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 sending updates to your staff? Your staff is probably already in the email mindset since colleges are now regularly sending updates to their students about homework assignments and class cancellations via email. What about parents? You can have your parents sign-up on an interest list to receive notifications about upcoming events. It’s also a simple way to get in touch with parents who may not always be available by phone during your business hours. They can reply when it’s convenient for them. If you grow a very large email list, you may need to go to a paid email broadcasting service (like iContact, Constant Contact, or AWeber) but for starters, just use what you already have.

2. Text Messaging (paid unless included in your cell phone plan)
On this one, I’m mostly talking about communicating with your staff. I don’t totally understand the obsession with texting – can’t you just call? – but it’s really taken off. People are even publishing books of their text message conversations. One big advantage is that if you want to send a message to all of your staff, and you have all of their phone numbers entered into your cell phone, you can select them all and send everyone the same message at once instead of making 10 phone calls. It saves you time and they are more likely to read the message then they are to pick up the phone if you call.

3. Facebook (currently free)
Once you create an account, you can set up a “page”. Create a page for your afterschool program. Then post updates (notes, links, photos, video) on your page. Parents, students, and staff can all become “fans” of your page and when they do, they will see those updates in their Facebook timeline when they log in to their account. By creating a page on Facebook, you can connect with people involved with your program who are on Facebook and with other afterschool programs and national afterschool groups like Afterschool Alliance.

4. Blogging (can be free or paid)
Do you have information you would like to post or topics you could use some parent input on? Start a blog. You can write your own posts and then allow people to comment (just like the blog you’re reading now). Google offers a free service called Blogger where you can get started easily. Anyone can read your blog and they don’t have to subscribe or give you their email address. This is perfect for communicating with parents who just want to know what’s going on with the program. It also gives you the opportunity to create a positive image of your program and develop a relationship with parents who you may not see often.

The more you use social media, the easier it becomes. Even though it seems daunting at first, just try one new thing at a time and work at it for a while. Before you know it, other afterschool professionals will be turning to you for advice on setting up their blog.

Are you using social media to tell the world about your afterschool program? What are you doing or planning to do next? Share with us by leaving a comment below.

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 on being a group leader forever.  They are probably using this job as a starting point to help them meet their final career goals.  Therefore, try to provide as much useful training as possible so they will feel like their time in this job is not wasted.  For example, train all of your group leaders to do data entry on the computer.  You get extra help and they get a marketable job skill.  Continue to offer additional training and coaching so they feel like you care as much about them as you do the students.

Praise Your Staff

When someone does well, let them know.  A little bit of sincere praise can go a long way.  You don’t always have to buy something big or give them a bonus (although those are great, too) you just have to pull the individual aside and tell them exactly what they did right that day.  This might be difficult for you at first and you may think you sound silly, but trust me on this one.  Practice, “you did a really great job on ____” in the car on the way to work if you have to.  This will get easier the more you do it.

Lead By Example

If you are excited about the program and eager to work every day, your staff will be, too.  If you are dedicated to making your program great for your students, your staff will be, too.  If you mope around and whine and complain all the time, your staff will, too.  You can’t act one way and expect them to act another.  Lead with what you want them to follow because for better or for worse, you will have the program and the staff you create.

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.  That question is, “do I want this person working for me at my site?”  If the answer is “no”, don’t hire them.

 Before you make your final announcements perform your background check and call all of their references.

 We found that it was always best to over hire if we had enough qualified people in the interviews.  Even with a great Afterschool program, group leader turnover is still higher than in most other companies.  Let your new applicants know how many slots you have open and that you will place them after they complete their initial training.  If you don’t have a position for everyone remaining at the end of the training, place the best people and use the others as “on call” substitutes when regular group leaders are out.  This will ease your staffing crunch, give you a chance to test them out with multiple groups, and give them an opportunity to learn the job.

 Don’t be afraid to let people go during the training process or if they are not working out within the first couple of weeks.  Make sure you get out and observe all new hires at least three times during the first two weeks so you can make a decision about their fit with your program.  It is much easier to let someone go early than to try to bring them along for months only to determine that you have to fire them later.

