Camping Magazine May/June 2006

Mission Impossible: Staff Orientation at Warp Speed

Each year, thousands of camps begin their season by gathering a special group of people together-- some returning, some new-- for a seemingly impossible task:  participate in camp staff orientation.   With a very short time to prepare counselors, specialists, and unit leaders, the camping industry will collectively entrust young adults with the unbelievable responsibility of nurturing campers through challenging experiences.

What other industry does this?  Can you imagine leaders in the corporate world working with their staff for a few days and telling them to go be proficient at all levels of their operation?  The implosion would further be felt if you added the pressure of dealing with unknown responses from an ever-changing clientele.  

In a typical camp situation you have between two and seven days to complete orientation.  Some exceptions do exist like programs with extremely quick turnarounds or camps with complex medical issues, but regardless of how much time you have:  it is never enough.  Creating time for staff to bond during free periods can be difficult with the increasing demand for compliance with state and local laws, OSHA regulations, skill development, hippa regulations and paperwork.  The pressure to mold a group of strangers into a high functioning team, whose collective responsibility will be to make your mission a reality, is enormous.

For your camp to be successful, you must decide exactly how each component of your operation supports your mission.  This starts with being able to articulate your camp’s mission to each perspective employee.  To effectively give your staff a chance to understand what you want them to do, each individual must possess a high level of ability. Each aspect of their contributions must fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.  It is critical for the person who is doing the hiring to understand the existing skills and abilities of the returning staff so you know what traits to look for in potential applicants.  This is an extremely important part of orientation planning because the effectiveness of your program hinges on your staff’s ability to interpret your directions.

If you know you did a good job explaining the program and you went into great detail about expectations, how do hiring mishaps still occur?  Frequently directors are in a hurry during the months leading up to camp and rely on new applicants to ask follow-up questions. This is especially true with large staffs. Sometimes, because of time and logistics, they end up coming to camp without knowing much information.  It is very difficult to ascertain what the applicant actually understood from you so personal choices like attitude, tattoos, body piercings and/or behavior patterns may change dramatically.  To increase you chances of positive outcomes, make sure you hire applicants based on three qualities:  character, intelligence, and skill.

This includes last minute hires. All too often hiring staff comes down to having to fill a spot.  The person who was average in February vaults to amazing in June.  What changed?  Sometimes an applicant can receive additional training, but, in truth, their personality and intellect stayed the same.  Your initial instincts are probably correct and the applicant may only be able to give you an average performance.  Hire enough mediocre staff, and you assure yourself an average program.  Before you hire someone who may decrease the capacity of what your staff is achieving, make sure your decision warrants the risk.

Prior to the staff’s arrival you MUST have an exact plan to communicate all the necessary information to your staff in a short period of time.  The most efficient way to accomplish this is to take an outcome-based objective approach.  Start by deciding exactly what you want to accomplish from orientation and work backwards towards the beginning.  You are the conductor so take your time and orchestrate the experience so each staff member receives the maximum benefit from the time you have.  If you do this using current examples/language they understand, you will begin to create a dedicated, motivated and committed staff.

This scenario sounds like a challenge most rational people would not accept.  If you are involved in orientation planning, you have to be a little crazy.  With a little guidance, this task known to some as “mission impossible,” can be highly successful.  The right combination of the three I’s (information, intelligence, and interaction) will help you to produce an extraordinary experience which will forever change the lives of your staff.  So you might be thinking, how can I help staff meet my expectations?   

One of the unpredictable aspects of orientation is how quickly the staff will respond to each other.  When a group of people is placed in new surroundings, some will take awhile to acclimate.  Others will take the opportunity to express themselves in new and different ways.  You can dictate how long this will take and to what degree staff will feel accepted if you inform them of several key points prior to their arrival.  First, take the time to explain the mission of your camp (empower them with information).  Follow with a thorough description of what camp life is like and more specifically, what their job entails.  Next, create a way to involve them in the development of their own experience.  Tell them their intellectual contributions will be an important aspect of orientation and give them examples of areas where this will happen like cabin rules/names, mail call, dining hall challenges, etc. Finally, it is extremely important to promote staff interaction prior to and during orientation.  It accomplishes an additional opportunity to exchange information while building much needed relationships through mutual decision-making. 

The key to inclusion is to embrace the many hidden agendas of staff.  New staff are concerned about where they will sleep or how big the bugs will be.  They are worried about fitting in, making friends, being accepted, learning camp lingo, and being liked.  Returning staff are already scheming for some of camp’s hidden perks, wondering who is returning, planning nights off, talking about last year’s campers, and talking about “new staff.”

In an ideal world, you would like everyone to just come in and, with a little guidance, do his or her job.  This is especially true when they have the advantage of additional training and bringing with them the benefit of certification and skill development.  Working at camp is seldom that simple. Whether new or experienced, many staff feel misunderstood.  Some begin by trying to fit in only to have their emotions boil over during the first week.

