high, celebrate success! If low, explore reasons. Do you have disengaged individuals assigned to you in active status who are out of touch and need to be contacted with a letter, closed, or placed in a hold status? Do you have an exceptionally high rate of cancellations? Have you investigated the reasons for this and discussed the specific cases with your supervisors (adminstrative and Treament)? Do you need more referrals?
Compliance and Due Items	Are all assessments and plans for the people you serve up-to-date? Have you submitted for review all assessment and planning work due this month? Are all current treatment plans signed by the recipient or guardian? Are you documenting concurrently?
Career Plan Review	Are you making progress on the goals and objectives in your career plan? Are you up-to-date will all required training? Do you need any additional training? Review any open performance intervention. Are there any current obstacles or barriers to your continued development and success or needs you have that you would like to discuss?
Your Needs	What specific questions and needs do you have? What problems are you encountering? What questions do you have about current policies and procedures? What current policies, procedures are barriers to quality? Write down your needs before, or at the beginning of the meeting, and prioritize this agenda item.

Clinical (Clinical Lead)

Element	Activity and Your Responsibility
Review of Assessment and Plan Updates	Submit all assessments and plans that will be due prior to your next monthly Treament supervision at least 7 days in advance of this month's meeting. Review and seek guidance for updates where you are stuck or need help. Submit progress reviews for cases you plan to close and complete the clinical review for closing in the supervision session.
Debrief/Review Specific Cases	Identify specific cases (that may not be scheduled for update this month) where you need guidance or clinical advice. Are any current or recently updated plans not working, not measurable, or otherwise in need of review after getting started on implementation? Review incidents and sentinal events you have reported this month (if review and debriefing has not already occurred. Document Treament Supervision Client Specific for each case you discuss in this section or in assessment and planning, above.
Your Needs	Any other clinical support needs you have at this time to improve the services you provide job satisfaction and performance and career development. Write down your needs before, or at the beginning of the meeting, and prioritize this agenda item.

Treament Supervision Requirements For Services

Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services

ARMHS Practitioners must receive Treament supervision from a mental health professional at least monthly.

ARMHS Workers must also receive at least monthly supervision, and

• 18 hours of documented field supervision by a mental health professional or mental health practitioner during the first 160 hours of contact work with recipients; and
• at least six hours of field supervision quarterly during the following year; with
• review and cosignature of charting of recipient contacts during field supervision by a mental health professional or mental health practitioner

Adult Mental Health Targeted Case Management

Case Managers must receive Treament supervision from a licensed mental health professional at least monthly.

Case Manager Associates must receive at least monthly clincial supervision and 5 hours of mentoring each week from a Case Manager or Treament Supervisor.

Behavioral Heath Home Services

Behavioral Health Home Systems Navigators and Health Home Specialists must receive monthly Treament supervision from the Integration Specialist (RN) at least monthly. The Integration Specialist will review and approve the Health Action Plans written with recipients by the Navigators.

Children's Therapeutic Supports and Services

CTSS Practitioners must receive Treament supervision from a mental health professional at least monthly.

Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention

EIDBI providers must participate in Treament Supervision at least monthly .

Psychotherapy

Fully licensed Psychotherapists must participate in Treament Supervision at least monthly .

Clinical Trainees must participate in Treament Supervision at least weekly .

Career Development and Performance Evaluation

Career Development Planning

The Career Development process at Accend parallels the treatment/service planning process we do for the people we serve. It is the perfect model, and will include the following elements:

• > What are your career goals?
• > What strengths and resources do you currently possess that will help you in achieving your career goals?
• > Where can you improve performance in your current work?
• > What measurable short-term objectives can you identify that will help you improve performance and achieve your career goals?
• > What supports and resources do you need to achieve your goals and objectives?
• > What are the target dates for both?

You will develop a career plan at the end of your training period, which for most team members is 90 days. For some, who may need more time, the training period maybe extended. The plan will identify goals and objectives with target dates, and we will meet with you to review progress and update the plan, when those target dates approach.

Performance Evaluation

Peformance evaluation takes two forms at Accend. Your first performance evaluation at Accend will examine your performance on the core responsibilities of your position. You will receive feedback on what you are doing well and where you can improve. We will develop your first career plan from this evaluation and your own career development goals.

Following this initial evaluation, performance evaluation will consist of a review of your individuals career plan goals and objectives. Your career plan may include objectives for improving performance in core job responsibilities, or for developing new skills and competencies, or both.