 Remember to trust your gut.  Whatever your instincts tell you is probably right.

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.

After your applicants pass your entrance exam, send them directly on to the interview.  This saves them another trip and you can spend just the one day (or evening) testing and interviewing instead of disrupting two days.

If you have a 30 minute test and you schedule your applicants to arrive every 15 minutes, you will have a pretty steady stream of people starting the test, finishing the test, and moving on to the interview.  (Remember that some people will be late and some will not pass the test.)

Have at least two managers conducting every interview.  It is best to have two view points as one person may think to ask something the other did not or may notice something the other missed.  Having two people conducting the interview is very helpful when you have an applicant come in that is borderline, it gives you two opinions to consider in making the final decision.

Ask questions about the person’s goals and reasons for being there.  You might be surprised by what people say.

Ask practical questions.  Think of common situations that happen during your program and ask how the person would handle that situation.  This will give you some insight into their thinking process.  The answer may not fit your program perfectly, but you can train for specifics if they are thinking along the right path.

Include a practical exam.  In our interviews, we had applicants read aloud to us.  We would give them a few minutes to read the book to themselves and then they had to read the book to us as if we were their students.  We checked for all the things we wanted: an introduction to the book, good grammar, proper pronunciation of the words, a good speaking voice, and their ability to adapt to a surprise situation.

If you are so inclined like I am, you can even work out a scoring system for your interviews.  20 points for the math test, 20 points for the reading test, 20 possible points for the read aloud and a specific number of possible points on each question from each interviewer.  If you get those to total 100, you can have a score at the end that should give you a good indicator of how qualified each potential group leader is.

I hope this is helpful for you.  For the next and final post in this series, I’ll discuss how to make the decision on who to hire.

Hiring Part 4: The Decision

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, get one page of math that includes addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  Have about four or five problems of each type of increasing difficulty but not so hard that the page can’t be worked out by hand in about 15 minutes.  We used a review page from “Math Facts.”  Then add a mid-level (4th grade) reading assignment.  Use one where they read the passage and answer vocabulary and comprehension questions.  We used a lesson from a “Scholastic Reading Kit.”

Take the test yourself to see how long it takes.  Have a few other people at your level (site coordinators or managers) take the test as well. Then add on 10 minutes or more to that time to give your nervous applicants a reasonable amount of time to complete the test.  Our test took me and the coordinators who tried it about 20 minutes.  We gave each of our applicants 30 minutes to finish.

If they do not finish or do not pass the test at a level you find acceptable (maybe 70% or even 80%) DO NOT interview them.  This test will save you from spending time interviewing someone who would not have worked out.  It also saves you from having to fire someone later when they can’t do the job.

We found that applicants were not surprised when they were required to take a basic math and reading test and they understood perfectly when their score did not qualify them to move on to the interview.  I cannot explain enough how much having a test improved our hiring process and the quality of our staff.  You will just have to try it for yourself.

Good luck creating your test.  Next time we’ll talk about the interview.

Hiring Part 3: The Interview

Hiring Part 4: The Decision

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.

•  Basic Data:  name, date, and two phone number slots.
•  Are you available Monday – Friday from 2:00 pm – 6:30 pm?
•  Are you willing to be fingerprinted?
•  How did you hear about this job?  What made you want to apply?
•  Do you have any experience working with children?
•  What are your future school plans?  How long do you see yourself working with us?
•  Do you have any questions?
•  Comments:  (blank lines)

Some people chose to attach a resume but most did not have one. 

At the bottom of the sheet we had a form for our notes.  This included a check box for if an interview had been scheduled and the slot for the date and time of the interview.  We also included boxes to write their scores from the math and reading tests and from the read aloud portion of the interview.  That way, we could keep all of their information consolidated and get a good overview of the person just by looking at a couple of pages.

Don’t worry about the testing and read aloud yet.  Get started reviewing your application and watch for the next post where I’ll talk about testing.

To read the rest of this series, click the links below.

Hiring Part 2: Testing

Hiring Part 3: The Interview

Hiring Part 4: The Decision