Study: HR problems mount for Pittsburgh nonprofits
Only one third of Pittsburgh-area nonprofits have succession plans, but 69 percent of executives in the sector either plan to or could retire in the next decade.
“What Now?” a new report released Friday by the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University, drove home looming human resources problems for southwestern Pennsylvania's nonprofits, from a pending leadership gap to a lack of financial preparation by many facing retirement. The report can be accessed by clicking here.
Nonprofits employ one in five people in southwestern Pennsylvania.
“HR in many if not most nonprofits is abysmal,” said Peggy Morrison Outon, the Bayer Center’s executive director. “We were thinking about what’s next, but it’s not next, it’s now.”
The Bayer Center has conducted a wages and benefits study every other year since 2002. Outon said this revealed “themes and pattern we needed to explore more deeply.”
Last fall, 299 nonprofit leaders were surveyed about retirement, resulting in “What’s Next?”It found that 66 percent of the nonprofit boards had personnel committees, but only 33 percent had a succession plan.
“What are these committees doing then?” Outon asked.
A question about savings for retirement resulted in another alarming response. Almost half of local nonprofit professionals, “not the executives,” Outon stressed, had less than $50,000 in savings, not enough to ensure a comfortable retirement and meaning many will have to continue to work.
“We are trying to raise the flag for the community,” Outon said. “We have to figure out more solutions.”
That includes providing resources and education to people and organizations and getting those who fund the nonprofits to encourage better HR practices.
Succession is also a problem. The next logical leadership pool after the baby boomers, Gen X, is roughly half as big, she said.
“We’ll have a war for talent unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the nonprofit sector,” Outon said.