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Thread: oh those difficult conversations

  1. #1
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    oh those difficult conversations

    So I have my new staff starting today!!! So awesome, I have also worked different camps with different staff and had a colleague come to my site so lots of ways of putting things in perspective. I saw how a lot of people worked, and learned from what happens at other sites. They have some of the same issues, I know the higher supervisor level says we should not keep poor staff, and I see it all over, and we need to face the reality of how hard these conversations are, the process, the staffing while we get better staff. It is not just making a decision and plowing through.

    I started to feel like I was a bad person for being ready to let my one staff go, and encouraging it. We have been back 2 days and I don't feel bad about it. Now how to have the conversations, I had one with her before the break about her tone with me. It went well, I felt like I was effective. She caught herself being negative and changed it right after our conversation. However her issues are deep. So yesterday her tone with the kids was so bad that I had to step in. Of course another conversation is needed. I had to leave camp yesterday with a debrief, so I sent her an email with tips and encouragement. It is both to keep it positive and to show that I am doing the work to train her.

    Now I have to have another conversation, and we all know this is on the edge of her losing her job or at least not getting promoted. Maybe there are no tips or tricks, I just know that I need a lot of some type of support to keep going.

  2. #2
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Hang in tnere ZG and keep in mind the standards of the institution you work for. It is the employee who fails to meet them, not you. You are just providing them an opportunity to meet standards and if they dont do that, that is NOT on you.

    i am so glad to be out of the world of management. Only now I am immersed in the volunteer world where in some ways things are worse because you cant fire out and out incompetence. In the volunteer world it is more along the lines of “coaching out.”
    Last edited by iris lilies; 1-4-18 at 12:01pm.

  3. #3
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    Thank you Iris, volunteers are a whole other issue! I know my mom has worked with that a lot, and now she does a lot of volunteering as well so she sees both sides. My SIL was talking to me about how part of her job is managing volunteers at the hospital. There is one sweet lady who keeps taking yarn for baby hats but can't make an actual functional hat. No one seems to get the message so they keep giving her yarn and then tearing out the hats she makes to be re-done. Seems harmless but you can't fire a volunteer from making bad hats.

    So much up and down on this, the bonus of having camp (childcare 6-6) is that I get a lot more time to see her work and talk to her. We have had at least 3 conversations and some of them have led to really great things! And then she is locked in an argument with a 6 year old again. I need to follow up with an email to her for documentation so I will be working over the weekend to do that and other things. However I am going to keep going back to what you said, it is not on me if they don't meet our expectations.

    Yeah!! My newest staff started Thursday! I have been working on hiring since August, this takes some pressure off and helps set standards at a high level as we train him. He has 5 years of experience as a classroom para-professional and tutoring programs.

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