Staff motivation - Vision Realization

Structures
The elemental factors of camp staff quality, quantity, and pay are considered by all directors
and staff. Staff quality matters – that is perfectly obvious. Similarly, it would be self-evident to say that
all of these things influence staff motivation. In each of the following short sections, it is my goal not to
tell you what you already probably know, but rather to give you some knowledge that may cause you to
think about something more, and perhaps do something differently.
Staff quality
Camp management knows that in the end, the staff are where the rubber meets the road.
They are the intervention. The full importance of quality staff is described in other resources
such as “Organizational factors,” the “Organizational culture at camps” book, and “Staff
training best practices.” At this point, I’ll cover just a few salient points.
There are key job knowledge, attitude, and behavior/skill sets for every position, and
the interview process should help select for them. For camps, those skill sets often include: a
program skill, being fun, having some leadership ability, group work, loving children, being
safe, emotional intelligence, work ethic, beliefs and behaviors about discipline, and character.
Competency-based interviewing (also known as behavioral interviewing) attempts to
assess capability in the targeted domain. Answers to questions are evaluated against set criteria
to establish whether they are, for example, excellent, good, average, or poor. Such a detailed
exposition would be a small book beyond the current scope, but there are several resources
available on this topic. Bob Ditter’s book “Trail signs and compass points” has a section on
implementing this technique. A company called Power Hiring (www.powerhiring.com) has
also created a system specifically for summer camps. For emotional intelligence interviewing,
check out MHS’ interview protocol (eqi.mhs.com).
A few sample interview questions along these best-practice lines are included below,
and more are included in the section of this resource entitled “Empowered staff: Desire: Hiring
for fit.” (Page 23) For further familiarization with the interview process, please see the other
questions in that section.
What is your major? Did you change majors? {see past interests, goal setting, and
discipline}
Tell me about a few times when you had to discipline children? What is your
philosophy of discipline? {see behavior management resource – evaluated against
the 5 approaches to counseling}
What is your definition of a good role model? What qualities do you have that
would make you a good role model? What qualities do you need to work on? Tell
me about specific times when you feel you were being a good role model.
Describe your last few jobs. What were they, and what were your responsibilities?
Why did you choose those jobs? What did you like and dislike about each of those
jobs? What was the hardest part of the job? What would your co-workers (kids)
say about you?
Tell me about any leadership roles you’ve had – project, group, job, kids, or . . .
What did you do? What were the most satisfying and challenging parts? Were you
involved in organizing or planning it? How did you support the group/task? Did
you help grow people? Did that experience change you? Would you do anything
differently?
Tell me about the last significant fight/disagreement you had with someone. How
was it resolved? (If they resolved it well, have them tell about a time when they
didn’t)
© 2004 Randall Grayson, Ph.D. 6