2013 Choice Employers, Human Resources Professional: Parker McKenna

There are few people who are more uniquely positioned to shape the future of Springfield than Parker McKenna. As chief human resources officer for Springfield Public Schools, McKenna is responsible for ensuring the district has the right strategies in place to hire talented teachers to help educate the next generation.

To attract the top minds, McKenna is guiding efforts to ensure district educators have what they need to do what they do best.

During the past two years, he has worked to implement processes that measure staff engagement and satisfaction levels, recognize staff performance, improve employee recruitment and selection, and work with staff through a Web-based system to help them better understand the district’s culture.

“Prior to my time in this position with SPS, there was no clearly identified strategy for HR,” McKenna says, noting the district now boasts a 93 percent satisfaction rate among its staff.

The efforts are needed, McKenna says, because recruiting top teachers is increasingly competitive in the area.

“As Springfield and our surrounding communities grow, our city borders blur and job seekers find it ever easier to accept employment in neighboring communities,” he says.

McKenna, who also currently serves as board president for the Springfield Area Human Resources Association, has identified three key challenges to employing the right teachers: diversity, performance evaluations and knowledge able management.

To best serve a diverse student body, SPS has a goal to produce teachers with whom students personally identify. By 2015, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will adopt new teacher evaluation systems, and the district is working to better collect evaluation data designed to give staff feedback and continually improve performance under the new guidelines.

During the next few years, many teachers will be eligible for retirement, and finding ways to pass along their knowledge is key to raising the bar on student performance.

“To address this challenge, we are working with local university partners to ensure our talent pipeline will supply enough new staff,” he says. “Additionally, we’re working to build knowledge management processes into our succession planning and evaluation systems with the goal of capturing that critical information before it is too late.”

With a goal to stay on top of what it takes to provide the best staffing for the district, McKenna has attained certification as a senior professional in human resources through the Human Resources Certification Institute. McKenna also works as an adjunct faculty member at Webster University.

“I see the work with Webster as an opportunity to light a fire within students, helping them to see the value that HR can bring to organizations,” McKenna says.[[In-content Ad]]