Designing a Competency-Based New County Extension Personnel Training Program: A Novel Approach

Abstract

Voluntary county personnel turnover occurs for a multitude of reasons, including the lack of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job embeddedness and lack of proper training. Loss of personnel can be costly both economically and in terms of human capital. Retention of Extension professionals can be improved through proper training or strategic techniques designed to increase employee critical competencies, socialization, and job satisfaction. The Delphi study reported here explored the perceptions of county extension faculty regarding job satisfaction, training competencies, social connectedness, and optimal training time frames over the first 3 years of hire.