Chapter 10. Hiring and Training Key Staff of Community Organizations | Community Tool Box

• Why should you develop guidelines for hiring, orientation, and training?

• How do you develop guidelines for hiring staff?

• How do you develop orientation and training guidelines?

Hiring the right people and training them properly are the most effective ways to ensure the success of your organization. In this section, you will learn how to develop guidelines for the hiring and training process, while later sections in this chapter discuss how to use those guidelines to design a position and hire and train the best person to fill it.

Why should you develop guidelines for hiring, orientation, and training?

Why do you need to establish guidelines for hiring, orienting, and training staff? Why can't you just hire people and get going, and encourage them to learn on the job? There are a number of reasons why it's important to think carefully about what you're doing before you hire and train staff.

• The ways people are hired and trained constitute their first impressions of the organization, and will contribute to how they feel about it over the long term, and to how good a job they do.
• Developing guidelines will make you think about your plan and philosophy for the organization. Your hiring and training guidelines should reflect what you want the organization to be.

An organization that sees itself as democratic or dedicated to empowerment might run a hiring process that gives applicants a chance to act naturally and show their true strengths, rather than to have to respond to pressure or intimidation. It might also involve members of the priority population, other staff, etc. in the actual hiring, in order to reflect its inclusive philosophy.

• Having a clear set of guidelines to follow simply makes the hiring and training processes -- which are often time-consuming and difficult -- much easier and less stressful for all concerned.
• It's important to have clear guidelines to show funders, potential employees, the community, etc. Developing guidelines accomplishes two purposes: it shows you've done your homework, and that you're a serious organization; and it protects you in case of an accusation of discrimination or a lawsuit by a rejected applicant.
• Life is full of surprises, not all of them pleasant. The better prepared you are, the fewer surprises you'll encounter, and the easier your life and that of your organization will be. Staff hiring and training are two of the easier things in life to prepare for.
• Most important, good hiring guidelines make it more likely that you'll be able to find and hire the right person for the job; and good orientation and training guidelines will help them do the job as well as they can, and enjoy it more as well.

How do you develop guidelines for hiring staff?

In developing guidelines of any sort for an organization, the first question that needs to be asked is who will work on them. As with so much else, the answer should reflect how the organization sees itself, although it will also depend on its stage of life. (Hiring staff for the first time, at the startup of an organization, is somewhat different from filling ongoing positions that have gone vacant, or hiring for a new position in an established organization.) Will participants be involved? Other staff? Board members? The community? Or will the guidelines be the work of one person?

Once you've determined who's going to work on the guidelines, that person or group needs to consider a number of issues.

• What kind of people do you want as staff members? You may have a number of criteria, and those may involve the applicants? skills, their personal qualities, their commitment to or passion for your issue, and/or their demographic characteristics (you may be looking for someone who will blend in with the priority population, or you may be trying to attain a certain level of staff diversity).

• What can you afford? Will positions be full time or part time? Will there be benefits of some sort, particularly health, and do people get some portion of them regardless of how many hours they work? Are you willing to pay more for someone you really want, or for specific skills or experience?
• What will the hiring process look like? You need to consider who (not individuals, but segments of the organization and/or the larger community ) will be involved, and at what points in the process. Who screens applications, who does interviewing, etc.? Other major issues in hiring are:
  • The drafting of job descriptions and selection criteria. Who will be involved in coming up with a final job description and in deciding what standards will be used for deciding who best can carry it out?
  • The format of the application and interview process. What kind of impression do you want to make on applicants, and how does that fit with your organization's view of itself?
  • The timeline. When does the hiring have to be finished, and have you allowed enough lead time for that to happen? (You can always rush things, but the results might not please you in the long run.)
  • Where are you going to find candidates? What kind of advertising of the job will you do, and where? And what do you need to include in the advertising in order to be legal (AA/EEO, for instance)?
  • How many good candidates do you want to interview, and how will you decide who gets an interview? Who will read and make decisions on application materials? How many levels of this kind of screening do you want to do?

• How many stages of interviews do you want to do? One? Two? How much time will interviewers have to spend on this process, and do they have that time?
• How will you actually choose and notify the successful candidate? What's your procedure if they don't accept?
• How will you inform the other applicants once you've hired somebody?
• Will there be a contract or some other form of agreement with the new staff person? Will there be a probationary period? If so, how long will it be, and how will it (or the staff member, if they don't work out) be terminated?
• How will the hiring process be evaluated, and how will new ideas for improving it be incorporated into the guidelines?

If your guidelines touch on all the above questions, you'll have laid out the general shape of the hiring process for your organization. That process, if you've thought carefully as you've developed the guidelines, should demonstrate the kind of organization you want to be, and should be consistent with your mission, philosophy, and goals.

How do you develop orientation and training guidelines?

There are really three areas of training that effective organizations pay attention to. Orientation is aimed specifically at new staff members, and is meant to help them become familiar and comfortable with the organization. What is normally called training helps new staff people do their jobs better by focusing on the particular skills and knowledge needed for the position, and on how this particular organization applies them. Finally, there is professional development: education and training which goes on throughout a person's working life, and serves to help them continually improve at what they do. An organization that cares about the quality of its staff 's work will provide, or help staff members gain access to, all three types of training.

Orientation.

New staff members, regardless of their experience and skills, need timely and time-limited orientation to their positions and to the organization itself -- how it operates, who the other staff members are, what it considers normal, etc. Areas that need to be covered in orientation include the following:

• The structure and general functioning of the organization -- which positions cover which areas, the role of the Board, who supervises whom, communication channels, organizational policies and procedures, any specific rules or regulations the organization or staff might be subject to, etc.
• The philosophy and mission of the organization. How does the organization see its role in the community and the world? What does it actually want to accomplish?

• The structure and general functioning of the position. What exactly is the staff member expected to do, especially those things in addition to the obvious duties that go with the job title? What exactly are the benefits that go with the position? What kinds of resources do they have access to in order to do their job?
• The role of supervision. How, and from whom, do they get supervision? When do they have to check with someone before they do things, and when can they act on their own? Who will they supervise, and what is the role of supervision in this particular organization?

• The people the new staff person will be working with, including other staff of the organization, staff from other organizations, and people in the community.
• The day-to-day routine of the organization and of the site where the staff person will be working -- where everything is; who to ask for what; the guidelines for the use of computers, copiers, and other office equipment; who answers which phones; when lunch and payday are; where to park; how to use health and other benefits; etc. This area would also include instruction in security procedures, the use of office equipment, software, phone and fax systems, etc.
• The organizational culture -- how people treat one another, and what kind of work behavior is considered "normal."

• Understanding of and familiarity with the population the organization serves.
• Understanding of and familiarity with the community and context within which the organization operates -- local supporters and detractors, local politics, funders, other organizations, etc.

Training.

Regardless of their previous background, any new staff member needs to be able to employ their skills in the specific ways required by their new position and by the organization. They also may need to learn new skills related to what they already know, since the demands of the position may be somewhat different from what he's done in the past. The organization's training guidelines need to take into account what it is about the position that is different in this organization than in others, and just what a particular new staff member is likely to need to learn.

There may be other issues here as well. The organization may expect participants to be treated in certain ways. Organizational vocabulary may be different than in other places. (Many organizations refer to participants as "clients," for example, while others consider that term disrespectful.) While some issues of this kind may be covered in orientation, others may be specific to the actual practice of the staff member's job, and may not come up until they are actually doing the work. The purpose of training, after all, is to ensure that every staff member performs their responsibilities as well as possible.

Professional development.

Many people and organizations believe that education is not a thing you get, but a process that continues throughout life. Effective organizations believe that training is an educational process that continues throughout one's working life, and that the more staff members can learn that relates to their work, and the more skills they can acquire, the more innovative and competent they will be. As a result, they encourage staff members to continue their training far beyond the basics that the organizations supply.

They may offer continuing in-service courses and workshops, and/or they may offer release time or financial support for external courses, conferences, and other learning experiences. Some organizations require that staff members spend a minimum number of hours a year in professional development; others leave it up to the individual, but provide some kind of support. The goal in all cases is to make sure that everyone in the organization is constantly learning, a circumstance that makes it possible to continually reexamine and refine the organization's practices, and to make an effective organization even more so.

In forming guidelines for orientation, training, and professional development, there are some general questions that need to be considered.

Who will actually conduct the training in each area?

Will it be in-house (i.e. conducted by staff of the organization)? Are there other possibilities (e.g., people from other organizations, from local colleges or universities, hired professional trainers or consultants)?

If it's in-house, will the position's supervisor be involved? The Director? If it's external, might it include college courses or professional development opportunities provided by the state or funders?

When in the staff person's tenure will orientation and training take place, and how long will they last?

Will orientation happen in the first week? The first month? The first two days? It's important that it happen early, certainly, so that the new staff member can hit the ground running.

How about training? Will it start immediately, or will you wait until the person has actually begun their job, and has some first-hand experience to build on? How much training will be standard, regardless of the staff member's previous experience, and how much will be tailored to the individual? By when should training be completed? A month? Three months? A year?

What forms will training in each area take?

A training program might encompass a mix of formal and informal styles and methods.

Formal training could include:

• Direct instruction, in a classroom or other setting, where someone passes on information, procedures, etc. through lectures, slides, or other "standard" methods
• Planned tours of facilities, neighborhoods, other organizations, etc.
• Reading materials to be digested on one's own, and/or directed research
• Apprenticeship: observing and working with one or more experienced staff for an initial period
• Attendance at regular meetings, seminars, workshops, etc.
• Learning circles (formal learning or research as part of a group of peers which sets its own agenda and requirements)
• Direct supervisory feedback on workI

Informal methods of training:

• Conversations and informal meetings with the Director, supervisor, other staff, participants, community members, staff from other organizations, etc.
• Learning on the job
• Keeping a personal journal to reflect on
• Visiting other staff and other organizations

What materials need to be prepared for the training?

Some necessary printed matter, whether self-produced or purchased, might include a staff handbook or brochure (description of the organization, philosophy/mission statement, policies and procedures, salary and benefit schedules, antidiscrimination policy, etc.); information about the community; information about the initiative or organizational issue -- statistics, demographics, arguments and counterarguments, economic information; information from one's predecessor; and academic or other material pertaining to the issue or to necessary skills.

How, and by whom, will the training be evaluated?

How will you know whether training was effective, and whether it was seen as helpful by the trainees? The trainee, the trainer, and the organization (probably in the person of the trainee's supervisor) are all possible evaluators. Getting feedback from all three is likely to give the most accurate picture.

The method of evaluation could vary from the use of a standard, multiple-choice form to face-to-face discussion to a longer, open-ended written evaluation. The method you use depends on the needs of the organization and the form of the training.

How will the evaluation be used?

Evaluation is futile unless it is actually paid attention to and used to refine the training process. Each set of evaluations can provide information to incorporate into the next training cycle.

In Summary

Hiring the right people and training them well are the most important things you can do to ensure that your organization is effective. Establishing clear guidelines for hiring and training is a way to help your organization get the hiring and training right every time. If you can develop guidelines that reflect the character of your organization, are consistent with its philosophy and mission, and speak directly to the organization's needs, you're well on your way to a great staff and organizational success.

You understand why you should develop guidelines for hiring, orientation, and training:

___The ways people are hired and trained constitute their first impressions of the organization.

___It will make you think about your plan and philosophy for the organization.

___It makes the hiring and training processes easier and less stressful.

___It's important to have them to show funders, potential employees, and the community.

___It helps to be better prepared for "surprises" that may occur.

___Guidelines make it more likely you will be able to find and hire the right person for the job, and that he or she will do it well.

You know how to develop these guidelines:

___You have decided who will develop the guidelines.

___You know the kind of employee you want, what the hiring process will look like, and what you can afford.

___You understand what orientation, training, and professional development all entail, and the differences between them.

For training:

___You know who will conduct the training in each area.

___You know when and for how long the orientation and trainings will take.

___You know what forms of training will take place.

___You know what materials need to be prepared for the training.

___You know how, and by whom, the training will be evaluated.

___You know how the evaluation will be used.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

Job descriptions and selection criteria help organizations and job applicants understand what is expected from a person in a specific position, and help to determine whether an applicant is a good fit for that position. This section provides a guide for preparing job descriptions and selection criteria that accurately reflect what your organization needs in a position and that will attract the right person to fill it.

Why it's important to carefully develop a job description and selection criteria before you advertise a position

There are a number of reasons why having clear job descriptions and selection criteria are necessary.

• They define the position for the organization, for potential applicants, and legally. If there's any question about whether a staff member is actually doing their job, or being asked to perform duties that have nothing to do with their position, the job description should clarify the situation. It should also make it clear who's ultimately responsible for specific tasks or areas.

• They give potential job applicants a sense of whether they should apply for the job. The clearer you can be about the requirements, duties, and responsibilities of the job and what kind of person you're looking for, and the better you can represent these in your advertising for the job, the less time you'll have to spend reading applications from inappropriate candidates.
• The act of developing job descriptions and selection criteria forces you to clarify your thinking about the position, the kind of person you want for it, and the organization itself. Organizations often have to include job descriptions in proposals for new programs or positions. Sometimes, the act of composing the job description changes the whole course of the proposal, as people realize that they can use a position in ways they hadn't considered, or that what they had originally conceived was, in fact, unworkable. A job description can sometimes serve to define a whole program.
• Having a clear job description and selection criteria will help you write the copy to advertise the position, and will make the interviewers' task easier as well. If interviewers have a clear understanding of the tasks of the position, they can be much clearer about how to find out whether an interviewee can perform those tasks.
• Most important, a clear job description and selection criteria make it more likely that you'll hire the best person for the job. If you know exactly the person you're looking for, and have a distinct picture of what you want them to do, you're much more likely to find her than if you're simply hoping someone good will turn up.

Preparing a job description

While job descriptions and selection criteria are closely linked, it may make sense to work on the job description first, since that will help you decide what at least some of your selection criteria should be. A job description that includes administering medical treatment is unlikely to suggest hiring someone with a background only in heavy construction, for instance. On the other hand, there may be criteria that are important for any position you hire -- sense of humor, respect for the priority population, commitment to social change -- which, stated or unstated, may be as important to you as the particular skills the staff person will need. We'll discuss this issue further later in the section.

There are really three parts to the task of preparing a job description:

1. Choosing the job title.
2. Developing a list, often bulleted or numbered, of specific duties and responsibilities that the position requires.
3. Composing a capsule description of the position, including what it's meant to accomplish, requirements other than specific tasks (e.g., hours per week and expected schedule, whether weekend or evening work is required, necessary travel, etc.), and who the position supervises and reports to. This section may include wage or salary and benefit information as well.

Choosing a job title

It may sound like a small thing, but, in fact, the title you pick for the position can be very important in several ways. First, it can serve to define the job clearly, both for the staff member and for others who deal with them. The choice of title may also have a lot to do with the way the person in the position is regarded in the community.

A better title -- one that implies more responsibility or authority -- can attract better candidates, even though the pay may be no different from that of a position with a "lesser" title. One of the reasons for this is that a job title can not only boost self-esteem, but it can also be helpful when a person applies for their next job, making it easier to get a more responsible position.

A job title, then, serves to define the position and to define the place of its holder, both in the organization and in the community. As a result, its choice demands some serious thought. For the sake of example, let's go through the process of developing a job description for a position that we've decided to call Community Health Educator.

Developing a list of specific duties and responsibilities

There are really two steps to generating a list of specific duties and responsibilities. The first is to define the basic elements of the position (i.e., what it is you actually want the person to be able to do, or know, or be good at in order to do their job well. The second is to then identify the specific activities -- all the specific activities -- that the job requires. Let's take our hypothetical job, Community Health Educator, and look at the development of a list of duties and responsibilities for it.

Basic elements of the position

What do you want this person to do and know and be good at? Some of these things are skills related to the job title, which may be learned through education and training or through experience (perhaps in previous positions, perhaps otherwise). Others are skills required by the job which may not be implied in the job title, and some -- personality traits and characteristics -- may not be learned at all.

For a Community Health Educator, the specific skills learned from education and training might be:

• Teaching and facilitation skills, including a knowledge of appropriate teaching materials for the priority population
• Counseling skills
• General knowledge of community health issues
• Understanding of the medical/scientific causes and treatment of particular health problems -- AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), tuberculosis, substance use, lack of prenatal care, malnutrition, various forms of mental illness, tobacco-related illnesses, etc.
• Knowledge of the native language of a priority population with limited English proficiency. In this hypothetical case, we'll assume Spanish.

