Ashley: Text Messaging Guru
In today’s world of social media buzzwords like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, texting, blogging, RSS, Web 2.0, and Wiki, it’s hard to sort it all out and easy to want to give up and try to ignore it for a couple more years. Well, that’s not going to work, because this stuff isn’t going away and if you’re not using social media in your Afterschool program, you are missing simple, low cost opportunities to improve communication with staff, students, and parents. Don’t worry if you don’t know how it all works. Most of the systems are easy to use and user friendly. If you still need help, or you just don’t have the time, appoint one or two social media savvy members of your staff to handle it. Ashley (pictured here) handles almost all of my text messaging as I am a total klutz at that.
Here are a few ways you can get started.
1. Email (can be free or paid)
Ok, this one might be obvious, and I’m sure you already have email, but are you using it as effectively as you could? Are you Read more…
Camille Diaz Parents, Staffing, Students, Technology communication, public relations, social media, Technology
Thanks for your great ideas on hiring, it’s very helpful. What I would like to hear about is how to keep staff after you’ve hired them, and how to help them stay interested, involved and keep their energy high for the program?
The key to retaining staff and keeping them happy is building a community. Here are some suggestions on how to begin.
Teambuilding Activities
Find a way to turn your staff into a team. No, not by doing “teambuilding” exercises from a book, but by consistently doing things together that everyone enjoys. In one of my entry level jobs, all five people in our office would have lunch together almost everyday. It gave us a chance to talk and get to know each other. Over time, that camaraderie translated to our work. If one person was trying to finish a project, another would ask if they could help so everyone could leave on time. Find something fun you and your staff can do together on a regular basis.
Provide Useful Training
Most of your group leaders are not planning Read more…
Camille Diaz Staffing leadership, staff retention, staff training
Camille, I loved your post on conducting an interview. Could you give us a sample of the questions you used in your group leader interviews?
You mean could I post the exact questions we used so you can copy them? Of course! Glad to help. Just make sure you edit them to fit your program specifically, so you will get the most out of your interviews.
On our interview sheets we included notes to ourselves to make sure the interviews ran smoothly and we didn’t forget anything important. Those notes are in italics. The basics were included at the top: name, date, two phone numbers. We also included a little note to self, “May we leave a message at this number?”
1. Review application and ask any relevant questions. Then say the following …
You have applied for a position as a youth leader. This means you would be responsible for a group of 17 – 20 elementary school students. We would train you on curriculum and behavior management before you begin. Your schedule, lessons, and materials will be provided for you. Your job will be like a teacher.
We are hiring for positions Read more…
Camille Diaz Staffing hiring staff, interview questions, interviews, staff testing
Hiring Part 1: The Application
Hiring Part 2: Testing
Hiring Part 3: The Interview
Hiring Part 4: The Decision
Now that you have put in so much time and effort into testing and interviewing your newest batch of potential group leaders, how do you choose who to hire? First, make sure you have a folder for each applicant with everything related to that person in it including their application, test, and all of your interview notes. Then have everyone involved in the interview process sit down together and review each applicant.
To speed up the decision process, start with your “no’s”. Run through your list and separate out anyone who is definitely out. Then move to the definite “yes” pile. Are there any standouts that you don’t need to discuss much? Now it’s time to consider the “maybe” pile. Review their entire folder with the group. Ask those who completed the interview with that person to share their views. If the group is split, there is one question that you can ask to help move the process along. Read more…
Camille Diaz Staffing hiring staff
Hiring Part 1: The Application
Hiring Part 2: Testing
Hiring Part 3: The Interview
Think about your interview process for your potential group leaders. Is it just you asking your interviewee about their experience working with children? If so, it is time to make some changes. In his book Topgrading, hiring expert Bradford Smart teaches top business executives how and why it is necessary to conduct structured, in-depth interviews to hire the very best people for their company. Stop thinking of your program as an “organization” and start thinking of your Afterschool Program as your business. Think about what kind of people you want working for your company and what kind of service you want to provide to your customers. I’m thinking that you want the very best group leaders so you can provide the very best service to your students.
With that in mind, here are some ideas on how to structure your interviews. Read more…
Camille Diaz Staffing hiring staff, interviews
Hiring Part 1: The Application
Hiring Part 2: Testing
Before you start hiring staff for your Afterschool program you will need to decide what you want those people to do. Is their job just to supervise while the kids play? Probably not. Most likely you want them to help with homework, lead science and art lessons, read aloud, handle basic behavior issues, and keep students safe, happy and engaged throughout the day. Now that’s great, but are you checking for any of these skills during your hiring process or are you just asking a few basic questions and giving them the job?
For now, I’m just going to address the homework part of that wish list – I’ll get to the rest later. So, if you want your staff to help students with their homework, you need to make sure they can do the assignments, too. How do you figure this out? You need to set up a test. Ask every applicant you are considering to complete this test before they even get to the interview. Remember, the corporate world tests applicants all the time. Afterschool can, too.
To create the test, Read more…
Camille Diaz Staffing hiring staff, staff testing
At a recent conference I had the opportunity to talk at length with several people about the staff in their Afterschool programs. I found that the biggest problems they faced were all the same: high turnover and under qualified group leaders. With that in mind, I am writing a series of posts on hiring and maintaining quality staff. First, there is something important that I would like you to keep in mind.
A great team of Afterschool staff doesn’t just happen by itself. You must create it.
Now, on to the first step…
Hiring Part 1: The Application
The application for a group leader for your program is probably pretty simple. That’s good. It doesn’t need to be complicated. Just make sure it is asking the questions you need to know. For example, most of our applicants were college students who had changing schedules. In the beginning, new group leaders would make it to the interview or even get hired and then they would tell us that they had to be in class every Tuesday and Thursday until 4:00 pm but they could work Wednesday mornings. As you know, that schedule is not suitable for Afterschool. We quickly learned that we needed to ask if applicants were available everyday Monday – Friday from 2:00 pm until 6:30 pm.
Here are the questions from our interview sheet. You can use this as a starting point and make adjustments to fit your needs. Read more…
Camille Diaz Staffing hiring staff
