Client Story

Geminus is a multi-service agency that is located in Northwest Indiana next door to Chicago. One of the many critical programs offered to children and families in the community is the federal early childhood program, Head Start. As Geminus is a large nonprofit organization with many divisions working to meet the needs of the community, children, and families, they wanted to improve their overall organizational performance and foster leaders within the organization. Similar to many nonprofit organizations, they struggle with recruiting staff to fill their critical positions. Without a stable workforce, they are limited on their ability to provide their critical services in the community. 

Recent workforce studies show alarming statistics:

• 79% of workers say company culture is important to job satisfaction.
• 75% of the time, people are quitting because of their managers. 

Geminus’ Early Learning Department wanted to invest in its staff, teams, and overall early learning division workplace culture. Their Early Learning Department consists of their Head Start program, Child Care and Development Fund voucher team, Child Care Resource & Referral team, and Family Child Care Coaching team. They wanted to increase employee engagement and satisfaction and develop new and future leaders within their department. Geminus understood that investing internally would reap many benefits for the families and children they serve and help with recruiting and retaining top talent to continue their important work. 

Over the course of 18 months, Geminus hired Transform Consulting Group (TCG) to assess individual and team performance, along with facilitating team training and coaching for senior leaders, directors, and high-level managers. We first completed DISC Assessments for all Early Learning Department staff (over 300). We analyzed individual DISC profiles and created summary DISC reports for each Department and team to help the leadership understand the composition of their individuals and teams. TCG then facilitated all staff and team trainings to help them understand what their results meant personally and as a team. We identified areas to strengthen based on understanding the makeup of their teams.

TCG built on the DISC training by pulling in additional research and information on high-performing organizations. We provided quarterly in-person training with management staff to implement the high-performing organization framework to provide ongoing accountability and support for the leadership team. We created a training curriculum that Geminus can utilize for onboarding, supervision, coaching, and evaluating performance of it staff. 

After training on the DISC, TCG used our High-Performing Organization (HPO) Framework, which is built on eight foundational characteristics to improve leaders, individuals, and teams to increase organizational culture and performance. The eight characteristics include:

1. Value People
2. Shared Vision & Forward Thinking
3. Demand Clarity
4. Build Trust
5. Prioritize Team Communication
6. Master Conflict
7. Realize Ownership
8. Pursue Growth and Development

We completed the following action steps with Geminus:

• Understand Employee Satisfaction and Engagement (Employee Engagement Survey) 
• Gain Leadership Feedback (360 Leadership Survey) 
• Provide Insight for Individuals (Self-assessment) 
• Evaluate the Team (HPO Team assessment)

We conducted an Early Learning Department employee engagement assessment that all staff completed. The goal of the assessment was to evaluate staff engagement throughout the departments. The first annual assessment provided baseline data and then the plan is to use the assessment annually to provided additional data to help understand the level of engagement and make necessary adjustments. TCG supported the Geminus Early Learning Department in evaluating and assessing the organization’s culture through results of these assessments, so they can then utilize this data and analysis to assist in developing high-performing individuals and teams. We discussed the results of these assessments with the leadership and identified some top priority areas to improve.

Through individual coaching with the leadership team, we reviewed their 360 survey and self-assessment to identify areas to improve and strengthen as leaders. We also met with the full leadership team to work on the top areas identified in their team HPO assessment.

After this foundational year of work with the Geminus’ Early Learning Department, we have developed a two-year engagement to build on our work and continue to support their staff.