(Obviously, not all of these would be necessary for every position, and some might need skills not on this list.)

The skills acquired by experience that you might want a Community Health Educator to have include:

• Outreach skills
• Understanding of the community
• Understanding of the priority population
• Knowing the workings of the health bureaucracy -- HMOs, hospitals, state and federal agencies -- and how to negotiate them
• Understanding the social causes and potential solutions to particular health problems
• Familiarity with referral possibilities and procedures

Finally, there are the non-specific skills, traits, and abilities, some learned and some innate, that are required by the job:

• Clerical and organizational skills -- filing, record-keeping, doing paperwork accurately and on time, etc.
• Computer literacy
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Self-presentation -- knowing how to act, dress, and communicate with different groups
• Interpersonal ability -- getting along with and being accepted by the priority population, the community, and colleagues; dealing with conflict well; and maintaining a sense of humor

Specific activities required for the position

Now it's time to come up with everything the person in this position will be expected to do. Remember that the list should include absolutely everything, whether it relates directly to the job title or not. For our Community Health Educator, the list might look like this:

• Develops and offers presentations, in the appropriate language (English or Spanish) and using appropriate materials, on general and specific public health issues -- including (but not necessarily limited to) HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), substance use, stress, nutrition, breast and other types of cancer, and tuberculosis -- to the priority population, community groups, populations experiencing increased risk, other professionals, and the general public.
• Conducts outreach to groups experiencing increased risk, particularly in the priority population.
• Counsels individuals on treatment of health and substance use disorders, and makes appropriate referrals.
• Distributes and resupplies written and/or audio-visual information on public health issues to all sites of the organization, other agencies, businesses, and other highly visible sites in the community.
• Recruits, trains, and supervises small groups of the priority population as providers of preventive and other health education in their communities.
• Testifies at public and legislative hearings on the need for health care, the health problems of the community, and other related issues.
• Runs an annual Community Health Fair in June.
• Establishes and maintains contact with the local community of health and human service professionals.
• Meets regularly with other staff of the organization to develop strategies for serving the community.
• Spends at least 50 hours per year engaged in professional development activities.
• Maintains up-to-date computer database of contacts and presentations, including the number of contact hours per week.
• Completes all paperwork required for the position in the prescribed time.
• Attends weekly staff meetings.
• Attends bimonthly supervision sessions with the Program Director.
• Serves on the Board's Public Health Committee, and attends full Board meetings upon request.
• Answers office phones two hours per week.
• Performs any other duties as required by the Executive Director.

This is a long list, but remember that these are all the activities you think this person will need to perform in this position. They may not do all of them at any one time. A year may go by without some of them being done, depending on the needs of the community and of the organization, but they're all part of their job, and they may need to practice any or all of them at a given time.

Some of these duties -- staff meetings, supervision, answering office phones, perhaps committee service -- are not unique to this position, but are required of everyone in the organization. Others -- outreach, maintaining contacts in the community, distributing health literature, paperwork -- are ongoing, and happen in the daily course of the job. And notice the last one: that's a catch-all, in case anything comes up that no one thought of, or in case the organization somehow changes before job descriptions can be readjusted.

Writing the capsule description

Now that we have a job title and have come up with a list of activities and responsibilities to go with it, it's time to tackle the capsule description. This will be a two-or -three sentence description of the job and its purpose, as well as any other major responsibilities it entails. The capsule description also includes some of the nitty-gritty information about the position (hours per week, schedule requirements, flexibility or lack thereof, salary or hourly wage, benefits, etc.), and specifies who supervises it. The capsule description thus gives an overview of the position and makes clear where it falls in the organization and what its logistics are.

Here's a try at a capsule description of our Community Health Educator position.

The Community Health Educator acts as the bridge between the organization and the community on issues relating to public and individual health. They, in addition to presenting health issues and education to the public in a variety of ways, counsels and makes referrals in matters of individual health care, and also recruits and trains members of the community to act as resources for health information.

The Community Health Educator reports to the Program Director. This is a full-time position (40 hours per week), and includes some evening and weekend hours. Scheduling is flexible within limits. Competitive salary and benefit package.

The job description is complete, but there are still some important questions left to ask:

• Does this job description make sense? Do all the functions of this position hang together?
• Does it describe a job that can be done well by one person in the time they're given to work at it (i.e. are there unreasonable expectations)?
• Does the organization have the resources to support the position (the time of other staff members, enough money to pay a salary consistent with what's required, materials, space, etc.)?
• Is the schedule reasonable?
• Was the supervisor for this position chosen for logical reasons based on how the organization operates, rather than merely for convenience or to massage someone's ego?
• Does the supervisor actually have the time and expertise to supervise this position?
• Will the position accomplish what the organization designed it to?

If you can comfortably answer "yes" to all of these questions, you've done a great job, and you can use your job description with confidence, both for recruiting applicants and for defining the position once you've hired someone. If some of your answers are "no" or "I'm not sure," then go back and deal with those issues right now, before you start the hiring process. The amount of time you spend now will only be a tiny fraction of the time those "no's" will cost you later, and won't even be in the same universe when it comes to the amount of hassle you'll save. Work with it until you know it's right -- you won't be sorry.

Developing selection criteria

Selection criteria for a position will generally fall under four headings: education and other formal credentials; job-specific skills and knowledge; non-job-specific skills and knowledge; and personal attributes and traits. And once you have a job description to work from, it should be a piece of cake to develop selection criteria, right? Well...yes and no. First of all, selection criteria aren't exactly the same as qualifications.

Qualifications are the credentials and experience that are stated as preferred or required for whomever you hire for the position. Generally, they'll go into your advertising, so that potential applicants will know whether they're eligible for the job or not, and they're the standard you'll use in screening applications. To some extent, especially if you have public funding, you're legally bound to them, and you could be challenged, or even sued for discrimination if you hire someone who doesn't have them over someone who does. (A lot of this depends on circumstance, and you're reasonably safe if you're not discriminating and can defend your choice. A lawsuit, however, even one you win, costs an organization time and money, both of which might be in short supply.)

But selection criteria might not be limited to qualifications. Your organization might want a particular kind of person as a staff member -- someone who's warm and engaging, for instance, or who will treat participants and everyone else with respect, or who just seems astute in certain ways. Or you might prefer someone who comes out of a particular background, or whose politics mesh with those of the organization and its staff members, or whose personal style fits in with those of the rest of the staff.

These criteria aren't even always conscious...but they should be. It's important to analyze and understand what your unspoken criteria are as well as your spoken ones, so that you can be clear about why you're hiring who you're hiring, rather than talking about "hunches" or "feelings" when you're arguing for your choice.

In developing qualifications, there are two ways to go: you can be as specific as possible, because you feel you know exactly what a person will need to do the job well; or you can be as general as possible, hoping to attract someone who may not look exactly right on paper, but who will in fact be exactly right once they get into the position. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, and there's also a way to hedge your bets.

Qualifications can be either "required" or "preferred." If they're required, then no one without them will apply, and you're legally bound to them if you're operating under those kinds of restrictions (public education, many government agencies, and other publicly funded organizations are usually subject to such regulations). If they're preferred, then you have a lot of discretion about whether someone actually needs them or not. You can require some qualifications and prefer others. If you use "preferred" for at least some qualifications, you may have to read through more applications, but you may also find a gem where you least expect it.

Education and other formal credentials

How important are educational and other formal credentials to performing the duties in this job description or to the standing of the position? Do you simply require all your staff to have college or advanced degrees? For some positions, these kinds of questions have obvious answers: if you're looking for a doctor or a nurse or a lawyer, they'll need not only specific degrees but other certifications -- such as passing the Bar Exam -- in order to legally do the job at all. A psychologist or social worker needs certain academic and other credentials in order to be reimbursed for their work by insurance companies. But how about a teacher in a community-run school or an adult education program? Or a job counselor in an employment training agency? What does the person actually need, and are you possibly depriving your organization of someone really wonderful by requiring certain degrees? (Here's where "preferred" can be really useful.)

On the other hand, how will this person be viewed in the community? Who will they have to deal with as a colleague, as an advisor or consultant, or as a supervisor? Is it important for their credibility that she have academic credentials that match or exceed those of others in the community or in her field? If so, then those credentials must be required.

Our Community Health Educator, for instance, probably needs a degree in Education, Counseling, Public Health, Social Work, or something similar. Why does she need it? She's being asked to testify before legislative committees, to network with colleagues in the community, to make community and other presentations. She may not need the degree in order to do these things well, but she definitely needs it for credibility in these and other situations. Hiring someone without a degree in an appropriate area would be doing that person a disservice in this case, because it would put her at an immediate disadvantage in a number of situations.

Job-specific skills and knowledge

These are the skills and knowledge directly related to the performance of the job you're hiring for. A doctor needs to know about various diseases and medical conditions, anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, etc., and to be able to stitch up a wound, take blood pressure accurately, and give an injection in order to treat patients; a mason has to know the proportions of sand, water, and lime in different mixtures of mortar used for different purposes, and to be able to lay a straight and level line of brick or stone in order to build a wall. The fact that they both need to be able to do some basic math is not specific to either of their jobs, even though they couldn't do those jobs without it.

If you've done your job, you have a job description that should tell you just what the skills and knowledge are that the person you're hiring will need. Let's look at our Community Health Educator again, and determine what job-specific skills and knowledge they need.

According to the list of duties and responsibilities we developed for the position, the major part of the job revolves around teaching and counseling skills, particularly on health issues. The ideal candidate, then, would probably have some teaching experience, some counseling experience, and a knowledge of health issues, in addition to their degree in a related area, if you've decided upon that.

So which of these criteria will you require, which will you prefer, and which will you ignore? Unfortunately, you usually have to deal with the difference between "ideal" and "actual." If you can find a person with all these qualifications, and that person is who you want, that's great. But, in reality, it's more likely that you'll find a person you really like who has only some of these particular credentials.

The question you have to resolve here is what's most important to you. If the person you want has no health experience, for instance, are you willing to train them or get them trained in that area in return for the other assets -- perhaps personality traits, perhaps exemplary teaching skills -- they bring to the job? What skills or experience would you absolutely require regardless of how much you liked them in every other way? Teaching expertise? A welcoming personality? Knowledge of the workings of the health care system? It depends on the perspective of your organization, on what you believe can be easily learned in a relatively short time, and on what you regard as most important for this person to accomplish.

Non-job-specific skills and knowledge

Just as both the doctor and the mason need basic math skills, everyone needs skills and knowledge that aren't intrinsically related to their job title, but are required to do the job.

Some examples of these include...

• Familiarity with the priority community, or with similar communities
• Experience in a related, but not directly related, area of work
• Knowledge of a particular language
• Understanding of particular systems and how to negotiate them -- state bureaucracy, private foundations, health care delivery, public schools -- or of systems in general
• Excellent writing and/or public speaking skills
• Understanding of a particular philosophy that your organization follows: Jungian psychology, participatory education, Marxist economics, etc.
• Knowledge of public relations
• Familiarity with computers or other technology, or with particular software
• Clerical skills
• Organizational skills

The Community Health Educator, for instance, would have to have good communication skills (for public presentations, testimony, networking, and outreach), clerical skills, a high degree of organization (paperwork, record-keeping, juggling a lot of different responsibilities), and computer literacy (maintaining a database). She would also need an understanding of the state and/or local health bureaucracy, familiarity with the priority or similar communities, and, according to her job description, fluency in Spanish.

Some of these skills may not be included in job descriptions or selection criteria, because it's assumed that anyone of a certain educational or occupational level will have them. It's dangerous to make that kind of assumption, however; if you don't ask for what you want, there's a good chance you won't get it. Be direct about what the position demands, and you're more likely to hire someone who can handle it.

Personal attributes and traits

There are a number of characteristics which are neither learned nor acquired by experience, but are nonetheless important for success in particular positions. There are others you might expect from anyone in your organization, which reflect your organizational character and the things you believe in. Some of these may not fall in the area of qualifications, but many do. These could include...

• Initiative: the ability to get started and work independently when necessary, and to come up with ideas and carry them out.
• The ability to get along with a wide range of people, including other staff and community members, and to communicate respect to everyone.
• A sense of humor.
• Patience.
• A neat and well-groomed appearance. (In some positions, this could be a negative rather than a positive.)
• Passion for the organization's cause or issue.
• Particular characteristics of birth or physique. (Does the position require heavy lifting? Dance therapy?)
• Particular racial or ethnic characteristics, gender, or residence.. You'd be unlikely to hire a man as a sexual violence counselor for survivors of domestic violence, for example; or you might want to hire someone from the community you're prioritizing in order to increase your program's credibility in that community.
• Possession of one's own transportation, and willingness to use it on the job.
• Willingness to travel, work odd hours, etc..

Our Community Health Educator's qualifications would probably include initiative -- especially if she's expected to start the program from scratch -- and the ability to get along with people. But it's in this category of criteria that those unspoken standards come into play. The applicant's personality may have a lot to do with whether she gets hired or not, even though that's not directly stated. How she dresses may be important -- not messily, but not too well, either, so that she doesn't put off or intimidate the people with lower incomes with whom she's working. And there's that intuitive flash that individuals or hiring committees sometimes get that says "hire this person" or "don't touch this applicant with a ten-foot pole." That's why it's important to be conscious of all your criteria.

What criteria you should use -- both publicly and privately -- depends on what's most important to you. If a sense of humor is essential, then say so. If it would be nice, but there's already a long list ahead of it, let it go. What are the real preferences of the organization?

• Does the organization value certain personal attributes over knowledge and/or experience?
• Does it value certain kinds of experience more than others? (Some organizations will go out of their way to hire people who've been in the Peace Corps, for instance, because they feel that the experience leaves people with skills and attitudes that lead to great competence in community work.)
• Does it assume that one body of knowledge -- understanding of the causes and treatment of specific health conditions, for example -- can be picked up more easily than another -- e.g., understanding of low income or ethnic communities? Or vice versa?
• Does it have a philosophical commitment to hiring people with certain backgrounds or disabilities, or to diversity in general?

The answers to all of these questions will affect how selection criteria are chosen and applied and how job applicants are rated in an organization's hiring process. Ultimately, the selection criteria should...

• Be manageable: there shouldn't be so many that they'll severely limit the number of people who can apply, nor so few that they don't leave you with any way to judge applicants.
• Conform to whatever legal standards to which you are subject.
• Look like the profile of someone who could do a great job in the position, and whom you'd want to work with.

In Summary

Preparing a job description and choosing selection criteria -- both spoken and unspoken -- carefully and consciously are important elements in hiring, especially for a new position. The work you do on these preliminary tasks will help you define the position clearly and make the whole hiring process easier. But most important, it will make it far more likely that you'll hire exactly the right person for the job; and that's the whole point of the hiring process.

___You understand that a job description explains, in general terms, what the job is about, specifies who supervises the position, lays out the tasks the person is expected to perform, and provides the standard by which an employee can be evaluated .

___You understand that selection criteria is a list of skills, personal attributes, credentials, and other characteristics that a person needs to do a particular job in a particular organization.

You understand why it's important to develop a job description and selection criteria before you advertise a position:

___They define the position for the organization, for potential applicants, and legally.

___They give potential job applicants a sense of whether they should apply for the job.

___The act of developing job descriptions and selection criteria forces you to clarify your thinking about the position, the kind of person you want for it, and the organization itself.

___Having a clear job description and selection criteria will help you write the copy to advertise the position, and will make the interviewers' task easier as well .

___A clear job description and selection criteria make it more likely that you'll hire the best person for the job.

You understand that there are three parts to the task of preparing a job description:

___Choosing the job title.

___Developing a list of specific duties and responsibilities that the position requires.

___Composing a capsule description of the position.

___You understand that a better job title can attract better candidates and serves to define the position and to define the place of its holder both in the organization and in the community.

You understand that a list of specific duties and responsibilities includes:

___Basic elements of the position, job-related skills and personality traits, skills acquired through experience, and non-specific skills, traits, and abilities.

___Specific activities required for the position.

___You understand that the capsule description is a two or three sentence description of the job and its purpose, as well as any other major responsibilities the job entails.

___You understand that selection criteria may include education and other formal credentials, job-specific skills and knowledge, non-job-specific skills and knowledge, and personality attributes and traits.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

Why is advertising important?

It's Sunday afternoon, and you've settled in for a long bout with the help wanted ads in the Valley Falls Distorter, the local paper. You're interested in some sort of community work, and you'd particularly like to be able to use your social work training. As you run your eye down the columns, you turn up some ads that you might be interested in responding to.