Because the daily life of a director is so hectic, many camp administrators do not recognize the process staff must go through to get ready for the summer.  Important personal decisions, which affect job performance, can happen between the signing of contracts and the start of orientation. Often, it is the stress of going to camp which causes a problem to escalate.  It is ironic directors spend months worrying about how each aspect camp is put together, while staff are simultaneously concerned about how their contributions will be accepted.

This difficult problem is one of the reasons staff orientation is a complex and critical part of pre-camp planning.  While many directors prefer to call this magical time before camp “staff training,” it is important to understand exactly what each of these terms mean.  Completing an orientation, which many staff are familiar with from college or high school, implies an initial exchange of information designed to help counselors become familiar with each other and your program.  Staff training connotes a specific perception from the people you hired that when it is over, they are done learning.

In truth, the real training doesn’t occur until the campers arrive.  Many staff, especially if they are new to working with children, have trouble relating to philosophical concepts.  This is quite logical. If someone has no basis of comparison then his or her perception of what is important may be greatly altered from your mission. Until they get some actual experience, the things you have stressed before and during orientation may not make sense.

The great unknown, in terms of how effective an orientation will be, is frequently forgotten.  While the camp is scrambling around getting ready so are the staff.  From their perspective they are: packing, dealing with the emotion of leaving school, leaving home, their country, friends and family, changing jobs, wondering about a vacation, worrying about financial aid, and many other things which may cause them to arrive unprepared. An astonishing amount of things can occur between the time you met a potential staff member and the time they arrive at camp.  While some have an amazing ability to adapt, others do not.

This phenomenon creates the big dilemma.  How do you communicate the necessary camp information while helping each staff member become comfortable in his or her new surroundings? To prepare for this, use your number one resource-- your returning staff.  Carefully plan orientation by using them as ACTIVE participants before camp starts by putting veteran staff in contact with new staff and provide them with general information which will help to ease difficult transitions.  Continue using the benefits of their experience by giving staff the power to run orientation activities, demonstrate skills, give tours and lead announcements.  This does not mean you should give up the tradition of giving the “what ever you do, please conserve the toilet paper speech” but it may require you delegate some of the tasks typically reserved for directors.

Early in orientation, make sure you take the time to carefully explain to each staff member what their specific job is and how it relates to the “big picture”.  Go into detail and do not combine staff of similar jobs in the same discussion.  Specialists who work with campers of different ages must also use age-appropriate teaching techniques to ensure activities will be relevant and fun.  Counselors must understand how the essential functions of their job differ depending on how old their campers are.  Directors must pre-determine what traits are specific to each age group and develop a separate list of responsibilities for each type of job.

Be careful to closely monitor signs of information saturation.  When staff begin to uniformly nod as a group or move aimlessly from place to place without enthusiasm, you have lost them.  It is difficult for people to communicate their feelings when they are being asked to absorb lots of new policies and procedures.  This is where the knowledge of the existing staff’s skills and abilities will work to your advantage.  Get camp leaders to partner with veteran staff to demonstrate essential policies, create interactive workshops, ensure sessions are relevant, and most of all, to make sure the sessions are fun.

The big secret:  staff are not used to being included in the creation of what they are asked to do, but they like it. While some are reluctant at first, most staff are far more likely to be eager participants if they are included in program development.  In the case where procedures must be exact like in the health center or bus duty, have them creatively role play each part: returning staff love to be busses, parents, sick campers, doctors and nurses.

Orientation sessions cannot be all business or philosophy.  They must contain a progression of skills which address the mental, physical and emotional needs of each staff member. This is precisely why the entire orientation schedule must be planned ahead of time.  Goals and objectives need to be clearly established in writing for all major and minor topics covered.  As the framework of these planned sessions unfolds, make sure you discuss what happens if a staff member fails.  Part of the apprehension of staff to try new things, such as behavior modification, is their fear of failure.  They do not have your experience and often choose to do nothing rather than risk making a mistake. It is your responsibility to teach them avenues for success and what will happen when things go wrong.

Given all these complex issues for orientation success, how do you know if you are creating a quality plan, which will be informative yet creative?  Think in terms of how young adults receive most of their information.  In the world of Ipods, Blackberries, Bluetooth and DSL, staff may require an interactive tutorial in your camp’s learning methods.  When you incorporate the topics you want covered with relevant learning techniques, you will effectively communicate with most staff.

Start by creating an orientation schedule which mimics a typical camp day.  Follow the same basic program format and stick to typical times for activity changes.  Keep in mind the optimum times for offering information-heavy topics.  First thing in the morning and after lunch are not good times to ask staff to retain important procedures.  They are good times for semi-active activities like name games, simple initiatives, routine chores or demonstrations.  Other factors to consider when scheduling topics include: weather, number of staff present, before or after meals, time of day, day of orientation, facility readiness, ages represented, education, and experience.

