we may hire really challenged people

[Zoe Girl]

Yeah I was trying not to say idiots, that is really rude, but seriously. I was at a meeting for summer supervisors yesterday and there is a memo of record for everyone to have staff sign going into summer to make sure they are fully aware of expectations. It ended up being 2 full pages. I do understand the importance of most of this, working with a new crew, making sure the quality is high, etc. However at some point I wondered who are the people we hire? It included the things like dress code, and then added 'staff should practice good hygiene'. Another part on the tracking system detailed every part of the system including 'students must put their card away, not parents'. Okay that is the policy but is part of the tracking training instead of an MOR. In another part it said that if staff is eating with the children they must stop when the kids are done and supervise them. Well of course, and as a supervisor I am watching that as well.

I guess I am still a little summer grumpy, but if other supervisors are really having to tell staff to bathe then maybe all this detailed, heavy handed stuff is necessary.

[razz]

If it is written in directions and policy, then the agency has covered itself from any liability issues?

[jp1]

I was going to say the same basic thing as razz. It's not that they think they'll be hiring people who lack basic job skills like bathing regularly. It's that they want to be able to fire anyone who slips through the cracks and gets hired anyway.

[Tybee]

I have had to rewrite my class policies to account for some of the weird outlier behavior. Maybe your employer is doing the same thing.

[Zoe Girl]

I get it that we are covering ourselves, it does make sense. I guess I didn't realize my co-workers were dealing with this issues. I have seen ups and downs with the quality of staff we have over the years. As the economy improved we didn't get as high quality, even with significant increases in pay.

Part of it is that I know people don't read the entire thing, maybe the top third of a page with bullet points. So I will need to read this carefully with people. However my summer staff is going to do better than this. I realize that I wish we could have added some things about boundaries, like your PS does not answer their phone on the weekends, but that is again just part of my job to have that conversation.