Which ad do you find most interesting? Most informative? The chances are that you'd write off the first one immediately: it doesn't tell you anything, and the organization obviously tried to spend as little as possible in running it.

The other two both briefly describe the jobs they're advertising, and each tells you a good bit about its organization as well. HRC implies that it sees itself as a professional organization -- it's requiring both a Master's degree and licensed social worker status -- and that it has at least a somewhat hierarchical structure ("supervisory/administrative responsibilities"). It sees the people it serves as "clients" who need to be "managed." It also tells you that it pays reasonably well, and that there are probably automatic raises at regular intervals ("starting at..."). It specifies both the required qualifications for the position and what it wants as application materials, and lets you know who you're sending them to.

Opportunities for Area Youth, on the other hand, has a catchy title, and implies that it's a grassroots organization ("devoted to social justice"), and that it sees its priority population as capable of community leadership. It seems to have a non-hierarchical, or at least less top-down structure ("collaborative"), and to value staff ideas ("room for creativity") and staff autonomy ("flexible hours"). By the same token, the "negotiable" salary may be fairly low, not unusual for a grassroots organization. This organization also is specific about what kind of application to send and who to send it to, but "prefers" its qualifications, meaning that it's willing to be at least somewhat flexible about them.

You can see from your reaction to these ads and from what you've been able to learn from them that it's important to think carefully about how you advertise for a position. There are a number of reasons, in addition to your need to convey information, that advertising a job isn't as simple as it might seem.

• An ad for a position is often the first impression a potential staff member will get of your organization. Somewhere out there is the perfect person for your job, and your advertising has to sell the organization to them. If the ad's muddled, unclear, or disorganized, applicants may think your organization is all those as well. If the ad doesn't give a good sense of what the position and the organization are about, they won't know what to think, or may gain an impression that's inaccurate. If the ad is specific, precise, and includes all the information the applicant needs, their sense of your organization will probably be accurate...and positive.
• Advertising that's carefully written and distributed can attract those you want to apply, and discourage those whom you don't want. The two ads above are written to attract different types of people. Those who don't like to work in a top-down environment, and who would prefer to have more say in their work, are more apt to gravitate toward Opportunities for Area Youth. Those who'd prefer a more traditional workplace, and who'd rather have an exact picture of where responsibilities lie and of what decisions they'll have to make, will probably be more comfortable at HRC. And the ads give, or at least hint at, that information.
• Advertising has legal implications for many organizations, especially those with public funding. Many public agencies (and many private foundations, for that matter) require certain language or certain characteristics in any advertising for positions that their money is funding. The EEO/AA (Equal Economic Opportunity/Affirmative Action) in the ads above indicates that the organizations are actively trying to attract and hire applicants from underrepresented groups, for instance; many states require that commitment from anyone they fund. The requirements listed in job advertising can have legal implications for some organizations as well, leaving the organization open to a lawsuit for discrimination if it doesn't honor them.
• In order to apply for a job, the ideal applicant has to know about it. Where and when you place your job advertising -- paid and unpaid -- can have a great effect on whether you find the right person for the job.

What do you have to take into consideration for the ad?

• Cost. How much can you spend on paid advertising in newspapers, TV, radio, or professional journals? Or, from another perspective, how important is this position, and how much are you willing to spend to get the right person to fill it? How much you spend will have an effect on
  • How long (in words) and how large (in size on the page and type size) the ad is
  • How many days or weeks the ad will run
  • Where the ad will run. TV is the most expensive medium, with radio next and newspapers the least expensive of the "Big Three." By the same token, big-city or large-circulation newspapers are generally more expensive than smaller local news organs.

• Of the issues affected by cost, which is most important to you? The length and/or size of the ad, the length of time it will run, the medium, or the market it will appear in? Once you decide which factor is most important, the others will fall into place.
• Does any information or particular wording have to be included in the ad, either by law or because of particular funders? If a funder is bound, legally or by its own standards, to particular hiring practices, it will bind you to those practices as well. Many funders require "EEO/AA," for instance, and/or language like "People from underrepresented groups and women are encouraged to apply."
• Remember that you can be legally challenged if you don't follow your own requirements, at least if that's possible (if you require a Master's degree, but no one who applies has one, you're off the hook). If you choose to hire someone who is, on paper, demonstrably less qualified by your requirements than another applicant, you have to have a clear explanation why, and it has to involve criteria and standards that were applied to everyone you interviewed. Remember also that lawsuits are expensive and time-consuming even if you win: a discrimination suit, no matter how trumped up, can derail your whole organization or initiative. If you want flexibility, "prefer" your qualifications, rather than "requiring" them.

What are the different forms of job advertising?

What absolutely has to be in any ad or posting you write? That varies from ad to ad, from medium to medium, and from organization to organization, but it usually includes most of the following, often only in a word or two for each item:

• A catchy title or headline
• A brief description, often only two or three words ("community health educator").
• Basic qualifications
• Full or part-time status
• Job location
• Starting date
• Either actual salary and benefits, or a phrase like "competitive salary and benefits."
• How to apply, and application deadline

Other things you decide to include depend on how you want to influence who will apply. You might want to provide some indication of the organization's focus or philosophy, if that's either a selling point or an identifier for applicants of whether or not they'd like to work with you. (Words like "collaborative," "democratic," or "grass roots" will attract some people and scare off others.) You might also include information about odd schedules or demands -- weekend or evening hours, retreats, etc. -- or particularly attractive features of the position, such as professional development or opportunity for advancement.

If you can give a clear idea of the actual character of the organization, you're more apt to attract people who are sympathetic to your point of view. It's also a good idea to be as clear as you can in a very small space about what the job is really like, so applicants will know what they're getting into, and you won't be wasting your own and their time. Choosing your words carefully will pay off in the long run.

An important issue to consider in writing an ad or posting is what you want the application procedure to be. A very common set of application requirements includes a cover letter (sometimes "detailing qualifications" or something similar, sometimes unspecified), a current resume, and the names of three references.

For newspaper ads, abbreviating as many words as possible can keep costs down for ads that charge by the line or by the column inch. You can also do some weeding out of applicants this way, since certain abbreviations will be recognizable to those who are knowledgeable in a particular area, but not to those who aren't.

A job posting that is mailed, e-mailed, posted on the Internet, or otherwise distributed to applicants and sources of referral without major cost, can be longer and more detailed, and may even include the whole job description as a separate page. You can, and should, take advantage of being able to use more space to try to make the organization and the position as attractive as possible to the people you want.

Writing an ad for radio or TV can be challenging, since the time will probably be very short (30 seconds or less), and you have to catch people's attention quickly and then hold it long enough so they know what you're talking about. Although radio or TV stations often will work with you on the writing and recording of ads, most applicants won't expect to find help wantads in those media, and they may not be worth your while.

How do you place job ads to attract candidates?

You can advertise a job by doing just that -- paying to take out an ad in a newspaper or other medium -- or you can also use other, often free, ways of distributing the information. Some possible ways of getting the word out to potential applicants are:

• Newspapers, both regional and local.
• Local broadcast media outlets (radio and TV).
• Mailings to other agencies and to the local office of the State Employment Agency, asking them to post the information that the job is available. Such mailings might include not just an ad, but a full or abbreviated job description and more information about the job. (The same is true for most of the other free postings on this list.)
• Internal job posting.
• Online job postings on your own and other organizations' websites, on large job search sites such as Monster.com, and on job search sites solely for nonprofits  (idealist.org, jobscoop.org, etc.)

• Direct invitations to apply issued -- either by mail, e-mail, phone, or face -to-face -- to people you think might be good candidates.
• Word of mouth through people who might know appropriate candidates.
• E-mail to a house e-mail list or listserv.
• Your own or other appropriate websites.
• Mailing to a house mailing list.
• Newsletters or bulletins put out by your own or other organizations.
• Conferences or other meetings of people from similar organizations.
• Postings in the community.
• Job fairs.

Where you place or post ads should reflect the type of person you're looking for. If you want someone from the local community, then your advertising should be concentrated in that community. If you'd like to attract a staff member from a particular ethnic or racial group, then your advertising should include areas where there are large communities of people from that group. If you want to reach a larger pool of applicants than the local community can provide, you might need to advertise in big-city media, or in a newspaper, station, or professional journal that covers the region or the country.

Once you've decided where to place your ads and postings, you have to grapple with the question of when and for how long paid ads should run. Cost obviously becomes a factor here. The longer a newspaper ad runs, for instance, the more people will be exposed to it, especially if its run includes one or more Sunday publications. Sunday papers often have larger-than-average help wanted sections, sections that most job-seekers make it their business to read. Thus, if you can't afford too much time, a Sunday posting may give you more value for your money. On the other hand, Sunday ads are more expensive, and you can often get an attractive break on a several -day or week-long rate.

A final time question is that of how long applicants should be given to respond after the last ad has run. Generally, a requirement that submissions be postmarked one to two weeks after the last appearance of the ad is about average. That gives people who saw the ad on its last day enough time to get their application materials together and mail them in time.

In Summary

The wording of your job ad or posting and where you place it can have a great deal of effect on whether or not you find the person you're looking for. If you pay careful attention to writing the ad and to placing it where the people who are likely to be the best candidates for your position will see it, you should be able to attract applicants who will fit in with your organization and do an excellent job.

You understand why it is important to be careful when advertising your position:

___It is often the first impression a potential staff member will get of your organization.

___Advertising that is carefully written and distributed can attract those you want to apply, and discourage those whom you don't want.

___Advertising has legal implications for many organizations, especially those with public funding.

___In order to apply for a job, the ideal applicant has to know about it.

___You understand that practical considerations for writing and placing an ad include cost, what is most important to you, necessary information, and the necessity of following your own requirements.

You understand that a job ad or posting usually includes:

___A catchy title or headline

___A brief description

___Basic qualifications

___Full or part-time status

___Job location

___Starting date

___Actual salary and benefits, or a phrase like, "competitive salary and benefits"

___How to apply and an application deadline

___You have considered all of the different ways of posting or advertising the job.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• How do you prepare for a job interview?

• How do you conduct an interview?

• What do you do after the interview?

The way you conduct an interview for a position is important and takes thought and preparation. The interview will most likely be the applicant's first in-person exposure to your organization and often sets the tone for what the job itself will be like. Preparing well for the interview will also increase your chances of getting the information you need to make the right hiring choices. This section discusses how to prepare for the interviewing process, conduct an interview, and follow up with candidates afterwards.

How do you prepare for a job interview?

We might as well admit it: this author has some definite prejudices about how the interviewing and hiring process should happen. As a result, the rest of this section assumes the following:

• The same people should screen every application (i.e. all members of a hiring committee should read all applications), conduct the interviews, and make the hiring decision. This is philosophically consistent with the ideals of most grassroots and community-based organizations, and makes for a cleaner process.
• All interviewers must be present for all interviews if they're going to participate in the hiring decision.
• All interviews should be face-to-face. If this isn't possible for some legitimate reason, then at least the first interview should be. You can learn a great deal more about someone from their physical presence than simply from their voice on a phone. If a second series of interviews must be held by phone, it is best that all interviewers have actually met the applicants first.

Choosing interviewers

The first question to be addressed in starting the hiring process is that of who will do the screening, interviews, and hiring. While an individual, especially in a small organization, might have the specific responsibility of hiring and firing, it's usually still a good idea to make the process a group effort, for several reasons:

• A group will give you a number of perspectives on the applicants, especially if the group includes community members and/or participants in the program or initiative.
• A group can significantly reduce the possibility of individual preferences or prejudices contaminating the hiring process.
• A group makes for livelier interview possibilities because it can generate a mix of questions and interests.
• A group is more likely to reflect all the people represented by a grassroots or community-based organization or initiative.
• If you're a democratic organization, a group interview is absolutely necessary to demonstrate that to applicants..

Given these reasons, it's generally wise to try to choose a representative group, including the position's supervisor (and/or the Director, if they're specifically responsible for hiring); at least one staff member; and at least one participant or beneficiary of the organization or initiative. It's probably desirable to keep the group to four or fewer, since a larger number can be seen as intimidating, and is difficult to schedule.

The next issue to resolve is whether everyone in the group should have an equal voice, or whether the Director or someone else should have either a stronger say or the final say on hiring. That should probably depend on two things: the values and philosophy of the organization, and whether one person has, in their job description, the sole responsibility for hiring new staff. If the organization sees itself as democratic or collaborative, then everyone should have an equal voice. If the Director, on the other hand, is to be held solely responsible for hiring, it's unfair not to give them the control that goes with that responsibility. (It's a lot like "no taxation without representation.")

Choosing applicants to interview

The materials that applicants send you in response to your advertising are what you will use to choose which of them to interview. That means that your hiring committee will have to read through all the applications and make some decisions about them. How will you do that?

There are two approaches to scoring or rank-ordering applications: formal and informal. If you take a formal approach, you'll do something like assigning points to each category you required or preferred in your advertising. Applicants aren't considered at all if they're lacking any of the advertised required qualifications (bachelor's degree, at least one year of experience in a related field, etc.). People receive up to a certain number of points for each criterion they meet (the better their qualifications, the more points). You can also add points for such things as living in the priority community, particular kinds or amounts of personal or work experience, etc.. Cover letters can also be scored, according to how well they're written, how much care was taken with them, and how well they're presented.

If applications are scored formally, then either (1) the scores are added up, and interviewees are selected by starting at the highest total score (calculated by adding all committee members' scores together) and working down to whatever number you've decided to interview, or (2) the scores are used only as a starting point, and the interviewers then hash out in discussion who they want to interview.

If you use an informal approach, it's likely that you'll simply work out your choices in discussion also, but without a scoring system as a guide. In reality, if you score formally, most people adjust their scores so that the candidates they favor score highest, anyway. The real work usually gets done in discussion.

No matter how you score, it's important to take notes on each application, so that you can remember what it was you liked or disliked about a particular individual, and also so that you'll have a record of what criteria you applied in case you're ever challenged legally.

Other decisions to make

• How many people will you interview? How much time do you have to devote to this process? How many good candidates do you have? Most organizations start with a target number they would like to interview, on average about five or six, and narrow their field to that number or expand based on the quality of the applications.
• How many levels of interviewing do you plan to do? Will there be a second interview of the two or three best? Or even a (rare) third interview? It depends on the initial number of candidates, on the importance of the position (you might be more inclined to do multiple interviews when choosing an Executive Director than when choosing a data-entry specialist), on whether you're torn between two or more applicants, and on whether you feel you got enough good information from the first interview. In reality, if you feel you have a good sense of the applicants after the first interview, a second is unlikely to change anyone's mind.

• How long will each interview be? If you're asking questions and providing information, 45 minutes to an hour is probably about what you'll need. If you're interviewing for a key position, or if you're asking applicants to also perform a task, you may need more time. It's generally unwise to schedule less. If a candidate is clearly unqualified, or clearly the wrong person, it's usually possible to cut the interview short without seeming rude or dismissive.
• What questions will you ask of all candidates? Both to be able to compare candidates and to protect yourself legally, it's a good idea to generate a list of four to seven questions that you'll ask everyone. (You can ask other questions, too, tailored to each person -- their background, their answers to other questions, your conversation, etc..)

• What questions should you not ask? Anything that could be construed as discriminatory, such as the racial or ethnic background of a candidate, whether a woman is planning to have children, or how someone copes with a disability, is off limits unless the answer is directly related to the performance of the job. (A paraplegic applying for a job as a firefighter can be fairly asked how they'll climb a ladder. In most instances, however, a person's childbearing plans are their own business, regardless of the nature of the job.)
• How will you schedule the interviews? This can often be one of the hardest parts of the process because of the necessity of coordinating the schedules of such a large number of people, all of whom have other responsibilities. The main choice here is between scheduling the interviews in as short a time as possible (all on one day or two successive days), or spreading them out over a longer period. Spreading them out will probably be easier logistically, but will mean a longer time until you can hire someone, more times that interviewers have to be brought together, and the possibility of losing a good candidate to another job while the process is being completed.

How do you conduct an interview?

The interview actually has two purposes. The first, obviously, is to give you a chance to meet and get first-hand information about the applicants for the position. The second is to give the applicants a chance to understand and form an opinion of your organization. Therefore, as you plan your interview you need to keep two questions in mind:

• How can you get the most accurate impression of each candidate?
• What kind of impression of the organization do you want to leave with those who are interviewed?

The answers to these questions are actually often connected through the structure of the interview and the approach interviewers take to applicants. How do you want candidates to feel in the interview? Comfortable? Under stress? Uptight? Relaxed? Intimidated? What kind of atmosphere do you want to create?

