The Evaluators


By reducing surprises and focusing on actual job behaviours, camps can increase the quality and effectiveness of their staff evaluation process


By Jay Frankel O


ne of the most dreaded tasks for summer supervisors to perform is evaluating their staff. Many find this discus- sion uncomfortable, disingenuous and often ineffective. Some fear that evaluation feedback can impact staff negative-


ly and cause them to check out mentally, or worse be mad at them for the remainder of the summer. Ironically, even if evalu- ation feedback is positive, the quality of the evaluation for the supervisor and staff member is not necessarily much better. Now is a perfect time to reevaluate the effectiveness of your


camp’s staff evaluation process. Begin by asking some key ques- tions of yourself, your leadership team and your evaluation design.


Is the feedback given to our staff during evaluations a surprise to them? Evaluation feedback, praise or redirection should rarely be a surprise to the staff member, especially if the evaluation period surpasses the first week of camp. When evaluating the effectiveness of your evaluation process, always start by measur- ing the frequency and effectiveness of the ongoing feedback your staff are receiving. This is where true development comes from. A healthy evaluation process should be used to reaffirm, clarify and continue past feedback, with a few new pieces of informa- tion added here and there. To measure the effectiveness of the staff evalution process,


survey staff during the off season to ask them about the quality and frequency of the feedback they’ve received during the sum- mer.


Also, add an ending to your current evaluation process that


asks, “Was there any aspect of this evaluation that came as a sur- prise to you? Anything, positive or negative, that you didn’t expect?” One particular camp created a Surprise-o-Meter at the end of their evaluation process. In this instance, the staff mem- ber is asked to measure the level of “surprise” the feedback was, based on a visual scale. It’s a fun way of finding out their feel- ings and opening up a discussion about their further needs from their supervisor.


What is the comfort level of our leadership team in facilitating the evaluation discussion? Keep in mind that many camp super- visors are educators. Teachers notoriously have mixed feelings about evaluations. Talk to a teacher about the one or two days a year they get observed in the classroom for 25 minutes at a clip, and you will quickly hear their feelings about the fairness of how they are evaluated by their supervisor. So there is likely some baggage people bring to this process before it even begins. After listening to hundreds of camp supervisors over the years complain to me about doing staff evaluations, the discomforts I hear the most are 1) “I have no time to write and discuss all of these evaluations with each of my staff,” 2) “I don’t really have


24 Canada Camps Spring 2010


specific examples for this person,” and 3) “I hate to deliver bad news or be the bad guy.” So determining exactly how your leadership team feels about


the evaluation process and what specifically they are uncomfort- able with, is key to achieving great results in the summer. Discomfort usually means there is a training issue present. Supervisors are likely not comfortable because they don’t know


how to make this process work for them, not because they don’t want to make it work for them. Whether it’s due to lack of time, too few examples or fear that their relationship is not solid enough to handle the “critique,” lack of training is often the rea- son why leaders don’t approach evaluations enthusiastically. The most crucial factor to evalulation success is the training we provide to supervisors to increase their comfort and skill level. Here are five points to consider when developing your staff


evaluation process.


1. Walk supervisors through the process during the off-season. Explain the purpose of doing evaluations at your camp and the ideal outcome you are trying to accomplish. Ideally, staff should feel supported during this conversatio. Camps should provide confirmation (and clarity) on what we want them to continue or change about their behaviours. The goal is to have a discussion


Photos: Northwaters LangskibWilderness Programs


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