Maricopa County’s Head Start Recruitment Efforts Undergo Digital Transformation

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

Arizona faces a teacher shortage, so that makes filling positions in Maricopa County’s early education programs especially difficult. Even with hiring bonuses, many positions sat vacant. One such position was a mental health associate position that has been vacant for two years. Without teachers to fill positions, Head Start classrooms cannot operate, meaning lost opportunities for low-income families for essential early childhood education and family support. The challenge posed here to the Communications Manager of the Human Services Communication team was to develop a strategic marketing plan to address teacher and staff recruitment challenges and, as the staffing became available, increase student and family enrollment. Maricopa County's Human Services Communication Manager developed and implemented an innovative strategic digital marketing plan to boost enrollment in the Head Start program and fill hard-to-find positions. The approach transformed the use of the county’s website from an informational site into a digital recruitment tool and provided a model that was later adopted for use in other recruitment campaigns for other hard-to- fill positions. The program targeted challenging positions, such as a position requiring specific certifications that had been vacant for two years, as well as responding to the teacher shortage in Arizona. The approach resulted in over 10 qualified applicants within three weeks for the challenging position (that has been filled ever since), and more than 25 qualified applicants being recruited. The successful approach has been shared with the County's Human Resources department and applied to other departments, including healthcare workers for the County's correctional system and veterinarians for the Maricopa County Animal Control program.