cleaning out/doing it right vs delegating

[Zoe Girl]

I am debating, but I think I know where I am falling on this. It is at work so it seems that delegating would be the most managerial thing to do. I have been trying to delegate more and I really am. I was making progress on getting them to do the organizing and cleaning, it is just getting to the point where it will take a month delegating and I still won't be that happy with it, or I can go do a few hours and get it done 'right' and then make sure they maintain it. I don't have a hyper organized person this year honestly. I have that ability to do it, I am just hesitant to be in an old pattern of doing for people too much.

Our storage room is a tight fit, it has a tetris quality to it at the end of the day. We basically take out all of our materials to run our program in the cafeteria and then put it all back. Our new guy seems like he is waiting for his mother to come clean up. He puts things away badly. He is not following directions from the other staff well, like picking up some things and not everything when he cleans off a table. I walked through program at the end of the day last week and just kept directing him to pick up more things, like I did when my kids were younger and teens. I went in yesterday when we did not have kids at school to do paperwork and checked out the room and there is stuff everywhere, napkins on the floor, paintbrushes not washed, argh. I have worked with one staff 4 years and this is not her, I understand that he is the one putting things away. She was going to come in yesterday but ended up having a family emergency, and I can't do this another week. I also have one staff who had her last day so I am relying on subs to just basically run the program. Even with my experienced staff I have a lot of work to do in the program.

The plan is to get it cleaned up and labled. Not wash the paintbrushes! Maybe make a kid chore chart so they can have kids do more. And look over plans so we have nothing messy until we have more solid staffing. I also need to challenge myself to stop at the point I can delegate.

[Tybee]

Can you schedule a time to do this as a group project, so you are not having to do it by yourself but your vision can prevail? I guess I am not following what you are trying to do here.

[creaker]

If there's a procedure at the end of the day, maybe documentation, a checklist kind of thing? It's hard to argue with a checklist and it makes it pretty obvious when things get dropped/not completed. Also, the checklist is directing rather than you.

[sweetana3]

How about a visual aid. Some people need to "see" what the problem is. If you do not clean it, take a picture and share what a mess it is with him. Or, if you clean it out, take pictures of before and after exactly how you want it and share these. If it reverts, picture of the bad again.

Something like, John, here is a picture of the supply closet when I walked in this morning. Here is the picture of what we talked about. Note that X, Y and Z are not in place.

[Zoe Girl]

Great ideas, I am doing a check list as well for all the things that need to get done. My experienced staff gave me a rough draft for it.

I tend to be very team oriented, such as making a lot of team decisions and giving a lot of choice to my staff. However it doesn't always work with really new staff or a group that is not getting along. So my goal is to start off Monday with a tight structure and plan for how to go forward being understaffed, and then give them the checklist and organized room to maintain. Does that make sense?

[Chicken lady]

We have a sign over the sink for the kids - it's in many pretty colors and calligraphic fonts. It says "guess what? There is no paint brush fairy. Only nice, hardworking people like L (teacher) who do their best for you very day. Please do your best and: [clear step by step instructions for cleaning up art mess]"

i am really lucky to have my own room this year. Now if the last class doesn't clean up, I leave it. And the first class writes a note on the board telling the last class how they feel about coming in to a messy room. Then we discuss this in the last class, and usually things improve.

[herbgeek]

How much of what you want is documented? Either in the form of a checklist or labels in the storage area for what goes where? Expecting new people to just read your mind on what constitutes order, is likely to yield disappointment. If its a "tetris" area, it sounds like you have too much stuff for the space, so it wouldn't be surprising that a new person would put things away wherever they could fit them.

[Zoe Girl]

so I spent less than 2 hours, it just needed a good clean up. Lots of things are labeled from when I moved most of my supplies to camp for the summer but I realized it wasn't organized well. So I moved the most used stuff to the best shelf. We have rolling carts that we move in and out of program so I made one just for games and one just for art. I also re-did the dinner shelf. It was labeled and good but now more labeled and better. I made boxes for all the art supplies that are labeled, about half of them were but people did not put things away. Things like putting the scissors back in the scissors bin is on them. And throwing things on top of a pile instead of on the carts is also on them. The extra first aid supplies were already labeled and the extra dinner forks, spoons etc. I also have 3 (labeled) boxes of extra games that can be rotated on and off the game cart. Oh yeah, and the supplies that my experienced staff was missing were in their office, hanging on the door, she just didn't put them away when I gave them to her.

Someone put it very well when I shared what was going on, we just need a re-boot. They need to write their plans and check the supplies in their closet and then make me a shopping list. I need to go over the plans carefully and make changes as needed. My experienced person has always had someone else in program who was more of a leader but this year she needs to learn some new skills. Even our external observer noticed a few ways she was not prepared for her project, but that is our site goal this year. To have great plans, everything ready, and projects that last the right amount of time. It is not simple, we have kids aged 5 through 5th grade in one program.

[greenclaire]

I would give some responsibility to the kids on the programmes too. Even very young kids thrive with a bit of responsibility for their own surroundings. I've worked with kids as young as 2-3 who can (and enjoy) putting things back where they belong as long as things are labelled, ideally with pictures too. Older kids can be given more complex tasks and take on more supervisory roles too.

[Zoe Girl]

I am trying to figure out how to have kids help more. They can put things onto the carts, but when my new staff goes to the storage room he can't take any kids. He is an aide and can't be alone with kids, this is also a stress on the team as he has not understood this well and kept taking kids to the bathroom. So it will have to be enough for them to get things on carts until he gets to 455 hours!

[freshstart]

the new guy sounds like he needs a re-boot. Is there a probationary period if he doesn't turn it around soon?