Establishing an atmosphere

Unless the job is one that calls for constant quick thinking and a rational response to high stress situations -- an Emergency Medical Technician, for instance -- and the main purpose of the interview is to see how the applicants can perform under those conditions, there is usually little to be gained by trying to rattle an interviewee. Just as, in the old story, the sun is able to make a person take off their coat by beaming warmth on them after the wind fails to blow the coat off, a warm and comfortable atmosphere is more likely to encourage someone to reveal themself than one in which they feel they must marshal their defenses.

By the same token, an interview that leaves an applicant feeling as if they've just had a good conversation with friends is also apt to leave them with a good feeling about the organization. The interview may be the basis on which someone decides whether or not to take the job you offer, or may be the basis of an unsuccessful candidate's later positive or negative reports to others about the organization. The more comfortable you can make people feel, the better information you'll get, and the better they'll think you are as an organization.

Creating a comfortable situation involves thinking about both the physical and the social environment of the interview. We've already mentioned keeping interviewer numbers to four or fewer. The room chosen (a formal conference room with a large table? A small office? Someone's living room?), the way furniture is set up, who sits where -- all of this and more contribute to both the physical and social level of comfort. Every space has its own implications, making people feel more or less welcome and more or less at home.

The social environment is also determined by the tone and pace of the interview. Very few people are comfortable when others are aggressively firing questions at them one after another. Body language communicates volumes as well. Are most people in the room sitting in relaxed positions? Are they attentive? Are they smiling, or at least neutral, or do they look angry or hostile or nervous? Paying attention to these kinds of details will help you to create the environment you want in your interview.

Nuts and bolts

In general, interviews will include, in some order, introductions of all participants, information for the candidate, questions for the candidate, and questions from the candidate to the committee. There are some specifics we haven't touched on that you'll want to consider.

• How will you rate applicants' interview performance? For all the same reasons that you rated applications in order to decide which people to interview, it's helpful to rate interviews as well. While it's hard to design an objective rating system for a conversation, you can think about things you'd particularly like to hear (and will give points for), things you'd particularly not like to hear (and will subtract points for), personal qualities you'd like (relaxed, thoughtful, humorous, down-to-earth, etc.), and whatever else your team sees as important. It doesn't matter how -- or perhaps even whether -- you assign point values, but having everyone aware of the same issues will make it possible to consider all applicants on the same plane.

As with scoring applications, it might make sense to have a training session before the interviews, particularly for those for whom hiring is a totally new experience. Taking notes or making an effort to remember important features of an interview may not be obvious strategies for someone who's never been an interviewer before. Framing open-ended questions may take some practice as well.

• Who will do what in each interview? It's important to decide before each interview who's going to facilitate -- offer greetings, introductions, and explanations; give the basic talk about the organization; keep track of time; move the interview to the next stage; etc.. The questions themselves may be asked by different people, and everyone should feel free to ask follow-up questions or other questions specific to a particular person. (How did you end up living in British Columbia, when you grew up in Tierra del Fuego?) Depending on the group, the facilitator may change from one interview to the next, or even from one part of the interview to the next. The way this is done conveys an impression as well as the other details we have discussed.
• What information will you give to all the candidates? In general, the things you probably want to convey are:
  • An understanding of what the organization's or initiative's goals and purposes are, and what it actually does or intends to do.
  • Exactly what the position entails. You might want to give each candidate a job description in addition to discussing the position.
  • A sense of the community and/or the context of the organization or initiative.
  • The organizational structure, and where the position fits into that structure.
  • Specifics of hours, salary, benefits, starting date, etc..
  • What happens next in the hiring process, and when and how you'll contact applicants to let them know about your decision.
• Will there be any other aspect to the interview besides conversation? Will you take candidates on a tour of the community? Will they meet with people other than the interview team? Will you ask them to demonstrate their competency at something? It depends on how much you think it's important for them to know at this stage, and on whether there are any specific things you want to know about what they can do.

What do you do after the interview?

Once the interviews themselves have been completed, you'll have to choose the person to whom you're going to offer the position. Even if you have a rating system, regardless of how good it is, you're probably going to have to argue a decision out among the interviewers. In some cases, almost everyone will agree on one or two choices; in others, four or five interviewers will have four or five different ideas about whom to hire. The discussion, conducted in reference to either a rating system or a set of issues you've all agreed are important, should give everyone a chance to state and support their opinions, and arrive at a common, mutually-accepted conclusion. If there's a real quandary or disagreement about which of two people to hire, two ways to resolve the issue are to check references, which might give you a different perspective on one or both candidates, and/or to schedule another interview, especially one with a different format from that of the first. (You might interview both candidates together, for instance, or ask them to perform some task.)

In addition to agreeing on a first choice candidate, you should rank-order all the others you'd be willing to hire, in case your first choice turns you down, which is not uncommon. (In any field of six candidates, there will almost inevitably be at least one whom no one is willing to hire, and at least one or two about whom everyone is enthusiastic.) Then, you can offer the job to the number two person on the list and, if they refuse it, to the number three, etc., until someone you all approve of accepts.

Once you settle on a first choice, you have to notify that person and the other applicants. There's a logical order to this part of the hiring process, and, if you do it right, you can make friends even of those you reject.

• If you have asked for references, now is the time to check them. (If you haven't, you should ask for and check them now.) Most applicants will only list references who will give them outstanding recommendations, but it's important to check, anyway. Checking references by phone or in person will usually give you the best sense of the person and their fitness for the position. If there are any surprises, it's better to get them now than after you've hired someone. If your organization does CORI checks (state investigations to see whether someone has a criminal record) or something similar, this is also the time to begin them.
• Assuming references are satisfactory, call your first choice and offer them the position. Typically, they'll want some time to think about it -- a day or two, usually. It's appropriate to try to respect the need for time, but also to ask for a reasonable deadline, since the hopes of both the other candidates and the organization are dependent on this person's decision. No one else should be notified until their decision is made. If they refuse the position, the next person on the list should be called immediately.

• As soon as a candidate accepts, all other interviewees should be called personally by a member of the interview team and told that the position has been offered to someone else who has accepted it. It's important to be honest -- but tactful -- if people ask why they weren't chosen. (Often the answer is easy: the other person was more experienced in the field, for example. If you found the person obnoxious, it may be harder to say something both truthful and supportive, but it is important that you try.) It's also important to tell someone if they were in fact a good candidate who might have been hired under other circumstances; such a person should be encouraged to apply for another position with the organization if the opportunity arises. An organization can make many friends this way, and can sometimes end up with good staff members as well.
• An individually-addressed form letter should go out to everyone who applied but wasn't interviewed, explaining that the position has been filled. The letter should stress the quality of the applicant pool, the difficult choices the committee had to make, etc.. Even a rejection letter can leave a good taste in people's mouths if it's done well. (These letters could actually go out much earlier if you're sure that you won't go into this pool if you find no one else in your initial search.)
• The person who took the job should be sent an official letter stating the terms of employment (salary, benefits, hours and schedule, job description, probationary period if any, start date, etc.), and a contract to sign if that's something your organization uses. This letter can be discussed in the acceptance call, so that your new staff member knows it's coming.

It's been a long process, and has taken a lot of time and the contributions of many people, but you've hired someone you really like, and are confident that they'll do a great job for you. The effort was worth it. Congratulations!

In Summary

If you think carefully about the nature of the interviews you conduct with candidates for a position, you should be able to find someone who's a great match for both the position and the organization. In addition, you can make friends for the organization by your handling of the process and your treatment of unsuccessful applicants.

You understand why the interview process needs to be considered carefully:

___The interview will be, for most applicants, their first face-to-face exposure to the organization.

___The interview often sets the tone for what the job itself will be like.

___The form of the interview will have a great deal to do with what you actually find out about the applicants.

Before the interview:

___You have chosen interviewers.

___You have decided how many people to interview.

___You have decided how many levels of interviewing you plan to do.

___You have decided how long each interview will be.

___You have decided what questions you will ask of all candidates.

___You know what questions you should not ask.

___You have chosen applicants to interview.

___You know how you will schedule the interviews.

___You have worked to establish a comfortable atmosphere.

___You have decided how you will rate applicants' interview performance.

___You have decided who will do what in each interview.

___You have decided what information you will give to all candidates.

___You have decided if there will be any other aspect to the interview besides conversation.

After the interview:

___You have checked references.

___Call your first choice and offer her the position.

___After a candidate accepts, call other interviewees and tell them the position has been offered to someone else.

___Send an individually-addressed form letter out to those who applied but weren't interviewed, explaining the position has been filled.

___Send a letter to the person who took the job stating the terms of employment and (possibly) a contract to sign.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What are personnel policies?

• What are general policies?

• Why are hiring and employment status procedures important?

• What are everyday policies and procedures?

Congratulations! If you have gotten this far you have the headache of developing personnel policies; that means you have an organization.

By now you know that the most important asset an organization can have is the people who work or volunteer for it. Personnel policies are of the utmost importance to keep the organization running smoothly and the morale of the workers high.

What are personnel policies?

Personnel policies define the treatment, rights, obligations, and relations of people in an organization. They are the blueprints by which the organization runs--the rules and procedures that protect workers (and the organization) from experiencing harm, put them in control of their jobs, and keep them from making errors that will hurt the organization or one another. It may be hard work to devise a set of policies, but when situations arise that need answers, you'll see how helpful they are.

What do personnel policies include?

Personnel policies may differ significantly from organization to organization, but they must contain instructions and rules for dealing with issues and overcoming obstacles that may present themselves both during normal working days and under extraordinary circumstances. They touch on relationships (staff/staff, staff/administration, etc.), expectations (hours worked, schedules, what defines the work of a position), and ways of doing things (who gets to use what equipment when, how to arrange a sick day) that affect employees' lives and the running of the organization.

What do personnel policies look like?

Personnel policies should be written in clear, understandable language, so that everyone knows exactly what they mean and as little as possible is left open to interpretation. In many organizations, employees are either given their own copy, or are encouraged to read the policies in some easily available form (e.g., online at the organization's website, printed and kept in an easily accessible location). It is extremely important that everyone in the organization be reasonably familiar with these policies, and that they always be readily available to any employee.

In writing personnel -- or any -- policies, it is important to consider the philosophy and mission of your organization. Personnel policies should be consistent with your beliefs and mission: it only makes sense that the way you treat staff should reflect the way you want participants to be treated. If you think carefully about this issue when developing organizational policy, you're that much more likely to succeed in your mission.

There are essentially three types of personnel policies that you will need to develop for your organization.

• General Policies have to do with the basic structure, philosophy, and rules of the organization. They deal with issues ranging from equal opportunity in hiring and advancement to conflicts of interest, sexual harassment, alcohol in the workplace, and Internet usage.
• Hiring and Employment Status Policies involve the worker's employment relationship with the organization -- hiring, firing, and everything in between. Here is where pay scale, title, promotions, and performance reviews are laid out. These policies also cover benefits, employees' rights, and reasons for termination.
• Everyday Procedural Policies deal with issues that affect the everyday life of the worker (or volunteer), and the day to day operation of the organization. They generally include the hours employees are required to be at work, how workers should dress, when they get paid, and issues of security, as well as guidelines for how things are done in the organization.

What are general policies?

General policies include a general, variety of things that affect the working environment and structure of an organization.

These may address:

• Equal Employment Opportunity is a policy designed to protect the worker from unfair employment discrimination based on their personal characteristics (gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc.). It usually declares that workers are not to be discriminated against (i.e. denied a position, a promotion, or a raise; unfairly criticized or given an unfair negative evaluation; paid less than another worker in similar circumstances and with similar background, experience, and seniority; etc.) under any circumstances, often specifying as many as possible of the conditions which are covered under this declaration. It also outlines the recourse a worker has if they feel they have experienced discrimination.
• Anti-Harassment Policy protects the worker from being exposed to a hostile working environment. This policy generally outlines what the organization considers to be appropriate and inappropriate behavior and what it considers sexual or other (racial, personal, etc.) harassment. It should explain the procedures for reporting harassment, the courses of action to be taken by both accuser and accused, and the way the organization will deal with the problem. The policy should also cover appeals and other recourse if one of the parties feels unfairly treated in the resolution process.
• Alcohol and Drugs in the Workplace may seem to imply obvious policy, but, in fact, an organization should state specifically what substance use, if any, it will tolerate during working hours or on its property. Clarity from the outset about organizational rules and the consequences of breaking them can save a lot of trouble later. Some organizations may even have rules about what employees can do outside of work. A drug treatment program, for instance, may require employees to be completely drug free: violations -- under any circumstances -- might lead to immediate dismissal.
• The Use of Computers and Other Electronic Equipment has become a major issue in many workplaces. Organizations now find it necessary to develop policy determining what can be stored on an employee's computer (Games? Access codes? E-mail?), time and destination guidelines for Internet usage, etc.. Lack of these guidelines can lead not only to wasted work time (there are some very addictive games out there), but to intolerable working conditions or even sexual or other harassment charges sparked by an employee's downloading and distributing of pornographic or extremist material.
• Contracts and Agreements Policy covers the protocol for entering into contracts and agreements using the organization's name. There should be a procedure employees must follow to be authorized to act legally for the organization, and there should be policies governing who can get that authorization, and under what circumstances. This policy should also cover less formal agreements -- joint events with other agencies, donations of goods or services, etc..

• Confidentiality is often vital in health and human service work. It is absolutely necessary that the employee know what she can and cannot divulge about the organization and its participants or beneficiaries. Confidentiality policies may cover password access and usage, access to particular computer and paper files, what information about participants is confidential, and which employees -- and who else (participants themselves, other agencies, etc.) -- can have access to which information and how they get it. In many cases, such as in publicly-funded research projects, agencies or organizations are required to file state and federal documents outlining their confidentiality policies.

• Conflicts of Interest arise when someone finds themself representing both sides of an issue, or when their position makes it possible for them to advance their own interests. A board member of an organization who is paid for services by that organization may be in conflict of interest, for instance. A staff member who serves on an oversight committee that certifies her employer might likewise be in conflict. Organizational policy should clearly spell out what constitutes conflict of interest and how to avoid it.

• Political Activities at Work may be forbidden in an organization (see Contracts and Agreements Policy above), may lead to conflict of interest, or may simply be part of what people in your organization do. This policy should specify what sort of political activity -- lobbying, campaigning, advocacy, expressing opinions, etc. -- will be tolerated in the workplace and as part of the job. (Trying to convince participants, through the activities of a program, to vote a certain way, for instance, might be totally inconsistent with the goals of one organization and fine in another.)
• Safety is obviously an important concern in any workplace, for reasons ranging from human concern for employees to the costs of lost work time and liability suits. Safety policies should aim at maintaining a safe workplace for everyone. They may include such varied issues as the use of machinery, how late an employee can stay in the building alone, and behavior with program participants (A female therapist working with male sex offenders may want to make sure that they're not alone in the building with them, for instance). Policies should include back-up systems, contingency plans, and protocols for dealing with occasions when the system breaks down, or when mishaps occur in spite of it.
• Smoking, although it fits within safety and drugs in the workplace, generally needs its own policy because people feel so strongly about it. Are you going to declare your working environment a smoking or a smoke-free zone? Of course, if you choose to make it smoke-free you should also address if, when, and where employees can smoke on breaks. Policy here might also address incentives for quitting, which could lower organizational and individual health costs.
• Grievance Procedures are important for nearly all personnel policies. These are the procedures by which employees can make complaints if they think they have been subject to discrimination, harassment, unfair labor practices, or other problems in the workplace. Your organization might want to have a general form of grievance procedures for all circumstances, with specifics built into the appropriate sections of the personnel policy. An employee might have to do something a little different to file a grievance about a safety violation than about a harassment problem, but the same person (assuming they're not named or involved -- there needs to be a backup in case that happens) might be designated to handle all grievances and start the appropriate process to resolve the situation.
• How Employees are Expected to Relate to the Priority Population and the Community is another reflection of the mission and philosophy of the organization. If an organization sees itself as "empowering" or "collaborative" or "democratic," it may want to be sure that staff members treat everyone with a high level of respect, and may encourage -- or at least not discourage -- friendships between staff members and participants. If an organization sees itself as "professional" or enforces particular laws and regulations, it may discourage familiarity between staff and participants, and may foster treatment that is distant and "objective." For many organizations on both sides of this philosophical and service divide, the character of these relationships is extremely important. If your organization has a strong philosophical bias about how employees should relate to others outside the organization -- including other organizations -- it should be written into your personnel policy.