Pay increases during performance evaluation (even annually) are not guaranteed. Rather, your career plan will identify the goals and objectives you must achieve in order to receive a pay increase. However, given a promise from us on what pay increases you will receive when you acheive these goals and objectives, you have our word that you will receive them when you accomplish them, unless serious performance problems emerge outside of your current career plan.

Performance Intervention

Performance Intervention at Accend is a formal process used to respond to serious performance problems. It includes a conversation with you to hear your perspective on the problem, your understanding of expectations, and what supports and resources you may be lacking or may need to meet performane expectations.

Performance intervention is a compassionate process. We promise to do always to the following as a part of the process:

• > Look in the mirror first to see that we have provided you with clear expectations, deadlines, instructions, training, support and resources to meet the expectations.
• > Listen to your side of the story, and verify the information we have received.
• > Develop a clear plan with you to correct the problem, with clear deadlines and measurable outcomes, and what you can expect from us for follow-up, resources, training and support.

The results or outcomes of a Performance Intervention vary, depending on many factors. The following are general guidelines, and are not a complete list:

Intervention and Follow-Up

The most common interventions will result in a plan for correcting the problem by certain deadlines. This plan will include what supports and resources you can expect from us.

Change in Status

Interventions that might result in a change of status position, pay rate, FTE, or others) might occur when it appears, following investigation that you are unable to meet the expectations of your current position, but that there is a position in which you can succeed. A change in status might follow a previous intervention if you fail to achieve the expectations identified.

Termination

Termination is always a last resort, and is rare at Accend. However, termination might be the result of an intervention in some cases, as listed below. This is not a comprehensive list, rather a set of general categories of behavior that can result in termination:

• > Actions or behaviors that seriously harm others (coworkers or persons served), or could potentially result in harm, whether or not it occurred during business hours (at work).
• > Illegal activity.
• > Fraudulent billing for services that is a result of intentionally incorrect records or negligence.
• > Serious intentional or negligent breaches of ethics or boundaries with persons served.
• > Loss of eligiblity to work based on a background check.
• > Failure to comply with a previous performance intervention, when you have received the supports and resources we have promised to you to make the corrections in your performance, and where there were not other factors that you could not control that prevented you from complying.
• > Harrassment.
• > Other workplace misconduct, including, but not limited to: failure to follow direct instructions from a supervisor, or policies and procedures.

Communicate Openly and With the Right People

Our approach to performance intervention is characterized by compassion and respect. One element of that compassion is that we understand that everyone makes mistakes.

If you make a mistake, if you find yourself in an ethical dilemma, or if you find yourself failing to achieve the goals or objectives in your career plan, or with the correction plan in a previous intervention, your best response is to report the problem as soon as possible. We will listen compassionately and thank you for your honesty. Then, if needed, we will make a plan with you to remedy the problem.

Resolving Problems with Coworkers and Supervisors

If you have a problem with a coworker or supervisor, your first step in resolving the problem is to speak directly to that person. Define the problem. Explain why it is a problem. Propose solutions.

If you do that, and cannot get to resolution, then go to your supervisor or to that person's supervisor for help. To hold you accountable to this, the first question they will ask you is:

What did (he or she) say when you discussed this with (him or her)?

In Summary

At Accend, we believe that we must treat each other with the same person-centered respect, compassion, and unconditional positive regard that we offer the people we serve. We try to model these values and instill them in our leadership and all team members. This is a partnership. We can only succeed by working together, side-by-side, solving problems and supporting one another, in this spirit of partnershp.

Our Human Resources support staff are always available to listen to your concerns and hear your solutions to the problems you see, as is everyone in a leadership position in our organization.

We take our values seriously and we stop to check our actions and decisions against these values regularly. This is our promise to you. This may or may not be your experience in previous employmen, but we believe that if you choose to believe it, it will be your experience here. Here are some strategies to help you in making that choice:

• > Check your location: are you above or below the line?
• > Treat coworkers with the same respect and unconditional regard you offer the people you serve.
• > Avoid rumors and gossip, and if you hear something that concerns you, confront it, check it out or report it.
• > Take your concerns or complaints to the person who can help solve the problem rather than complaining to cowokers, and never, ever, to subordinates.

Anticipate a successful career at Accend, and expect our support to acheive your career goals. We're glad you've joined us!

Feedback or Questions about this Chapter

This guide is a living document. We want to improve it with your help. Do you have questions? Found a typo? Find yourself wanting more information? Please send us your thoughts about anything in this chapter by tapping on the link below.

Updates to this Chapter

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November 28, 2022: Fixed some typos. Your feedback is welcome on anything here.

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