DCS commissioner: employees matter
In a complex and stressful environment such as the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS), lives matter and employees handle life and death situations on a daily basis. For DCS Commissioner Jim Henry, the message employees matter as well as children is one he hopes will get across to each of the just under 5,000 employees the department contains.
“If you don’t reward good people for doing good work, you’re going to lose them,” Henry said.
Henry said steps the department has made, which include the passage of a bill to create an employee line to call confidentially regarding issues at work, as well as an upcoming new employee evaluation system, are just a few of the changes being made in which he hopes will help employees feel valued and appreciated.
Employees had spoken out to the Bulletin-Times regarding situations of retaliation, harassment and a hostile work environment within the Southwest Region. Henry said the staff complaints have caused the department to take a closer look at the region.
“I kind of think you got to go down and talk to the employees. Be sure they feel safe and important,” Henry said. “If you got employees that are disenfranchised with the work and there’s some validity to it, we make changes to correct it. We’ll fix it.”
Henry said the high turnover for the Regional Administrator position for the Southwest Region is another aspect which will be looked into by the department.
“There’s been a lot of turnover there (region). We’ve had three or four directors there since Mildred Lawhorn. That probably needs to be looked into also when we go down there,” Henry said.
The commissioner is planning a visit to go to the region to meet with employees and address concerns they have. Henry said the department had received complaints prior to the Bulletin-Times’ news stories running but it had not reached a level to cause the department to look into it further until the stories came out.
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