Forerunner Services, Inc.

Forerunner Services, Inc.

Strategic Plan

 

 

Forerunner Services, Inc. (Forerunner) begins business with a Program Director (and President), J. David Bolick, who has many years of experience providing employment services to people with disabilities personally, and supervising the provision of these services by other job coaches.  In addition, Forerunner begins business with a Treasurer (a CPA with an MBA) who has many years of providing accounting, consulting and tax services to business of all kinds and sizes.  Therefore, Forerunner is well positioned to be successful in the business of providing employment services to people with disabilities.  It will be these two leaders (and owners of the company) that will guide the strategic focus of Forerunner.  However, these leaders will continually use the feedback of employees, clients and other stakeholders to formulate and modify that focus.

 

The Mission Statement of Forerunner Services, Inc. is:

The vision of Forerunner Services, Inc. is to facilitate client driven employment services within the community, with a focus on assisting employers with successfully hiring and integrating people with disabilities into the workforce.

 

Our vision is that our company can survive us in continuing to provide quality employment opportunities that give people with disabilities the opportunity to live a fuller life, fully integrated into their community.  These opportunities should add value to the employers for which our clients work and benefit the families and communities of our clients as well.

 

Forerunner is a simple organization that assists one population group (VR referrals) to aid them in their goals relating to competitive employment.  All strategic planning focuses on that vision, mission and goal.

 

Forerunner recognizes that clients expect Forerunner to meet the needs for quality service provision in a timely manner, and to remain viable.  Family and friends of clients also expect Forerunner to be efficient and effective in the provision of these services.  VR expects Forerunner to meet these expectations in a manner as prescribed in the contract they have executed with Forerunner.

 

The geographic area in which Forerunner intends to provide employment services has a great need for quality providers.  All Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) offices in which we are authorized to provide services are anxious to do business with our company.  Our Program Director has had excellent relationships with VR counselors in these offices for many years.

 

Our service area varies demographically, depending on which VR office we are servicing.  However, it will be our policy to provide services to any client we find motivated to work and capable of maintaining meaningful employment, regardless of age, gender, race, national origin, religious affiliation (or lack thereof), culture, or sexual orientation.  Social Determinants of Health affect many of our clients.  While there is little Forerunner can do to improve conditions for those affected, we will strive to help clients overcome the barriers caused by these social determinants of health.  Forerunner will strive to provide services to all people, as we have the capacity to provide those services.  We believe in the rights of all people to have the opportunity to participate in meaningful employment.

 

First and foremost, Forerunner will strive to provide person-centered services that meet the expectations of each client, by working hard to assist all clients find realistic, long-term employment that meets the needs of the client and matches well with the client’s abilities and preferences.  Forerunner’s staff will use a vocational profile and an individual needs assessment to determine the needs, goals and expectations of each client and to aid the staff in beginning to build a relationship with that client.  Because the assessments are usually completed in the client’s home, it affords our staff an opportunity to meet the client’s entire family and to begin building a relationship with them as well.  Forerunner will cooperate with and always consider the needs of the client’s family to the extent those needs do not conflict with the needs of the client.

 

Forerunner will strive to meet the needs of a client within a framework that encompasses all the laws, rules, regulations & policies required by VR.  In addition, staff will always work closely with VR (beginning with the initial staffing) to make sure the client’s VR counselor is comfortable with the direction of the work and the methods used.

 

Forerunner does not consider other CRP’s to be competition of Forerunner.  We believe there is enough need for employment services in our areas served for many CRP’s to be successful.  Therefore, Forerunner staff would never attempt to compete with, circumvent, or undermine in any way the services of another CRP.  On the contrary, Forerunner will always collaborate with and assist other provider’s in our area to the benefit of the client.  We do, however, perceive that our clients have competition - other job seekers that do not have a disability.  To that end, we will use all studies that have been done on the employer benefits of hiring people with disabilities, along with articles, specific case studies, and our own experiences to help employer’s to understand the benefits of hiring people with disabilities.  Workforce diversity is always in the employer’s best interest.

 

The services provided by Forerunner will be subject to certain laws, regulations, rules & policies, some required specifically through Forerunner’s contract with VR, and others a result of Federal and/or state law.  Some examples include the completion of form I-9 for each employee, a required corporate compliance policy (due to VR’s receipt of federal funding) and the filing of all required tax forms (payroll, income tax, etc.).  It is the policy of Forerunner to always be in compliance with all laws, regulation, rules, policies and specific contract requirements.  This is crucial to our ability to stay in business and continue providing the services that will help us accomplish our mission.

 

Forerunner intends to use technology to the best of its ability to keep operations as efficient as possible and to aid the company in any way possible to improve the delivery of our services to our clients.  Keeping operations efficient and improving service delivery should help the company improve performance and operate at the highest level possible.  To some extent, Forerunner’s success in this area is subject to technology decisions made by VR and implementation of those technology decisions, but the company will strive to be as technologically efficient as is needed to run our business well.

 

Forerunner will regularly gather data available to measure its success at meeting its objectives, analyze that data, and use that data to make changes in its service offerings or service methods to improve service delivery to clients.  There are elements of success with clients that are not statistically measurable, and Forerunner believes that some of those elements are crucially important.  Forerunner will always strive to look at the client as a whole person and will not measure all success by the numbers.

