Recently a colleague asked how to go about telling a staff member they would not be rehired at camp. As I reflected on their question it struck me that while the immediate issue was this difficult conversation, there was a bigger issue that needed to be addressed. How does a staff member make it through a summer and not know they didn't live up to expectations?Staff members want, need and deserve regular honest feedback. We need to be regularly observing their performance and giving them feedback, both positive and negative. If ongoing performance issues exist we should be doing ongoing coaching to try to resolve the issue. At the end of the summer they deserve an honest evaluation of how they did, both the good and the not so good.
If we get to fall or winter and staff members don't know where they stand on how they performed at camp last summer
we need to take a hard look at how we're leading our staff.