What are hiring and employment status policies, and why are they important?

These policies govern the relationship between the employee and the organization, and outline how each must treat the other. Ideally, they protect both employees and organizations from harm and from damage to their reputations. They also make clear exactly what the expectations of the organization are and serve in many ways to define how the organization views itself and its attitude toward work and the workplace.

Some of the most common and important hiring and employment status policies cover:

• Hiring procedures and orientation
• Title and pay
• Benefits, deductions, and travel
• Personnel files
• Performance reviews
• Promotions
• Work-related problems
• Reasons for termination

Hiring Procedures & Orientation

First impressions are extremely important in how an employee will view their job, and in how they are likely to approach it in the long run. Both hiring procedures -- how a successful applicant is contacted, offered the job, welcomed, etc. -- and orientation -- what's covered, how much time a new employee is given to adjust, who's involved -- are tremendously influential in forming that first impression. If the person feels that they're being treated well, that the organization is glad to have them, and that it and the people in it are concerned that she have the information and background to do a good job, it's likely that they'll respond by trying hard to live up to expectations and to treat others as well as they treat them.

Title and Pay

Title and pay are generally very important issues. Recognition and earning money are the two main reasons most people work, after all. While titles are often arbitrary -- they don't always reflect the nature or the amount of work a person does -- they may correspond to pay scales or affect future employment, and thus take on more importance. Sometimes an organization with limited funds may give a prestigious title to make up for an inability to pay a high salary. In any case, both should be clear from the outset. The title should correspond as closely as possible to the actual work of the position, and to the amount of status in the organization or in the community that the employee needs to do their job (See Chapter 10, Section 2: Preparing Job Descriptions and Selection Criteria). If the organization operates that way, each title should have a pay range that makes sense in relation to the pay of all employees. There should be some rational method of determining where a particular employee should start on that pay scale, based on such criteria as their past experience, credentials, and reputation. And there should be guidelines for title changes and pay increases.

Benefits

It should be clear what benefits an employee is entitled to: they should be spelled out for each position in the organization.

• Medical and dental: If the organization provides a plan for either or both medical and dental coverage, it may not necessarily pay all of the costs. How much an employee pays and how much the organization pays for any plans offered, exactly what is covered, and what the employee gets or doesn't if they don't participate in the plan, should be specified. (Most plans have their own information packets for each employee, so that policy needn't describe the plan itself.)
• Long- and short-term disability: These benefits often go along with medical/dental, and the same guidelines apply: spell out who pays how much, what do benefits cover and for how long, etc..
• Travel reimbursement: An organization may choose to reimburse employees for all or part of their work-related travel. This usually does not include travel from home to work, but does include travel between workplace sites, travel to meetings and conferences, etc.. Travel reimbursement can be either a direct refund of money spent (the price of an airline ticket to a conference, based on the presentation of a receipt, for instance) or a standard per-mile cost for driving (the state of Massachusetts, for example, currently reimburses for driving at $0.31 a mile). It may include all expenses (conference fees, hotel and food costs, and mileage reimbursement ) or only some of them. Sometimes there are different rules for in-state and out-of-state travel. If you reimburse people for travel, be consistent, and treat everybody in the organization equally.
• Vacation: How much do people get? Does it increase with time in the job? Can it be taken at any time, or are there restrictions? How soon after beginning work can vacation time be taken? What must employees do to arrange vacation time?
• Family and personal leave: How much do people get? Is it paid or unpaid? Under what circumstances can it be taken?
• Retirement plans (e.g., 401K)
• Life Insurance

Deductions

Payment on some benefits may be pre-tax, which affects the amount of money a person is effectively being taxed on. For example an organization may take the money for health insurance or a train pass out of an employee's gross salary, at the same time providing a benefit and reducing the amount of the employee's taxable income.

Personnel Files

These are the records that most organizations, for both legal and internal reasons, keep of everyone who works for them. A personnel file may begin with a potential employee's resume and cover letter and continue on through a twenty-year career. It might include reports of regular performance reviews, citations of particularly good work, news articles, records of instances of poor judgment or failure to do a job properly -- anything, in other words, that relates to the employee's work life. Personnel files are often used for determining promotions and pay raises, for documenting inadequate or inappropriate performance so an employee can be terminated if necessary, or for building a record of good performance that the employee can bring with them to their next job. Personnel files also provide tax, personal, and emergency contact information.

Your personnel policy should state what goes into an employee's personnel file, who (including the employee themself) has access to each file, and how it will be used.

Performance Reviews

The reasons for reviewing an employee's performance may seem obvious; however, the reasons for and the frequency of reviews should be part of your personnel policy. Policies regarding reviews might make clear:

• Who does the reviewing.
• The standards or criteria used for reviewing the employee's performance (Their job description? Some other objective standard? The work of others in similar jobs? Evaluations by participants or colleagues or supervisors? All or some of the above? Whether reviews are oral or written.)
• The actual form that reviews will take. (Many organizations ask employees to write a self-evaluation to begin the process, for instance, and then focus on their own sense of their strengths and weaknesses. Others may involve observations by supervisors or other methods.)
• How often reviews occur.
• The consequences of a positive or negative performance review on an employee's job and advancement opportunities.

Employee Rights/Workplace Conditions

Laws in many states, as well as some federal laws, describe certain rights accorded to employees in at least some organizations. These may include the right to a hearing before being fired; the right to appeal an administrative decision; the right not to be fired for their political or other views; etc.. If employees belong to a union, their contracts may also address these types of issues. Many states and the federal government also have laws about what physical or psychological conditions people can be subjected to in the workplace -- unhealthy environments of many kinds may be illegal. Whether the rights and conditions your organization supports are governed by the legal system or simply by the organization's good will, they should be spelled out in your personnel policy, along with the procedures to complain about their not being maintained.

Promotions

If your organization has room for advancement, it's important to think about and set down exactly what the process for advancement is.

• Is there a ladder (i.e., a logical progression of advancement through the organization)?
• How does one advance? (Is it a matter of time? Performance? Experience?)
• How will it affect the employee's pay rate? Title?

Work-Related Problems

These are probably some of the most eagerly read pages in any personnel policy manual. Work-related problems can run the gamut from the interpersonal (two employees who are unable to get along, for instance) to the personal (deep depression that affects job performance) to the logistical (the loss of important files). What are the organization's responses to these issues? The interpersonal could be handled through in-house mediation, perhaps, but it's important that workers know whom to approach about the problem (and who the backup is if the designated mediator is the problem). For personal problems, is there an employee assistance program, or at least some support for getting help? For the logistical, how will you develop systems to avoid the situation and/or provide organizational help for the employee so they don't continue to have the problem? All of these types of questions -- and any others you can envision: use your imagination, because nothing you dream up will be more outlandish than things that actually happen in workplaces every day -- need to be dealt with, at least in a general way.

Reasons for Termination

It is unfortunate, but occasionally you hire the wrong person, or hire the right person at the wrong time in their life. Firing someone is very difficult and traumatic for both parties involved. It is only fair that employees know if the organization is dissatisfied with their work, and have both help and time to try to improve. It is also only fair, after a certain point, when the employee's efforts have been unsuccessful or haven't been made at all, that the organization be able to terminate that employee and hire someone who will be able to do the job.

Your personnel policy should spell out the reasons for which employees can be terminated, the steps that will be taken before termination becomes a reality, the necessary time span, the required documentation (sometimes this is specified by law), and the people who will be involved. Policy should also cover what happens when an employee is terminated: Is there a severance package? Is there an appeal procedure? What if the employee wants to sue? Anticipating these issues will go a long way toward making a painful process as reasonable as possible.

What are everyday policies and procedures?

These are the policies that structure day-to-day life -- how things are done in your particular organization. They control work schedules, dress codes, how and when people get paid -- many of the things that can actually make or break the work experience. None of them alone may seem like a big deal, but, taken together, they can make the difference between a pleasant, productive work environment, and a depressing, unproductive one. For that reason, all of these policies need to be thought through carefully.

Work hours and flexibility of schedule

Some organizations set a very strict work schedule or require certain numbers of hours; others simply ask that employees do their jobs and leave the rest up to them. Whatever your organizational environment, it should be plainly described, so there are no misunderstandings about what's expected.

• How many sick days, paid holidays, vacation days, and personal leave days do employees get? Do they have to work for a certain length of time before they're eligible?
• What is the policy for taking time off? Some places are very relaxed and allow people to take their time as they need or want it. In other places, vacation or leave time has to be arranged beforehand. Are people expected to find someone to cover for them while they're gone, or will the organization arrange that? How will taking time affect each person's job?
• Can an employee work at home at least some of the time?
• Can workers vary their schedules (e.g., work four ten-hour days as opposed to five eight-hour days, or work any 40 hours in a given week), or are they set?
• Is there comp time? (Compensatory, or "comp" time is taken as time off to "pay back" hours worked over and above what the employee is paid for or expected to work.) If it is allowed, can it be taken at will, or only under certain circumstances? By when must it be used?

Overtime

Many people (police officers, for example) work with the expectations of supplementing their income with a lot of overtime pay, and families of some workers wouldn't eat without it.

• Who is eligible for overtime? Salaried employees? Non-salaried employees? Is it determined weekly (i.e., after 40 hours), or daily (i.e., after eight hours in a day), or by the day of the week (Sundays and holidays)?
• Are employees required or coerced into working overtime?
• Is there a limit to how much overtime a worker can work?
• How does one obtain overtime?

Payday

How will people get their checks, and when? Is payday absolutely fixed? (If someone is going on vacation, for instance, can they get their check a day early?) Can checks be sent to employees' homes or other addresses at their request? Is direct deposit at any local banks an option? Do employees have choices about how often they get paid (weekly, biweekly, monthly)? What must be withheld from their checks, and can they manipulate that amount (e.g., by claiming more or fewer dependents)?

Style of Dress

Does the organization have a dress code? Appropriate attire for one organization may be inappropriate for another. A street outreach worker wouldn't have much credibility with adolescents experiencing homelessness if they dressed in a suit and tie. By the same token, a Washington lobbyist in jeans and a t-shirt wouldn't be taken very seriously. If staff members are expected to dress -- or not to dress -- in certain ways, that should be spelled out. (Jeans might be okay, but not shorts, for instance.) In general, the more grassroots the organization, the less of a dress code it is likely to have.

Security

The need for security will vary with the organization, but there are certain things that will always need protection: cash, employees' handbags, and other valuables; confidential information (publicly-funded programs are often required to keep certain files in locked and/or fireproof cabinets); door keys and other means of access to the organization's offices, especially if they're located in a high-crime area; and staff members themselves, who may be experiencing increased risk of crimes such as mugging or sexual assault, especially if they work alone after dark. Recently, technological security has been added to these concerns, in the form of computer access codes, passwords, and the like. The key to policy in this area is to avoid problems before they arise by anticipating what can go wrong and developing systems to prevent it.

• Devise rules for the organization's and employee's valuables that minimize the chance they'll be stolen (or even seen). These can include having a locked place to put them, storing them out of sight, never leaving them unattended, etc..
• Policy for confidential and other valuable information of all kinds (see above) should specify where it's stored, how it's protected, and who is allowed access to it.
• Access to space can also be regulated by the distribution of keys, alarm codes, etc., and by guidelines about who can be allowed in what spaces when.
• Staff members can be protected by "buddy plans," procedures governing working or leaving alone at certain hours, and -- most important, but often ignored -- by making sure everyone is aware of potential dangers, so they can take their own reasonable precautions.
• Technology security depends on not storing security information where it can be found by any bright 10-year-old hacker, using care in determining how widely security codes and passwords are distributed, and, again, making employees aware of potential problems so they can think about what they're doing to prevent them.

Paperwork

Last but not least: if anything requires filling out paperwork, make sure it is clear which forms need to be filled out by whom, for what, to be given to whom, and how far in advance.

In Summary

Personnel policies govern the ways in which staff members interact with an organization and with one another. They protect both workers and the organization, and set the tone for what it's like to work in a particular place. How well personnel policies are written can make or break the work experience for everyone involved. The clearer those policies are, the more closely they are tied to the philosophy and mission of the organization, the more carefully they are drawn, and the more directly they address the situations they are meant to govern, the more effective they will be.

___You know that personnel policies define the treatment, rights, obligations, and relations of people in an organization.

___Your personnel policies include instructions and rules for dealing with issues and overcoming obstacles to a successful work environment.

___You will write personnel policies in clear, understandable language.

___Your personnel policies are consistent with the beliefs and mission of the organization.

___Your general policies deal with the basic structure, philosophies, and rules of the organization.

___Your organization includes all elements of the worker's employment relationship in hiring and employment status policies.

___You understand that everyday procedural policies include all the issues that surround daily operation for employees and volunteers.

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is a staff orientation program?

• Why run a staff orientation program?

• What are the elements of a staff orientation program?

• How do you conduct a staff orientation program?

Imagine starting a new job in a community-based organization in a new area. You accept the position, show up for work on the agreed-upon day, and the director shows you your space, welcomes you to the organization...and leaves. That's it - your introduction to your new position. You're on your own to learn all the ins and outs of the job and the organization - who your co-workers are, who does what, what the pitfalls of your position are, where to eat lunch...all of it.

Do you think you'd be likely to be able to do your best work - or any work, really - in the first few weeks or months? More important, how would you feel about working for this organization? Would you have confidence that these folks had things under control, that they'd thought out what they were doing?

Fortunately, most organizations don't operate this way. New staff members are generally given at least some idea of what they're supposed to do, introduced to other staff, shown around, and made to feel welcome. Most organizations find it useful to conduct a short informal orientation, or - if they have the resources - a longer, more formal one, for all new staff, so that they'll learn much of what they need to know to do their jobs before they actually start working. Yours can do the same.

What is a staff orientation program?

The word "orientation" literally means being turned toward the east, i.e. getting the basic information that tells you where you are and how to get where you want to go. Orientation to a new job should give a staff member the basic information about the organization, their position, the priority population, and the community, so they, too, can understand how to get where they want to goo. All or most of an orientation, therefore, should best take place before the job starts.

Staff orientation programs may look either formal or informal, may be as short as a day or may continue through a month or more, may or may not include some training.

The organization should think out beforehand what a staff orientation for that organization should look like.

• What's important for staff to know?
• Does the organization have unique features that are especially necessary for staff members to understand?
• What's different about the priority population?
• Who are the important people, within and outside the organization, for this staff person to meet?
• What impression of the organization do you want new staff members to walk away with?

None of the answers to these questions should be left to chance; they have to be included in the orientation.

The point here is that a staff orientation program is more than simply telling people a few things about the organization. It's a coherent, planned introduction that combines information, experiences, and a transmission of the values and culture of the organization (more on this later), all of which are aimed at giving new staff members the foundation they need to do their jobs and to integrate themselves into the organization and the community as easily as possible.

Why conduct a staff orientation program?

An orientation for new staff can be a boon to both those staff members and the organization. Some specific advantages to such a program include:

• It allows new staff members to hit the ground running. If they have a clear understanding of the organization, their positions, and the community, they can jump into their jobs immediately and start to make a difference.
• It instills new staff with confidence in both their own ability to be effective - because they know they have the information and contacts they need - and the organization which has had the foresight to provide them with that background, and made them feel a part of the operation.
• It improves the possibility - through facilitating a good start and providing appropriate background - that people will do a good job over the long term...and stay longer with the organization.
• It makes life easier for others in the organization, by eliminating the need for new staff members to ask them constantly for information and advice.
• It enfolds the new staff member into an existing social structure, thereby helping them to feel comfortable and to bond with others, and at the same time helping to improve the organizational climate (the way the organization "feels" to those who work in and have contact with it).
• It formally welcomes new staff to the organization, and makes them feel that they have support for doing a good job.
• By familiarizing new staff members with the organizational culture (see below ), it increases the chances that they will fit well into the organization, and absorb and become part of that culture.
• By making staff knowledgeable and better-prepared, it builds the organization 's reputation in the community, leading to community support and better services.

A well-conceived and well-run orientation can thus address all the factors - logistical, professional, social, and philosophical - that can help a staff member fit into the organization and do the best job they can.

What are the elements of a staff orientation program?

So you're convinced - a staff orientation program is a great thing, and can really benefit your organization. Now you're faced with the question of what such a program should consist of. Orientation to just about any position needs to include introductions to the organization, the priority population, the community, and the position itself. The following are some elements that might be included in each of these introductions.

Introduction to the organization

History.