 

Forerunner will gather data in the following ways:

Cost Containment (per closure) – Forerunner tracks monthly our progress to our contract.  All significant departures from success under the contract are analyzed to determine if something has changed in the system causing the skew, if the contract numbers are not well aligned, or if there is something happening within the company that needs to be addressed.  The CFO updates this data monthly.

Client Satisfaction – A simple survey is sent to each client either at the time they have completed training on their job, or have been with the company for 90 days, depending on which comes first. This survey addresses the provider’s performance in the following areas: professionalism, timeliness, communication, fair treatment, choice & voice, as well as Privacy.  These ratings are studied as an overall average and by job coach to ascertain any issues that need to be addressed.  The CFO sends the surveys monthly.

 

Forerunner believes that the one of the biggest keys to success with clients lies in finding, training and retaining good job coaches.  Forerunner intends to budget approximately 50% of all revenues to job coach pay (excluding any other expenses related to the job coaches).  Forerunner believes that the following activities of a job coach will dictate the success of that job coach:

1. Properly assessing the client’s abilities, needs and objectives prior to the beginning of a job search.

2. Building a professional relationship with the client.

3. Maintaining good relationships with potential employers & seeking out new opportunities to meet new potential employers.

4. Conducting the job search in an organized and professional manner.

 

If a job coach can be successful at the four activities listed above, a job coach should be able to be successful. 

 

Forerunner believes that its financial success hinges on the success of its job coaches.  Since a successful team of job coaches takes time to build, Forerunner did not project immediate financial success.  Forerunner’s shareholders were prepared to finance all expenses for the first several months as Forerunner got started in this industry.  With the intent to pay job coaches about 50% of fees collected, Forerunner must budget all other expenses from the remaining 50%, which includes all administrative salaries/contract pay, rent, telephone expense, educational expenses, supplies, insurance, employee expenses (including taxes and benefits) and everything else (including CARF expenses).   With the factors listed above, there is no reason why Forerunner cannot ultimately be successful, though the level of success will vary from year to year and even month to month.

 

There are three main areas where there are financial concerns that need to be addressed.  The first is the lack of control Forerunner has over the work that is referred to Forerunner by VR.  Given the needs in the communities in which we work, and the relationships that our Program Director brings to the table with the VR counselors, we do not have significant concerns that we will not have adequate referrals from VR, though they certainly vary.  One benefit we do enjoy is because we are virtual, we do not have overhead expenses in all markets that would still have to be paid if that market’s referrals are slow.  Our job coaches are made aware that the amount of work they may have at any point will vary based on the amount of work being referred to us by VR.  If a given VR office is not sending us many referrals, we might from time to time give our job coaches the opportunity to take referrals from another VR office nearby.  However, their income will vary from month to month, depending on referrals, as will ours.  If necessary, with too few referrals for a Job Coach to make the income they required, Forerunner would furlough employees (if the situation seemed temporary) or lay-off employees if it looked like a long-term situation.  This is not something Forerunner is interested in doing, given the likely need to replace that Job Coach at some point, but would if necessary.

 

The second area of financial concern for Forerunner is VR’s payment history. Forerunner’s President and Program Director has been responsible for VR billing with another CRP and is very aware of how unpredictable VR’s payment schedule can be.  Forerunner will always strive to maintain enough cash balance to make payroll throughout the next month in case payments come in slow.  Since this is simply a timing issue, the officers have arranged for a line of credit at Forerunner’s bank, which the company will continue to try to increase.  Forerunner feels it should be adequately covered in the event we encounter a period of slow payments from VR.

 

The third area of financial concern for Forerunner is the threat of financial loss related to loss or injury of a client or employee.  It is Forerunner’s understanding that VR does have a certain level of insurance coverage on clients.  Forerunner has (in addition) purchased general liability insurance of $1,000,000, in the event it encountered a lawsuit.  Forerunner has also acquired Worker’s Compensation insurance to cover the possibility of injury by an employee in providing services for the company.

 

Succession Plan – The Bolicks have and continue to consider the possibility of selling the company.  The possible market for this would be an individual or another company already in a similar business that may want to add Job Coaching to their service line.  Another company is probably the most likely to be interested, since they might not incur the overhead cost of additional office space and administrative personnel, which an individual might incur.  There have been a few companies brought to our attention that might be a good fit.  In about year 3 of our Carf accreditation (expiring year 2023) we will begin approaching these businesses, gauge the responses, and decide whether to continue the business in hopes of a sale.  If we thought a sale was possible, we would go through another CARF review, and then begin the process of selling. Otherwise, we would begin winding down the company.  If winding down is the route chosen, we would stop accepting referrals, ask that any clients that are not yet working be reassigned to another service provider.  We believe that most of our Job Coaches would be willing to see their existing clients through the training phase, at which point the Job Coach would be laid-off.  If a Job Coach leaves the company having clients working the Bolicks will complete the work necessary to get the client through the training phase.  If necessary, we would use our salaries to supplement the Job Coach salaries during this time. 

 

Major Goals

 

1. Achieve re-accreditation by CARF in 2023 – if planning to sell the business

2. Fine tune succession planning

3. Re-vamp all plans and policies.  Write detailed procedures for administrative jobs to aid in the sale of the company.

 

Updated May 16, 2018

Updated May 20, 2020