Coaching a problem staff

[Zoe Girl]

Oh dear, we had such drama the last couple of days. I run a summer camp which means I get about 10 staff I have never worked with before and we run camp for about 8 weeks together, with all that comes up with that. As one part of the drama that came out was that T was very rude to the principal when I was gone for one day. The overall situation was with the FM and his behavior with me so my supervisor had come out quickly to deal with that and as we were talking to the principal we heard the story. So we talked to T and my sup took the lead and told her she was getting a write up. I have since received a copy of a previous write up that shows she has done this before and had previous write ups. This is not the only summer staff I did not have this background information on so now I just need to manage it.

T was very upset, said she does not get coaching and she really does not seem to get what her behavior is like in reality. She has also taken charge of the group she is supposed to share. She told me that she and her partner worked out how to use their plans but everytime I walk in the other person is treated like an assistant. So I gave her partner a separate room, and she can now use her own plans. I already had been working on that before I found all of this out yesterday.

So coaching a real problem person who has little self awareness! She has expressed interest in the mindfulness training I will do in fall so that is one opening. In traditional coaching it is based on what the employee is asking for but I feel like strongly guiding what she chooses or even just telling her based on write-ups we need to work on a specific area. My biggest concern is the self awareness, she is very reactionary however she has been fine with me. I want to use mindfulness training as the primary coaching technique, and check in with my sup since this will be more than the normal coaching load. I think my background of working with mindfulness and mediation will be a good fit, and she does seem basically willing to do this and concerned about her job. Any experiences or ideas are totally welcome, I am jumping into this today so we have a good 5 weeks to work.

[Ultralight]

I have noticed that there are very few problem staff; there are lots of problem managers out there though.

Maybe coaching the managers would be more fruitful.

[Zoe Girl]

So you are suggesting that I need coaching to be better with a staff I have had for 6 days in programming? Or previous managers? I find that too limited of an idea to address the many things that come up when people work together and supervise each other.

When I get the mindfulness training for staff structured out and approved I would like to encourage the supervisors to attend, I think that would be very beneficial since we have some serious issues at that level of the organization. However I am not sure if they would take it well coming from someone under them in the food chain so the focus will likely be on my peers and people we all supervise.

[Ultralight]

6 days is not much time.

Have you considered some fun/fluffy stuff like "What color is your parachute?"

People like those things. It usually passes for a real training and makes people feel friendlier to each other; and it strokes egos!

Give them a win. Give yourself a win. :)

[Zoe Girl]

Yeah that might be part of it, something fun of course. I need weekly staff meetings and how to use that with everyone. I will have 30 minutes a week for staff meetings, we do a lot of team builders and activities like that since we also do those with the kids as part of our program. That usually gets across any barriers we have, you have me thinking. We had very little team time before summer started and that is when I would typically do more team work.

Just to give you a picture, our site staff that work directly with kids are primarily graduates of our urban school district, care deeply about the kids, have talents in art or science or sports, also many of them do not show a high level of education in writing or speaking, one of my staff I have had before is in the process of being moved, phone changed everything due to domestic violence. Last summer she was beat up and wore heavy makeup until the bruises healed. Another is in court often because of what her kids are doing and is homeless, so she is taking the afternoon off to apply at a supportive shelter for housing. So when they come to work it can be hard to turn off some serious life issues, just like it is for our kids dealing with other trauma. To me this is very different than managing a group of professional types, but people are people.

[Ultralight]

Tragic, messed-up stuff. Wow... Jeeeez...

[Teacher Terry]

With people having such serious life issues it is no wonder that there are also problems at work. I think your idea of how to coach is a good idea.

[Zoe Girl]

This staff is not in the worst situations, however I see that she is constantly on edge and easy to blow. The other staff are doing okay. One is appearing to do better than what her school year supervisor reported. She is engaged more often but knowing about her homeless status makes more sense of her checking out sometimes. I see how people who are dealing with all of these things often lose jobs, get stuck in the lowest paying jobs and change them a lot, can't take advantage of opportunities. So when we have conversations here about what people can or should do I am truly speaking from direct experience, and working with it.

I didn't get the staff to sit down today with all the busyness. I did check out her group and have some things to talk about directly as well. Some of what we do with training and expectations for staff are very different than the way they were raised. We talk to kids with positive tones and language, offer choice and involve them in planning, use different behavior techniques. I have seen people with really authoritarian backgrounds struggle but usually with training and support they change quite a bit. They start to see that with better student engagement the behavior drops down to a more manageable level and the staff has more fun in their job as well. She has already been through these trainings for 5 years, so more needs to be done of course. I would like her to be successful however she needs to do the work.

[Zoe Girl]

Well it went really well, better than I hoped. The biggest thing was that she is aware of her tone. We talked about a lot of things, the impact of the terrible destructive year in our department, how her partner in her theme has not done any of her own plans, the challenges in taking care of kids in a way that we were not raised, etc. I found out she is in counseling, what helps her feel supported, and that she is really open to a mindfulness approach to coaching.

I did that big training (see other post) last weekend and am still exhausted. I cancelled some plans tonight to just rest and feel better by the end of the weekend.

[razz]

ZG, do you recognize that you are the right person for the job that you have right now benefiting a considerable number of people who need what you are offering? Take a bow sometimes, OK?

[sweetana3]

Razz, I was thinking the same thing.

[Zoe Girl]

You just made me cry,

[lhamo]

ZG, an old friend from the forums who you might remember has recently self-published a book on strategies for people living near the edge to work their way to financial security -- I'll post the link below. If you think you or your team members might benefit from it, let me know and send me a PM with your current mailing address and I'll send you a copy. I just got an Amazon credit from the big class action lawsuit and would love to use the money this way!

https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Strategies-Broke-At-Risk-Those/dp/151874043X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466464776&sr=8-3&keywords=rising

[Zoe Girl]

That is great, thank you Lhamo. I know my oldest kid could also use some advice but then again she does not listen to mom :)