Even if the organization is brand new, it has a history: the conditions that made it necessary, how it was started and by whom, how it garnered support, and how it got to the point of hiring staff. If the organization has been around for a while, its history includes, in addition, those who have worked in it, its accomplishments, its past challenges and how it overcame them (or didn't), changes in direction, etc.

All of this is important to understanding the organization as it currently exists. Equally important, it gives new staff members access to the references to people and events that are part of the common language of the organization, and that allow one to be an "insider".

Mission.

Your organization has - or should have - a mission statement, and new staff members should have a copy of it and be given a chance to discuss it and digest what it means. They should also understand clearly what the real mission of the organization is if it's not stated directly in the mission statement.

Organizational philosophy.

Often tied in with its mission, an organization's philosophy guides its structure; the roles of various people within it; the way it treats its employees, volunteers, participants, and colleagues; the methods it uses in whatever programs or services it provides; and its ethics.

Methods or strategies.

While some organizations leave it up to staff members to decide how they'll do their jobs, others have set ways of accomplishing their goals. A particular drug treatment program may advocate an individual approach for all participants, while another may rely only on therapeutic groups. One adult literacy program may use phonics exclusively, a second only as one of a broad range of techniques. An organization's choice of methods may be based on research, past successful (or even unsuccessful) experience, experimentation, intuition, conventional wisdom, philosophy, inertia, or some combination.

If your organization employs a particular method or technique, it's important that new staff members understand both what the method itself is, and that they are expected to use it. Learning to use the method itself should be part of staff training, but at least a brief explanation of it and the reasons for its required use should be included in an orientation.

People.

An organization is actually no more than the people who do its work and give it life. Perhaps the most important task of a new staff member is to become familiar with those people and to understand what each of them does. To the extent possible (depending upon the size of the organization, whether people are full-time, etc.), new staff members should meet individually with the following:

• Administrators. In small grassroots and community-based organizations, where there is often little distinction made between administrators and line staff (those who work directly with the priority population and do the specific work of the organization), it's usually important to get to know everyone well. In addition, administrators generally have a broad perspective on the organization that is important for a new staff member to be aware of.
• Line staff. An opportunity to find out how veteran staff members do the work of the organization, and, for new line staff, to learn with whom they share the most philosophically, and whom they're most comfortable approaching for help and advice.
• Support staff. Receptionists, maintenance people, technology coordinators, etc. often are the glue that holds organizations together. Many have close relationships with participants as well as with other staff, and may orchestrate the logistics of the organization as well. Knowing them well and understanding and respecting what they do can be key to the quality of anyone's life in an organization.

Organizational structure.

Organizational structure includes several components:

• Structure of responsibility. Who reports to whom, who's responsible for what areas of the organization's work, who makes things happen.
• Decision-making structure. Who participates in what decisions; when various people can act independently and when they need to check with someone else; who shares in hiring, grievance, conflict resolution, and other decisions.
• Governance structure. Role, structure, and membership of the Board; actual powers of the director and other administrators; parts that others - line staff, participants, community - play in the governance of the organization.
• Physical/geographical structure. Depending upon the size and geography of the organization, anything from where people's desks are located in the (one and only) office to where various sites are located in different towns and what happens at each.

Logistics and day-to-day routine.

This area covers the "rules" of the workplace, and the small pieces of knowledge that make it possible for everyone to function in the course of a day (much or most of this information might be conveyed in print that new staff members can read on their own):

• Equipment. The availability and location of copiers, computers, phone systems, CD and DVD players, VCRs, etc., and instructions for and restrictions on their use (e.g., participants get computer priority during times when programs are in session).
• Materials and supplies. Where everything is kept; the routine for ordering; how you get access to what you need; petty cash.
• Time issues. Expected work hours; payday; arrival, lunch, and quitting time; extra work times (Board meetings, community meetings, etc.)
• Benefits. How to take a vacation, personal leave or sick day; how to use health insurance; comp time; travel reimbursements; etc.
• Office routine. Who opens and closes the workspace, where restroom keys are, who answers which phones, security procedures.
• Quality of life. Good places to eat lunch, where to park, soda machines, spring water, coffee, food rotation for staff meeting.

Supervision.

There are two facets of supervision that new staff members need to know about: the basic information about who supervises whom (including whom the new staff member supervises, and who supervises them), how often, and in what areas of practice; and the more complex issue of the organization's attitude toward supervision.

Policies and procedures.

It's important to have a clear set of policies and procedures that explain and govern the various tasks and relationships necessary to keep the organization running. You may even have a handbook that lays out the ways in which the organization operates and explains how to file a grievance, how to deal with a personal conflict, how to handle a participant complaint, hiring and firing issues, etc. Even if you have a handbook, however, it's a good idea to call new staff members' attention to important issues as part of their orientation. Then, at the very least, if they find themselves in difficult situations, they'll know that there are policies that cover them.

Organizational culture.

Every organization has its own culture, developed over its life. The culture is the result of the organization's history and of the thinking and behavior of its founders and former and current staff. It may change a small amount with each departure from and new addition to the staff, but is generally fairly stable, and includes not only standards for behavior, but the in-jokes and references that everyone in the organization is expected to know and respond to.

Some of the areas governed by organizational culture that new staff members should be aware of:

• Dress. Every organization has a dress code, whether formalized or not. If everyone wears jeans, the one person who dresses up will stand out, just as someone wearing jeans will stand out in a workplace full of suits. The dress code may be that there is no code - everyone dresses as they please. Whatever the formalized or unspoken dress code is in your organization, new staff members should be aware of it.
• Work expectations. Everyone may get paid for 40 hours a week, but some organizations expect staff to work much more than that as a matter of course. Others are far more relaxed - you can go home when your day's work is done, regardless of what time that is. Still others expect 40 hours a week or more, but allow enormous flexibility as to when those hours are put in.
• Smoking. Is smoking OK in the building? Outside? In the next town? Many organizations feel extremely strongly about this issue.
• Food. Is food in the office OK? Expected? Are you expected to bring in food to share on a regular basis (even if this is unstated)? Can you eat at your desk, or in the course of a program? Can participants eat during programs? Are there specific food and drink rules (no food near the computers, for example)?
• Children. Can staff or participants bring children to the workplace if necessary? Never? Only in emergencies? On a regular basis?
• Work relationships. How do people treat one another? Is there an effort to treat everyone equally? Is there a family atmosphere, or is everything kept formal? Do real friendships develop? Do staff members see each other outside of work? Do these friendships sometimes transcend position (i.e. the director or a Board member becoming close friends with a support staff person or a participant)? What about language? Gender relations?

Understanding the organizational culture will help a new staff member become "one of the bunch" more quickly, and reduce the uncertainty (and the stress) of a new situation. It will make their transition into the organization and the work easier.

Introduction to the priority population

If the organization's work is targeted to a particular group, new staff members should learn as much about this group as possible in orientation.

Identification.

Toward whose benefit is the work of the organization directed? The answer to that may have to do with the income, race or ethnicity, age, gender, native language, place of residence, basic skill or education level, disability, physical or mental health, homelessness, immigration status, workplace, unemployment, or almost any other characteristic of a particular group of people. The priority population may also be a whole community.

Demographics.

How many of these folks are there in the community? Where do they live? Where do they work? What's their level of education? How many of them speak English? (A lot of this information can be gleaned from census data or town reports. You may or may not want to get that detailed in an orientation.)

Characteristics and culture.

If they are culturally distinct (e.g. immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands), what are the defining elements of their culture? What do they eat, wear, believe, hold dear? What are their families typically like? Are they, as a group, demonstrative or undemonstrative, hospitable or suspicious, tolerant or intolerant of differences? Do they all speak the same (non-English) language? (In Boston's Chinatown, for instance, where once virtually everyone spoke Cantonese, now you can hear several Chinese dialects, Vietnamese, and Thai, among other languages). Do they have particular social taboos or imperatives?

Strengths and needs.

Why are they the priority population, and what are their specific strengths, needs and issues? Is the organization trying to address all or only some of these? How did it choose, or did the priority population itself do the choosing?

Interaction between the organization and the priority population.

How are members of the priority population best approached? What seems to work well with them - what kinds of programs and initiatives do they respond to? Who are the key individuals in the target community? How does one establish credibility and build trust in that community?

The more new staff members know or can learn about the priority population before they start work, the less likely they are to make costly mistakes.

Introduction to the community at large

Unless they live in the community in which they'll be working, a new staff member needs to know a number of things about it.

Demographics.

The size, diversity (and what groups constitute that diversity ), average income, average education level, etc.

Economics.

Types of business and industry, major employers, types of housing, nature of different areas (higher-income vs. lower-income parts of town, e.g.), level of employment. In general, what's the community's socioeconomic status?

General characteristics.

What are the schools like? How much crime is there? What issues do people care about? Who do elected officials tend to be? Is the community largely liberal, largely conservative, or somewhere in between? Is it socially tolerant? Do people from different groups mix, or do they stay separate, even if relations among them are good?

Institutions.

What do the power structure and the governing bodies look like - and are they the same? What are the important institutions in the community (hospitals, banks, major businesses, etc.)? What are the faith communities? How powerful are the various media, and what are their biases?

Organizational relationships.

Who in the community does the organization know well and/or work with, among both individuals and other organizations and agencies?

Introduction to the position

You may have had the experience of starting a new job with very little knowledge of the job itself, and with the expectation that you'd simply figure out what it was you were supposed to do. If so, you understand clearly why new staff members need more than that if they're going to be effective. Some basic information would include:

• What the job actually looks like day to day. The job description is a start here, but there's also the question of what the person in that position actually does. What will an average day look like...or is there no such thing as an average day? What are the real activities that the new staff member will find themself engaging in? How much of their day will be occupied with meetings, with working directly with participants, with community outreach, and/or with paperwork? It's only fair that they should know what to expect.
• Unstated job requirements. It may not be in the job description, but staff members may be expected to pick up and deliver participants, intercede with public assistance workers or the court system, act as counselors, or perform other functions. If anything outside the job description is expected, new staff members should be aware of it.
• Trial period. Is there a trial period - a period during which either the individual or the organization can end the employment without any bad feeling or negative reports? Many organizations write a three- or six-month trial period into any staff contract. If there is a trial period, the new staff member should be aware of the criteria on which they'll be evaluated at the end of it.
• Regular evaluation. Many organizations evaluate staff performance regularly (usually annually). If you have a regular performance evaluation, the orientation should specify how often evaluations are conducted, what form they take, what the grounds for evaluation are, what is done with the final evaluation, how it is used in the organization, and who has access to it.
• Expectations. We've already mentioned unstated job requirements, but there may be other expectations that have to do with the organizational culture. How many hours are staff members really expected to work? Does staff get reimbursed for work-related travel (other than commuting)? What's the policy on personal phone calls, or on weekend events in the community that the organization is involved in? Are staff members expected to engage in community fundraising? Is there comp time?

How do you actually conduct a staff orientation program?

Actually conducting a staff orientation, in addition to planning out the topics to be covered, takes some consideration of a number of issues. First, however, you need to think through what the orientation is really meant to do.

Decide at whom your orientation is aimed. Are you going to orient everyone in the organization, or only some people? Will there be different orientations for different positions? Once you're clear on your audience, the rest will follow logically.

Clarify what you want to accomplish. Is the orientation meant simply to introduce the new staff member to others in the organization, or do you hope that it will equip them to start right in on their job? What are your goals here? Answering that question will help you reach your next decision.

Decide on the content of the orientation. Knowing whom you're orienting and to what purpose should give you the basis for determining how much of the content laid out above you want to include. Will you go through the personnel policies? Will you take the new staff member to visit other sites or other organizations? Are there observations or activities that need to be included?

Start by laying out the specific content areas that need to be covered. Then, for each of them, you may be able to see what would be the best format and method to cover that area, and who would be the best person to present it.

Decide whether the orientation will be group or individual. To some extent, this will be determined for you by your situation. If you've just hired one new staff member and you're not planning to hire others in the foreseeable future, then an individual orientation is in the cards. If you're new or are overhauling your organization, you may be hiring several people at once, and a group orientation probably makes more sense. If you're constantly recruiting volunteer staff, you may want to run group orientations on a regular basis - perhaps every other month, or three or four times a year.

Choose your format and methods. The format of your orientation is the medium through which material is presented. You could present it face-to-face, post it to a website and ask people to read it or download it from there, give them information in print, involve them in activities, send them off on their own to talk to and/or observe staff of your or other organizations, ask them to watch a video or listen to an audiotape, or combine any number of these and other formats. Varying the format is one way to keep the orientation interesting and fresh.

Methods are the techniques you choose to present the content of your orientation. As is probably clear from the previous parts of this section, you have a range of possibilities in deciding what to actually do in an orientation. The whole thing can be conceived of, for instance, as a straight presentation of information...which will probably be dry and boring, and most of which the new staff member will forget as soon as it's over. It generally makes more sense to think in other ways:

• Practice participatory planning and implementation. In addition to veteran staff, participants, and others, ask new staff members themselves to help plan out the orientation. What are they most anxious about, or what do they consider most important to find out? What or whom in the organization would they like to learn about first? How do they think they could do that most effectively? By involving them directly in the planning and presentation, you'll pull new staff members in and give them ownership of the orientation process. They'll then be far more likely to try to get as much as possible out of it.

• Think active. There is certainly room for straightforward presentation of material, but most people learn best - and are most interested - when they're doing something. That "something" may be as simple as being engaged in discussion or as complex as acting in a role play or guiding a group problem-solving activity. Varying presentation styles and keeping people active will hold their interest and cement their learning.
• Take or send new staff members on field trips. The best way to understand a community is to walk, or, in the case of rural areas, to drive through it. The best way to find out what other organizations are doing is to visit them, talk to their staffs, and observe their work. Whether in the company of a knowledgeable guide - a member of the priority population, for instance - or alone, new staff members should get out and see for themselves what's going on in the world they'll be working in.
• Encourage as much personal contact as possible. Other people - staff of your and other organizations, participants, members of the priority population, folks in the community - offer the best information, as well as the potential friendships and good working relationships that both ease the transition into a new job and continue to make the job pleasant when it's no longer new.
• Remember that different people learn differently. Some people take in information best by seeing, others by hearing, still others by touching and manipulating. Some tend to look at the big picture, others at the details; some prefer a step-by-step approach, others a more diverse and intuitive one. It's important, especially in a group orientation, to be aware of presenting material in different ways. Not only does this raise interest levels, but it's also more likely to speak to the diversity of learning styles in a group. Possibilities include:
  • Conversation and discussion: Personal contact helps learning for many.
  • Observation: Seeing the actual practice of what you've talked about or learned.
  • Text: Reading printed theory, policies, or other material.
  • Computer-based learning: On a website (your own, the Tool Box, or some other) or through some other channel (by e-mail, or on a professional list-serv or chat group).
  • Lecture or blackboard/newsprint presentation.
  • Multimedia: Video and audiotapes, computer, etc.
  • Direct experience: Role plays, practice with feedback.
  • Journals: Writing about orientation learning and experience may set them in the mind.
  • Involve as many current staff, Board, participants, volunteers, and administrators as possible. The diversity of people will not only help to increase the scope and effectiveness of the orientation and the knowledge base of new staff members, but will also make them feel that they know people in the organization, and contribute to their comfort as they start work.
  • Practice what you preach. If your organization uses specific teaching or presentation methods with participants, or advocates certain ways of approaching people, those methods should be reflected in the way you conduct your orientation.

Decide who will conduct the orientation. In the ideal world, the orientation would be conducted by the person or people who know the most about the areas covered. In reality, most organizations don't have the resources to make this happen.

In small organizations, orientation may be conducted by one person -- probably the director or the new staff member's supervisor. In a larger organization, many people may be involved, each presenting information about their particular job or responsibilities. In either case, a new staff member should meet with all other staff, either individually or in small groups, both to get to know them and to understand what they do and how they fit into the organization as a whole.

If the orientation is conducted by a number of people, it is still important that one person oversee the process, acting as the main contact for the new staff person and making sure that they get appropriate information, complete assigned tasks, have no trouble arranging meetings, and get their questions answered.

Decide on the length of the orientation. Knowing the content and your goals, you should be able to estimate how much time you'll need to run the orientation you want to. You may run an informal orientation (some conversation, introductions to other staff, some reading to do), which may take up part of the first day, or be spread out over a few days. Another possibility is a formal orientation (i.e. a carefully-structured series of presentations, activities, meetings, etc.), each part of which lasts a set amount of time. Or you may choose to designate an orientation period at the beginning of a staff member's employment, during which they may be working, but may also be involved in orientation-related activities. In the former cases, orientation might last only a few hours or a day or two. In the latter, it could last a week or a month, or even several months, and would probably include initial training.