In order to create the “MAGIC” of camp you must understand the different level of learning orientation creates.  Quality orientation programs teach “skills” and “how to’s” simultaneously.  As each aspect of the camp experience is dissected, staff learn what is necessary to accomplish each specialty area’s goals through interactive workshops.  Intuitive leaders use this same time to promote a deeper meaning of the camp experience by creating a process where life skills are valued.  For example, when staff visit the archery range for the first time, they are taught safety rules, typical procedures, and range commands.  In reality, the importance of archery is secretly hidden in the process of fun.  What you really care about is campers following directions, listening, working on muscle control, concentrating, following a series of commands, respecting others and the environment.    

As you go through orientation, actively model the skills you are teaching.  If staff observe this behavior on a consistent basis they too will use the same techniques with the campers.  This parallel process is an extremely valuable tool for the overall growth of your camp.  Staff want to emulate camp leaders and will try harder if they respect you for leading by example.  Without a good example from the beginning, staff can unintentionally have an adverse affect on programming.  Last summer I visited a camp where the kids were told of a planned surprise for the next day.  They understandably came in for breakfast very excited and immediately began asking the staff questions about what the surprise might be.  The first three responses the kids got were:  “Not now,” “Wait until I have my coffee,” and “Don’t bother me now, I’m still sleepy.”  This immediately sent a clear message to the kids the staff did not care about the event or their questions.  Do counselors want the same response when they ask campers to make their beds?

Because each camp is different in scope and purpose, a composite list of things to include in orientation would be impractical. However, the format for a quality beginning should include the following:

--The careful greeting of each staff member- this needs to be personal

--A superior opening- sends a message for the year, involves everyone, led by directors

--Schedules- camp wide, by activity, by cabin or group

--Administrative Topics- history of camp, purpose and philosophy of orientation, personnel policies, records and reports, typical camp routines (arrival, meals, rest hour, etc), staff relationship guidelines, expectations, position descriptions, medical concerns, evaluation.

--Counselor and Specialist specifics-responsibilities, equipment, use of resources, guidance, age and stage information, skills, expectation of skill development, program rules by area, games, stages of group formation, behavior modification, inner camp games.

--Program- how it works, terminology, expectations, staff responsibilities (in and out of area), ordering supplies, special events, rainy days, travel procedures, theme events, strangers on site, security, first aid, religious expectations, free time, record keeping.

--Implementation- group formation and discussion, role-playing, mentors, demonstrations, skill lessons, consultants, surprise events, traditions, video 

Each of these suggestions should be divided into topics which specifically support the different aspects of your program. A trained person should lead each part of orientation using different methods of implementation.  Pay close attention to the flow of how and when these techniques are scheduled.  To give you an idea of how this might look in practice, let us examine one example of a creative, interactive, orientation session.

Under “program” you will have to familiarize the staff with all the different activity or specialty areas of camp.  You could do this by lecture, or provide them a map and let them wander around, or you could give them a list of areas and have them follow signs.  All of these attempt to accomplish your objective, but does it really support how you want your mission interpreted?   If you are doing one of these or you are doing something similar it is not necessarily wrong, but it could be better.

Think of the activities your camp has to offer and what creative ways can you introduce them to your staff.  Pretend you are a travel agency and let your returning staff be tour guides.  Have a map-drawing contest with pre-determined groups and then have each group travel around camp and get specialists to sign off on their areas.  Appoint each staff member to be a reporter and have him or her “investigate” each area.  Formulate it into a game like scavenger hunt; find the clue, or Columbus discovering the new world.  Be sure to personalize the experience and do not forget to immediately evaluate the exercise.  This is where you secretly observe staff preferences and determine what areas need attention.

As you prepare for orientation, please realize it is not an exact science. Staff need to be understood for the camp to run at peak efficiency.  Because of how the world changes, what worked last year may not be effective this year.  Work hard to select staff based on character not just on skill.  Create avenues for them to get more acquainted with your camp prior to orientation. Carefully plan to model how each aspect of orientation will support your mission.   Realize staff are going through a tremendous change to get ready for camp and they too are concerned about the camp’s ability to understand them as individuals.  Have a pre-determined plan for implementation which includes the use of returning staff.  Organize the schedule like a typical camp day and have staff move in groups which reflect cabin or group size.  Promote multi-leveled learning by demonstrating how camp affects life. Empower them to expand themselves beyond their expectations and avoid the irony of limiting their accomplishments through ineffective planning.  Teach staff by example how you want them to act and provide a well-designed orientation which leaves them tired and exited about the summer.