Spherion, a national recruiting and staffing company, completed its Workplace Snapshot survey for 2006. Here are some highlights: 1. Twenty-one percent of workers voluntarily changed jobs in 2006. 2. Attracting and retaining talent at all levels of an organization is near the top of a list of issues cited by CEOs in the public and private sectors.

The downside of such a large voluntary job change is the cost of turnover to employers. Spherion’s report says turnover costs $7,000 for an hourly worker, $30,000 for a mid-level employee, and up to $80,000 for technical employees and senior managers. So if a firm lost just one of each during a year, the one-year cost of finding and training replacements and covering the lost productivity of those who left (i.e., the three new employees would have a learning curve) totals $117,000.

For nonprofit organizations, the cost of turnover is acute because of cuts in various federal and state programs and increased competition for other grant funding.

To become and remain an employer of choice, many organizations have added a low-cost employee benefit — employee home ownership (EHO) — to their talent retention/ recruitment package. Why focus on home ownership to attract and retain talent? There’s a measurable benefit to the employer and employees alike.

A 2002 Fannie Mae study showed that 75 percent of respondents said they considered a home to be the most important investment they could make to increase their wealth and build their assets. Home ownership clearly remains part of the American Dream. To the extent an employer can assist an employee in achieving that dream, it earns the loyalty of that employee.

Nationwide, EHO programs in the nonprofit sector have been implemented by educational institutions, hospitals, human services agencies, and municipalities.

EHO, in its basic form, provides employees with financial literacy workshops covering homebuyer education and personal financial management. To this, employers typically add some form of financial assistance for an employee who wants to buy a home. Most often, the assistance involves a multiple of the buyer’s down payment to a capped amount.

For example: The home buyer saves $500 and the employer’s EHO program matches 5:1. The employer’s assistance would be $2,500 structured as a forgivable loan given the employee remained with the employer X years (as chosen by the employer). The loan would amortize to zero over the X period. An employee leaving voluntarily before the period expired would be required to repay the unamortized portion.

For nonprofits, additional matching funds are available through HUD. It will match an employer’s contribution up to $2,500. Its monies are not subject to repayment if the employee leaves. Using the above example, the employee would have a $5,500 down payment.

Lower-income employees truly benefit from EHO. Often, they believe home ownership is a pipe dream, not their American per hour dream. The biggest deterrent to home ownership they face is the lack of a down payment. They may leave for $0.25 an hour because they live paycheck-to-paycheck. Remember, it costs $7,000 to replace an hourly worker. EHO assistance costs far less.

Recent college grads are usually burdened with student loans. Home ownership is not on their radar. It could be — an EHO program sets an organization apart from its competition when recruiting.

Neighborhoods and communities can benefit from EHO too. Employers can target their programs to encourage home buying in certain areas (e.g., match 5:1 in certain zip codes, 3:1 in all others).

The organization benefits from EHO beyond attraction and retention too. The EHO personal financial management components may lead to fewer human resources and accounting issues with respect to garnisheed wages, liens, and judgments. Employees will be more productive too because they’ll spend less time dealing with personal financial issues on company time.

But what about the costs of administering an EHO program? Won’t that be additional burden on human resources staff? JVS administers the EHO program across Michigan from its Southfield headquarters — dispatching staff to employer locations. Arrangements can be made through affiliates for companies with multi-state locations (depending on the location).

As the third-party administrator, JVS:

• Creates an EHO plan tailored to the employer’s needs and goals
• Assists with program design, marketing, and employee outreach
• Furnishes employee material and becomes the primary employee contact
• Offers comprehensive home purchase services through collaborative lending partners
• Processes EHO documentation requests and provides activity reports to the employer

EHO is a third-party administered, cost-effective employer benefit program. An EHO program can be a valuable tool in retaining and recruiting talent. It can have an impact on neighborhoods and communities as well.

JVS has more than 65 years of experience serving metro-Detroit employers’ human resources needs. The mission of JVS involves helping people achieve self-sufficiency and helping employers recruit and retain talent.