• Formal orientation. If you run a formal orientation of only a few hours or a day, it will probably involve the direct presentation of a lot of information. You may ask a variety of veteran staff members, participants, or others to take part in the presentation, and/or you may ask new staff members to seek out and talk to certain people on their own time. Training will be separate from orientation in this case, although it may immediately follow it.
• Orientation period. An orientation period may last as little as a few days or a week, or as much as three or four months. If it's short, it could be pure orientation time, during which the staff member does nothing else, or it could fit in around a work schedule. During this time, the new staff member will get some direct information, and also spend a good deal of time meeting with other staff members, Board members, participants, people from other organizations, and others who can cast light on their job and its context. They might also observe or shadow other staff members, read relevant material, be trained in necessary areas, become familiar with the community or target area, etc. In any case, the orientation is their job, or part of it, for this period.

As is true for most of the material in this and many other sections of the Community Tool Box, the above refers to an ideal world, one in which there are the time and resources for a proper orientation period to take place. In reality, especially in a small grass roots or community-based organization, the position has probably been empty for longer than it was supposed to be, other staff have been working overtime to do the job until someone could be hired, the new staff member is going to have to start work the instant they appears, and no one in the organization has time to spare to actually run an orientation.

Even if your organization can't devote much time solely to orientation, however, it's absolutely crucial to regard at least the first week or two as an orientation period, and to support a new staff member by providing information, helping them to make contact with other people inside and outside the organization, and introducing them to the community. It will make all the difference in the long run, both in the quality of their work and their attitude toward the organization.

Evaluate your orientation each time you run it. Evaluation will help you make your orientation more effective, which, in turn, will make your staff more effective. An evaluation should include feedback from those evaluated, and can be built right into the orientation itself. A final piece of the process might be reflection on what has taken place, and some ideas about what was missing, what was particularly helpful, and what could have been done better.

You might also consider asking staff members to reevaluate their orientation after they've been on the job for a while. At the end of the orientation, they may not yet know what's most or least helpful, and what they'll use or not use. They might have a better perspective on those issues in three or six months.

Create some sort of marker for the end of the orientation or orientation period. A small party, an official welcome to the staff, the presentation of keys...something that puts an official end to the orientation. This kind of closure - and it doesn 't have to be tremendously formal - can help to facilitate the transition from "new " to "regular" staff member.

In Summary

An orientation at the very beginning of their employment is an important tool in helping new staff members understand and adjust to the organization and their jobs, and to become effective as soon as possible. It also gives new staff members the chance to meet their colleagues and to start the process of becoming integrated into the organization.

Orientations should include introductions to the organization, the priority population, the community, and the job itself, as well as an evaluation and something to mark the transition to "regular employee." If you can run a timely orientation for new staff members that includes these elements, as well as whatever else you and they feel they need to know to do their jobs well, you'll probably have done much to forge a long-term relationship between them and the organization.

If you've never run an orientation for new staff - or if you're a new organization - now is a good time to create one. If you've been running orientations for years, you might reexamine yours, and see how it could be improved to better serve your organization and its new staff. An orientation that does its job can improve both the effectiveness of your organization and the quality of life for new staff members.

___You understand what a staff orientation program is.

___You know why you should have a staff orientation program and what it will accomplish.

Before the staff orientation program:

1. You know how to conduct a staff orientation program and have:
2. Decided at whom your orientation is aimed
3. Clarified what you want to accomplish
4. Decided on the content of the orientation
5. Decided whether the orientation will be group or individual
6. Chosen your format and methods
7. Decided who will conduct the orientation
8. Decided the length of the orientation
9. Evaluated your orientation each time you run it
10. Created some sort of marker for the end of the orientation or orientation period

In the staff orientation program

___You have addressed the logistical, professional, social and philosophical factors to orient new staff members

___Your orientation program helps new staff members to fit into  the organization and do the best job they can.

___You have included an introduction to the organization's:

1. History
2. Mission
3. Organizational philosophy
4. Methods or strategies
5. People
6. Organizational structure
7. Logistics and day-to-day routine
8. Supervision
9. Policies and procedures
10. Organizational culture

___You have an introduction to the target population and community if your organization is targeted to a particular group.

___You have introduced staff members to their position by stating:

1. What the job actually looks like day to day
2. Unstated job requirements
3. Trial period
4. Regular evaluation
5. Expectations

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

Training programs support new staff as they learn the ropes of their position and help veteran staff stay updated in their field. It is important to develop a training program that meets the needs of both staff members and the organization, and keeps the organization growing and changing for the better. This section will help you think about how to plan and run a training program for all the people in your organization.

What is a training program?

For starters, a good training program is just that -- an actual program, which looks at training as not just a one-time event. What makes a training program different from an orientation program is that it covers a much broader area.

Orientation is an introduction to the organization, the job, the priority population, and the community. Even if it goes on through the first few months of employment, it is only an introduction, meant to get a staff member used to their new job.

Training is directly related to the skills, knowledge, and strategies necessary to do a particular job. It can include teaching staff members new skills, exposing them to unfamiliar ideas, giving them the chance to practice and get feedback on particular techniques or styles of working with people, or simply encouraging them to discuss their work with one another. And it can, and should, be ongoing throughout a staff member's employment.

What is included in a training program?

A comprehensive training program might include the following:

• Training for new staff who've never done this particular work before.
• Training for new staff who may be experienced in the work of the position, but not in the particular method or style which your organization uses.

An adult literacy program that had pioneered a particular method of using whole language reading instruction for adults often hired people who had taught reading before, but in different ways. Whole language theory and practice were therefore the subject of much of their initial training, as well as of ongoing staff development.

• Staff development: ongoing training for all staff.
• Professional development. While this term is often used interchangeably with staff development, we've chosen to define it as leading either to specific new knowledge, or to the next level of expertise. Professional development might encompass several possibilities:
  • College or graduate courses.
  • Attendance at conferences.
  • Study circles: groups of professionals who meet regularly to discuss readings and/or members' writing and research on topics of mutual interest. A study circle may have a facilitator to help guide reading and discussions, or members may take turns acting as facilitator.
  • Field-generated courses or workshops: courses or workshops that grow out of the needs of practitioners, who find people to teach them.
  • Institutes: Courses run by non-academic institutions, often involving observation and hands-on practice instead of or in addition to lectures, discussion, and reading.

Finally, a training program should apply to everyone in the organization, from administrators to line staff to support staff. All need, and should have the chance, to become continually better at what they do, improving both their own and the organization 's effectiveness.

Why run a training program?

A training program looks like it might involve a fair amount of work and cost some money. Does your organization really need one? The answer is yes, for a number of reasons.

For new staff, there's what seems an obvious answer: a training program is necessary so they can start their jobs with some idea of what they're supposed to do and how to do it. But there are a number of other ways in which a training program can help new staff members:

• It shows them that the organization is serious about what it does, and therefore encourages them to be serious about it, too.
• It makes them feel that the organization is supportive of them.
• Having the proper training boosts their confidence in their ability to do their jobs.
• A training program can help to convince new staff members of the value of the organization's philosophy and methods.
• It enlists them as "regulars" in the organization by giving them a vocabulary and way of looking at their work similar to those of others in the organization.
• It shortens the time needed for them to become competent at their jobs.
• It reduces their need to ask other staff for advice or information, and thus increases their independence and decreases the drain on other staff members.
• It greatly diminishes the chance that they'll make mistakes that cost the organization in prestige, public relations, credibility, lawsuits, or money.

For veteran staff, a training program also has numerous benefits:

• It helps them to become continually more competent at what they do.
• It increases their knowledge of the field by introducing them to the latest research and theory, and can expose them to new ideas which ultimately may improve their own effectiveness and that of the organization.
• By keeping them from becoming bored and stale, it helps them to maintain interest in and enthusiasm for their work.
• It can expose them to other practitioners with different -- and perhaps better -- methods.
• It gives them one more reason to stay with the organization.
• It keeps the organization as a whole dynamic: thinking, growing, and changing. A dynamic organization is almost always a healthy and effective one.

In short, a good ongoing training program for all staff increases organizational effectiveness and keeps it increasing, rather than allowing the organization to stagnate.

When should you run a training program?

Training for new staff should clearly be conducted as soon as possible after they're hired. The ideal is that it be part of their orientation -- if the orientation period is long or comprehensive enough -- or that it at least starts before they begin work, so they'll know what they're doing. But a well-planned training program should run all throughout the life of the organization.

Staff development should be scheduled regularly, as part of the normal operation of the organization. Probably, at minimum, everyone in the organization should have the opportunity for some ongoing training at least once a month. Some organizations may conduct or sponsor ongoing training much more often, sometimes as part of a weekly or biweekly staff meeting. Such training opportunities could be as low-key as a half-hour presentation at a staff meeting, or as formal as a presentation or workshop by a nationally known expert in the field, depending upon the organization's resources.

Professional development opportunities may be more difficult, because they generally require money. Most small organizations simply don't have the resources to pay for staff members' college or graduate courses, and may not even be able to afford conference fees. While some staff members may be more than willing to pay for their own conferences or courses, it would be unfair to require everyone to do so. A compromise might be to ask staff members to take advantage of at least one professional development opportunity per year. Some of those opportunities - study circles, for instance - are free or almost free, and can be arranged by staff members themselves, or by the organization.

Who should be in charge of the training program?

This question really refers to two different aspects of running a training program. The first is that of who actually controls the program ( i.e. who determines the subject matter, frequency, and form of the training). The second is that of who conducts the training itself. The two may be, but need not be, the same person or group.

There is actually a third facet to running a program as well: coordination. Someone has to be responsible for scheduling, communication, finding outside presenters if necessary, etc.. The question of who coordinates in this way may or may not be less loaded than the others. A member of the support staff might, in fact, coordinate training as part of their job, or the director might insist that they be the training coordinator. However your organization does it -- and having the responsibility rotate among staff members is a possible answer -- it's absolutely crucial to have effective coordination, usually invested in a single person. Without it, a training program will get lost in loose ends and unfinished business.

Control of the training

There are a number of choices for who or what controls a training program:

• The director, program director, another administrator, or training coordinator, with or without input from other staff members. In a large organization, there might even be a training coordinator for each department, or for each group of services.
• Organizational policy: the subject matter, form, and frequency of training may be specified by the organization itself, either in the bylaws or in personnel policy.
• A particular staff member or group of staff members.
• All staff collectively (including administrators and support staff).
• Staff and other interested parties, such as participants, who may have knowledge of the training needs of the organization.
• An outside facilitator or organization.

As is stated many times elsewhere in the Community Tool Box, it is extremely important for organizations to live their beliefs. Effective organizations usually have a consistent view of how they treat people, whether those people are members of their own staffs, of the priority population, or of the larger community. Toward this end, an organization should ask itself some important questions before deciding who should control its training.

• What are the political implications of your choice? If the director determines the course of training, even with the input of other staff members, that says something specific about the distribution of power in the organization. The same is true if the control of training is a joint responsibility of all staff.
• How important is it that training in your organization be participatory? What is the organization's stake in doing things in an inclusive and democratic way?
• How does the control of training reflect the organizational philosophy? If the organization tries to foster a collaborative atmosphere, then training should be viewed as a collaborative effort as well. If the organization seeks to empower its priority population, it's important that it also empower staff. An empowered staff would have at least some control over its own training.
• How distinctive does the training need to be? Does the organization use a self-developed or very unusual method, and has it developed a specific course of training as a result? If that is the case, how much room is there for flexibility and the introduction of other issues and ideas?
• Are many or all staff members already knowledgeable in the field, or are they one-sided in their knowledge (i.e. are most familiar with only one of several possible methods for doing what they do)?

Conducting the training

In many ways, deciding who will conduct the training is simpler than deciding who will control it. Possibilities are a program or training director, other staff members, outside presenters (including participants and other community members) or organizations, or some combination.

Again, there are questions an organization should ask itself here:

• Who has the expertise? The answer to this question will probably vary from topic to topic. Some or most training might be conducted in-house by staff members with the right background and experience. At other times, an outside source might be necessary.
• Is it important to involve the community -- either members of the priority population or people from the community at large?
• Do you need special training that no one on staff is competent to provide?
• What, if anything, can you afford to pay for training?

How do you actually develop and run a training program?

There are four major considerations in developing and running a training program. In the order you need to look at them, they are:

• Planning
• Methods
• Logistics
• Evaluation

We'll examine each of these in turn.

Planning

General rules for planning a staff training program

• Involve staff members in the planning and implementation of training programs. Whether they are in direct control of the training or not, the people who do the work are in the best position to figure out what at least some of their needs are. Even new staff can participate in planning in this way. What are they most nervous about? In what areas do they feel least prepared or least competent? The answers to these questions can help to structure a useful and effective initial training.

For both new and veteran staff, there is always the tension between what they know they need and what they don't know they need. If you can foster the understanding that exposure to new ideas and techniques is an important part of any staff member's growth, then exposure to such can become an accepted and valued part of your staff training program.

In addition, staff participation in planning and conducting a training program gives staff members ownership of that program, making it far more likely that they will take it seriously and benefit from it.

• Respond to staff members' needs. If they're involved in the planning of training, make sure that involvement isn't just nominal, but leads to specific workshops, sessions, etc.. Some things you can do to ensure that needs are met:
  • Cover the topics that staff members identify as important. This doesn't mean you can't add to these topics, but simply that the ones they identify should be addressed. If, for some reason, this isn't practical, that should be discussed and a rationale presented for what will be covered. (Some organizations identify topics by doing an annual -- or more frequent -- staff training needs assessment.)
  • Try to arrange the training in the forms and situations staff members most want: study circles, particular presenters, etc.. Just as important, don't set up situations that staff members particularly dislike -- if everyone expresses distaste for lecture-style presentations, don't plan any.
  • Find materials that address the issues appropriately and interestingly.
• Schedule training around staff member's needs. For new staff, that means as soon as they report for work, so that they can get the foundation they need. For staff development, it means several things:
  • Schedule at times convenient for as many people as possible.
  • Schedule well in advance so that you can get the presenters you want, assemble materials for staff to examine beforehand, get readings together, etc..
  • Build in enough flexibility or unscheduled time to address real issues that come up in the work when they need to be addressed.

Remember that you're planning a program

A training program is more than just a series of unrelated workshops. It should reflect a way of looking at what your organization does, as well as the needs of the staff. Some organizations plan training a year at a time, choosing to focus on one or a small number of topics, and scheduling discussions or presentations months in advance. Others see a training program as a progression as staff members build their skills and knowledge from the initial training throughout their time in the organization. Still others see a program as covering the areas that staff members need to do their jobs well, which often means responding to immediate concerns (We're getting a lot of participants who are using heroin. How do we deal with that?).

All of these are legitimate ways of looking at a staff training program, and there are others as well. What's necessary is that your staff training plan end up with a program that has some reason behind its structure. An unrelated series of presentations or activities might have some value, but it will benefit neither the staff nor the organization as much as a training program that forms a coherent whole.

Decide what areas your staff training should cover

Obviously, the decision here will depend on the work of the organization and the expressed needs of staff members, but it will also vary with the philosophy and intent of the organization. Some organizations may want a training program to address issues that aren't -- or don't seem to be -- directly related to their stated goals.

If an organization whose stated goal is job training believes that work readiness is dependent on individual development, it might therefore include information on psychological development in its training program. Organizations concerned with empowerment might include training on how the organization expects staff members to interact with and treat participants. Less introspective organizations are more likely to focus training only on job skills -- vaccinating children, teaching literacy, understanding federal regulations.

That said, there are some general areas that most training programs should address

• Specific job skills and information. Any training, especially initial training, should cover the particular skills and information people need to do their jobs. Teaching techniques, federal regulations, and new medical information might all be training topics for one organization or another.

In some cases, of course, people in your group have been hired specifically because they already had most of the skills and information they needed. (You don't have to teach an RN how to take blood pressure, for instance.) Training should take that into account, and focus on upgrading skills, or on information that's new or specific to the organization.

• Skills unique to your organization. If you have self-developed or unusual ways of doing things, it's obviously important that staff members understand both how to use these methods and why your organization uses them.
• New techniques, developments, theories, policies, laws, etc., in your field.
• Other areas that staff members need to be familiar with, over and above their job skills, in order to do their jobs well (strategies to deal with someone experiencing suicidal thoughts, for instance, or to resolve conflicts). Into this category falls most training in such areas as interpersonal skills, cultural sensitivity, and diversity.
• Specific issues of importance to the organization. Depending upon the nature of the work and of the priority population, some possibilities here could be domestic violence, HIV transmission, welfare reform, ADA (the Americans with Disabilities Act), the economics of particular neighborhoods or regions, trends in federal funding, etc.. These issues might not be related directly to the goals of the organization, but may have great impact on its work because of their effect on participants.

Determine how much training your staff needs, and when it should happen

• Initial training. How long should training for new staff last? When are you going to need it (i.e., do you know when you're likely to be hiring)?
• Staff development. How much staff development should each staff member engage in during a year? How often should it take place, or does that matter?
• Professional development. Should there be an organizational standard for the amount of professional development a staff member should be involved in each year? If so, should there be any time considerations placed on that standard (i.e., professional development has to be completed by a certain time each year)?

Methods

There are some general guidelines to keep in mind when considering what methods to use in a staff training program.

• If the training is meant to teach a method or technique, it should be conducted using the method or technique in question. If you're trying to teach group facilitation skills, for instance, then you -- or whoever is conducting the training -- should be demonstrating those skills in the presentation itself.
• Similarly, training methods should be consistent with the mission and philosophy of the organization. If the organization is collaborative, for instance, then the training program should assume that everyone has some relevant knowledge and experience to contribute. The training should be viewed as a collaborative effort, rather than as an authority offering some of their knowledge to others who are unfamiliar with the material.
• Vary presentation methods to keep people interested and excited. This is true whether training is in-house or is largely conducted by outside presenters. Among the many methods available are:
  • Discussion/study circles
  • Group activities: small-group problem-solving, collaborative projects, etc.
  • Multimedia: audio-visual presentations (videos, audio, projectors), use of computers and the internet, etc.
  • Physical activities: movement, manipulation of materials
  • Individual problem-solving
  • Role plays and simulation, including interactive theater
  • Journals or other writing activities
  • Arts activities: creating pictures, structures, poems, etc., either as individuals or in groups
  • Individual or group research
  • Readings
  • Lecture

You may notice that lecture, which is probably the most common method of presentation, is listed last here. The reason is that studies have shown that lecture is the least effective method of learning for most people. For most subject matter, group learning and/or hands-on involvement are usually more effective: the give-and-take of a group discussion, even if the group is only two, is far more helpful to most people than listening to someone tell them something, and actually practicing the activity is even more powerful.

Discussion is interactive: it gives people the chance to wrestle with ideas, to translate those ideas into their own terms, and to make them their own. The same is true of several of the other methods listed above, particularly the use of physical activities, role plays, and the arts.

• Be aware of different learning styles. There are many descriptions of different learning styles, but all come down to two issues: how people take in information; and how they organize and use it. Although most people can use a range of different styles when they need to, everyone seems to have a style that they prefer, and which they can use best.

Logistics

The logistics -- the nitty-gritty of arranging everything so that the training can take place -- may not be the most exciting part of a training, but it's absolutely crucial. How well you take care of the details may have a lot to do with the success of your training program, so you have to start thinking about them early. For most organizations, the important issues will be location, setup, and materials.

• Location. Do you want -- or do you have -- to hold training or staff development sessions at your workplace, or would it be better to go elsewhere? Other possibilities include people's houses; (free) institutional space (a library or college, for instance); rented space; space loaned by another organization; outdoors; or rented conference space, which may be far from home and very different from the normal work environment.

Your organization's resources -- probably not huge -- will go a long way toward determining whether you can rent space or not. Your organization's philosophy and style may help to determine whether you want to rent space or you would rather spend the money directly on the work you do.

Time and the amount of space needed can also be determining factors. If your staff development takes place during staff meeting time, for instance, then it's almost undoubtedly going to be in your workplace. If you're planning activities that involve a lot of physical movement, you'll need more space than you will just for chairs.

• Setup. How are you going to set up the space? How formal or informal do you want it to be? Do you want comfortable furniture? Chairs in rows, or in a circle? Tables or desks to write on? Blackboards? These questions might influence your choice of location as well.

In addition, you need to consider trainees' comfort. Does your space have enough light, natural or otherwise? (Remember that fluorescent lights buzz, a noise that some people don't mind or don't hear, and that others can't stand.) Is there enough air circulation? (Rooms without adequate ventilation put people to sleep.) How's the temperature? (If you're too hot or too cold, it's hard to concentrate.)

Food changes the dynamics of any situation, making it friendlier and more relaxed. Do you want to include food, and, if so, will the organization provide it, or will people share the cost or take turns?

• Materials. Training materials will, of course, be dependent on the nature of your training and the methods you choose. No matter what you do, however, there will almost undoubtedly be a fair amount of text and other paper that needs to be distributed (although it may also be posted to be downloaded from a website or computer network), and other materials needed for particular training sessions. These have to be available at the right times, and that's probably the responsibility of the coordinator.

Having materials ready when they're needed can be a big job. It may mean getting many pages copied; typing text into a website; making overheads, videos, or CD-ROMs (as well as finding the hardware to display them); creating Power Point presentations; assembling enough art materials for everyone to use; etc.. It may even mean putting together or writing a training manual, which might include some of these materials.

The planning you've done becomes crucial here. The more lead time the coordinator has to get materials ready, the more likely they are to be there when they're required, and the more flexible the training program, as a whole, will be able to be.

Like all your work, your training program should be dynamic, constantly changing to improve its effectiveness and meet the evolving needs of the organization. The way you assure this dynamism is through regular, careful examination and evaluation of what you're doing and how you do it.

There are some obvious ways to determine the effectiveness of your training program.

• Feedback from staff members, both on individual sessions and on the training program as a whole. Obtaining honest feedback could be difficult if the level of trust in the organization isn't high. (Lack of trust is another problem, but not for this section. Both group discussions and individual conversations are the best ways to get real information. They allow for give and take, and give people a chance to polish their thoughts as they hear those of others.

  You can also ask people to fill out a survey (anonymous or not). This may be somewhat less revealing, but it may also give you accurate feedback on how helpful and interesting your training is. (Please see Tool #1 for a sample survey on training.)

  The important questions are whether staff members feel that the training program, in general, was useful, and how it can be improved. Can they point to specific training that has had a practical effect? Do they use any of the ideas or techniques they learned or were exposed to? Are they more open to innovation in their work than before? Has training improved their confidence or their feeling of competency? Does the training feel supportive? Would they consider the time spent on it a valuable part of their jobs? What areas of concern weren't covered? What would they like to see added or dumped in the future?

• Feedback from participants, priority populations, community members, etc., about the competence of the organization in the areas that the training program addressed. Have there been changes in the ways things are done or changes in the effectiveness of the organization? Have there been changes in the way the organization is perceived?

• Observation and supervision of staff members in job situations. How easily did new staff members adapt to the techniques, ideas, and attitudes presented in initial training? Is there improvement, or a drive toward improvement, in the work of veteran staff? Have any of the ideas proposed in training been adopted in practice, and how well are they working? Do supervisors see differences in people 's attitudes, methods, or competency? Do staff members discuss training issues with supervisors and with one another?

  The goal of both initial and ongoing training is to help staff members become more effective at what they do. For various organizations, that may mean being more creative or more innovative, serving more people, having more success with current participants, involving more people from the community, or having greater political impact. Whatever your goals for staff effectiveness, you'll be many steps closer to reaching them if you have a well-planned and well-executed training program.

In Summary

A good staff training program is just that -- a program, with a structure and logic to it that make sense for your organization. It should continue throughout the life of the organization and include initial training for new staff, staff development (ongoing training for all staff), and professional development (the opportunity to gain new knowledge or skills, or to move to the next level of expertise).

Creating such a program involves planning that includes the people to be trained, and looks at both what kind of shape the training program should take and what areas it should cover. The development of a training program also requires thinking about methods (how the training will be presented), logistics (where and when training will be held, what's necessary to make it all go well, etc.), and evaluation (how you'll find out what was valuable and what was not, and what you should do to improve the program over time).

Developing a training program that meets the needs of both staff members and the organization, and keeps the organization growing and changing for the better, is a big job. But, the benefits to be gained will far outweigh the effort.

___You understand that staff training is learning directly related to the skills, knowledge, and strategies necessary to do a particular job.

___You know what is included in a training program.

• Training for new staff who have never done this particular work before.
• Training for new staff who are experienced in the work of the position.
• Staff development
• Professional development

___You understand that staff development is ongoing training for all staff.

___You understand that professional development is training to increase particular knowledge or to gain the next level of expertise in a position.

___ You understand why to run a training program for new staff.

• It shows them that the organization is serious about what it is.
• It makes them feel that the organization is supportive of them.
• Have proper training boosts their confidence.
• It enlists them as "regulars" in the organization.
• It shortens the time it takes them to become competent at their jobs.
• It reduces their need to ask other staff members for advice or information.
• It diminishes the chances that they'll make mistakes that cost the organization.

___You understand why to run a training program for veteran staff.

• It helps them to become continually more competent at what they do.
• It introduces them to the latest research and theory.
• It helps them to maintain interest in and enthusiasm for their work.
• It can expose them to other practitioners with different, and perhaps better, methods.
• It gives them one more reason to stay with the organization.
• It keeps the organization dynamic and healthy.

___You understand that training for new staff should be conducted as soon as possible after hiring, and ideally as part of new staff orientation.

___You understand that training for veteran staff should happen on a regular basis throughout the life of the organization.

___You understand the steps for developing and running a training program:

• Planning
• Methods
• Logistics
• Evaluation

Note: The examples that follow are from the experience of the editor of this section, and come from Lowell, Massachusetts, an old mill town with the mills long gone, a depressed economy, and a tremendously diverse population.

Example # 1: The Greater Lowell Mental Health Training Consortium (GLMHTC)

There were a number of mental health-related agencies in town, and a lot of mental health issues for them to deal with. Although there were individual working relationships across organizations, the organizations themselves each operated in its own orbit. There was no conflict, but no cooperation, either, and no incentive or structure for it.

Someone -- it's not clear who -- proposed that the group get together to talk about common training programs. We were all pretty small and poorly funded, and the training we did ranged from not very much down to none. So, that first meeting was pretty well attended -- not surprising, since most people will come to one meeting of almost anything.

More surprising was the fact that, through good leadership (and the fact that the leader had the time to devote to the project), the group stayed together. After doing a training needs assessment of the member agencies, it planned and held a variety of community-wide mental health training events. There were at least three or four, and all were well-attended. There was a reasonable fee for some of them, to make sure the group didn't lose money, and people got continuing education credits for attending.

The group went so far as to give itself a long-winded name, the Greater Lowell Mental Health Training Consortium, or GLMHTC. As a result, people working in the member agencies got to know one another better. GLMHTC published a directory of its 30 or so members, with a description of each organization's services. And it formed a working Board of Directors, which met monthly. It had fairly big plans.

As it happens, those plans never materialized. The group lasted for about three years, and then unraveled. Some of its work folded into institutes sponsored by the local university. But, in reality, jobs change and people move on; such is life. Any group like this one would have needed continued strong leadership to survive. That is hard to come by.

But I count this experience as a success, not a failure. It was good while it lasted, and it shows what can be done. Groups like this can happen if the need is strong enough and if the leadership is there. The power to create excellent community-wide training programs lies within ourselves, if we are motivated enough to utilize it.

Example #2: The Battered Women's Shelter

Our agency was involved in a lot of community outreach, and we also wanted to create more visibility for ourselves at the same time. How could we do this? Well, one way was to sponsor training programs that could attract a lot of people. But you had to have the right topic.

The right topic then in our community was domestic violence. There were incidents reported in the papers. Services for battered women in our region were just getting off the ground. In our community, though, we had no services at all. We thought we could help make them happen.

What we did was invite the organizers of a battered women's shelter in another community -- 25 miles away -- to come up and talk with us. They agreed. We publicized this event widely in the community, with the pitch that seating was limited for this important event; we asked for an R.S.V.P. from those wanting to attend, somewhat ironically, since hardly anyone had attended any of our training events before.

To our genuine surprise -- you could say shock -- we got about 100 replies. We could barely fit everyone in the room. The training event itself was a terrific success, but more than that, it prompted the development of an informal group to plan for a battered women's shelter in our own community. We learned that a well -planned training event can have impacts extending far beyond the training itself. Maybe that should sometimes be a goal.

This local group applied for a small grant to get a shelter up and running. The grant was awarded. Six months later, the shelter opened. It's been open now for more than 20 years, and at this point is one of the best-established social service agencies in the city. But it wouldn't have happened -- or at least it wouldn't have happened as easily or as soon -- without that initial training event.

Example #3: The Literacy Project's Staff Development Program

The Literacy Project (TLP) is a western Massachusetts adult literacy program that I worked in and directed for several years. It presents not a model to imitate, but rather a fairly typical example of the evolution of staff development in a small organization without a lot of money.

The Literacy Project really sponsored two strands of staff development. The organization had always allowed release time -- at the staff member's discretion -- for conferences, workshops, and other ongoing education and training. Later, as the organization's finances became healthier, TLP allowed each staff member a certain amount of funding and travel reimbursement for these ventures. That strand continued -- in later years, with some coordination -- throughout the life of the organization.

Internal staff development was always an issue for the organization, but, for the first few years, there was no real plan or schedule. Staff development offerings came as the need arose, or as a particular training opportunity became available. When the staff of 4 grew in one year to 13, and expanded to four widely separated sites, we realized that -- among many others -- the staff development issue was one that had to be addressed.

The director talked to each staff member individually about her priorities for training, and then made up a list that he circulated to everyone. At a weekly staff meeting, the staff decided on the areas they wanted to cover in the next three or four months. They also decided that staff development should be institutionalized: regular sessions would take place every other week, alternating with staff meetings.

It was left to the director to arrange and coordinate staff development. He envisioned it as staff members teaching one another, and, in fact, conducted the first few sessions himself, at staff request. Over time, people grew bored with the format, and less willing to take responsibility for preparing sessions. At that point, it became clear that the staff development program needed to be renegotiated.

The possibilities were expanded to include simple sharing of experience (not to be sneered at as a component of a staff development program, especially in an organization where staff members worked in four very distinct and different communities), and some multi-session activities on issues important to particular staff members. These included such topics as diversity, mediation, and learning and other disabilities.

The staff also experimented with a different staff development schedule, attempting to incorporate an hour of staff development activity into each weekly staff meeting. This quickly became an issue, because regular staff meeting concerns too often encroached on staff development time. A satisfactory staff development program continued to prove elusive.

Over time, some guidelines developed that moved our organization closer to the goal. Staff members decided to meet every other week without the director, in order to make sure that staff development time was just that. Several staff members collaborated with one another and with folks from other programs on participatory research projects, on the design of assessment tools, and on learner-generated curriculum. Individuals found intensive training in areas that interested them -- learning disabilities, for instance. A study circle, including the director as well as line staff, developed around learner issues and the participatory classroom.

Ultimately, the staff decided on a format similar to that of the writing groups that many of them conducted with learners. They decided on priorities for the next several months, and each took on some coordination responsibilities for a particular topic or session. Every other week, staff members met, discussed what they were doing, shared concerns, and presented papers, lessons, or activities they had agreed to prepare. Out of this grew many conference presentations and invitations from other groups, as well as significant amounts of curriculum and classroom activities.

All in all, the staff development program at TLP was never perfect, or even totally adequate to the needs of the people involved. It did, however, accomplish its real purposes, which were to expose all staff members to a range of different ideas; to make sure that everyone shared what they were doing in the classroom; to develop individuals' expertise in particular areas and their skills in working with learners; and to keep the program developing and changing in positive ways. In my last two years there, no fewer than six TLP staff members -- out of a teaching staff of eight -- were in demand as presenters and experts in the field.

Tool #1: A Sample Training Evaluation Survey

Please circle one number as a response for each question below.

1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Neutral or Don't Know, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree

 

1.	I found this training helpful	1	2	3	4	5
2.	I will use at least some of what I learned.	1	2	3	4	5
3.	I see how this training applies to my work.	1	2	3	4	5
4.	I understood the material well.	1	2	3	4	5
5.	I want to know more about this topic.	1	2	3	4	5
6.	I'd like more trainings like this.	1	2	3	4	5

 

Please explain what changes, if any, you might make in your work as a result of this training.

• What specific action will you take as a result of this training?
• What did you particularly like about this training?
• What would you have done differently?
• Are there related topics you'd like training in?

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.