Managing People




Supervising others is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of your job, and also one of the most rewarding. Following are the guidelines for managing your staff, interns, and volunteers and also some tips to make the process more enjoyable for you and more rewarding for them.

One thing to keep in mind is that once you have staff, interns, or volunteers under your supervision, your job description largely changes from doer to manager. You need to spend time each day with those under your supervision-you'll be answering questions and doing on-going trainings, you'll also be doing evaluations, spot-checking their work and dealing with any problems that come up. All of these things are just as high a priority as your other work if not more, so you need to find time in your days for this part of your job.

Ultimately, your goal would be to motivate those you supervise to meet the department's performance goals, and the needs of your supervisors (such as reporting). There are several paths to get there, some better than others, and you'll likely need to refine your approach as you see what works and what doesn't.

You will want to develop a style that takes into consideration established "best practices," what fits with your personality, what motivates your specific employees, and what fits within the culture of the organization.

Your supervisor & Office Manager will assign you people to supervise. Determine what tasks they will be working on and get approval from your supervisor.


PLANNING

Job Descriptions and Ownership
The more you prep for your staff and interns before they arrive the better. Along with figuring out what they will be doing you need to have any needed materials ready, figure out how you're going to train them, track their progress, and check their work.

One of the first things you should do with your department and on your own is figure out exactly what you and your staff/interns are going to be doing. First you need to come up with a list of projects and the amount of time it will take to accomplish them. Then prioritize the list into: Absolutely has to get done ASAP, needs to get done in a month or two, and could be done if we have extra interns.

Within each project come up with ways to give those you supervise ownership. For example, you could divide the states up and each person is responsible for the ratings pertaining to their states: they download what they can, call the groups when needed, track what ratings are in and enter the ratings into admin. Or you could have one person in charge of downloading ratings, another in charge of calls and another in charge of entering. It would be their responsibility to track the progress, coordinate with each other and do what it takes to make sure we get all the ratings in. As a supervisor you will need to have a way of tracking the progress and quality as well, you can't just sit back and hope to find it finished in ten weeks. But the more ways you find to give them real ownership, the more you'll see real high quality work coming back, because they'll have more invested and take more pride in what they're doing.

Once you've figured out your list of jobs and how to give them ownership you need to write up job descriptions. You may or may not actually give these descriptions to staff and interns (it is recommended), but you'll have a much better idea of what they'll be doing and will be able to sit down with them at the start and give them a very clear picture of what their job will look like.

Figure Out What Kind of Manager You Will Be
You will want to think about and get feedback from your supervisor on how you will introduce yourself as a manager

As a new supervisor or with a new supervisee, you have a great opportunity to define (or redefine) yourself as you want them to see you. Ideally, you want to set the tone from the onset.

Think about what your management style will be and the characteristics you want to convey as a leader and then determine what you will say and do to convince others of that. What specifically do you want to say? Will you speak to them or with them? What will you wear? Will you try to make them feel valued? Will you be establishing yourself as a strict leader with high expectations? Will you try to inspire them?

You will likely want to communicate the following upon your first formal introduction:
-your vision for the department
-your role
-their role
-how you will work together going forward

You do have some freedom to be creative here- for example, you may find new ways to report/communicate key information about your programs or you may foster improved ways to accomplish your program's goals.



RIGHT BEFORE NEW VOLUNTEERS, INTERNS, OR STAFF ARRIVE
Staff and Interns only:


STAFF AND INTERNS' FIRST DAY



TIPS FOR MANAGING STAFF, INTERNS, AND VOLUNTEERS


You set the standards
This is the most important, if others see you (or other staff) always coming in late, taking extended breaks, surfing the web all day, talking politics in the office, being negative and otherwise not taking the work seriously there is no way you will be able to hold them to high standards.

Take time each day to plan for tomorrow
And the end of each day, plan for 15-30 minutes to figure out the next day. Find out where all your charges are in their projects and if any of them are close to done take this time to prep their next project so it's ready to go. This is also a good time to alert the Office Manager/intern coordinator if you're going to have extra interns/volunteers, or if you need more help. It's important to do this at the end of the day because mornings are always hectic and you don't want to start off your charge's day by making them sit around and wait all morning.

Focus your time and energy on the "bright lights"
It's easy to let the "problem people" suck up all your time. Try to spend as much time as possible with your best interns and staff letting them know you appreciate their hard work and ideally finding ways to give them more challenging work and more responsibility.

Show your appreciation
It's always nice to do something for those you supervise now and then-maybe have your interns over for dinner mid-way through the internship or at the end, or bring in candy or treats for them. These little things can go along way. This can be facilitated by the Internship Coordinator.

Be responsible for all the interns/staff, not just your own
If you see people really slacking off or being negative, take the responsibility and say something to them then and there-then let their supervisor know. It's a lot harder for their supervisor to talk to them about something they didn't directly witness, and it just generally keeps the standards high.


DAY-TO-DAY MANAGEMENT


Assignments and Tracking
Finding fun tracking methods will help counteract the tediousness. Some ideas are a map that staff/interns can color in the states once they're done (this also shows who's really working if each person has their own color-competition tends to help too), states or numbers to rip down when they're done revealing a funny photo or quote, collage of candidate photos or hotline quotes, thermometer type posters to track progress. These are small things but they can really make a difference and add a little fun into tedious work. Remember that you will ultimately need to digest this tracking into clear, concise status reports for your supervisor

You could keep an ongoing master list of the projects that each person works on that will ultimately go into their personnel file. This should help when it comes to tracking their performance both for evaluations and any problems that may arise.

You will want to make sure staff/interns submit a time off request for any time off.


Checking Work
There are two key kinds of checks: data-entry/procedural-accuracy checks and "staff checks"

Depending on the department, "staff checks" may be clearly-defined or informal. It's critical that you develop methods or routines of checking the work of those you supervise if no formal "staff check" exists or it does not fully meet the criteria below. You'll want to do this often- at the beginning to make sure they understand what they're doing, and throughout the project to make sure their quality is staying high. These checks are critical for use to maintain our accuracy and they will also be very useful in your evaluations.

Ideally, "staff checks" should be designed to focus on the following, capitalizing on the advanced background of the "staff": Often the core check of every piece of data entered may be offloaded to someone with less authority, leaving "staff" to focus on higher-level tasks. Formal "staff checks" may be redefined to better meet this criteria with approval from the National Director.

Clarification on "Staff Checks"
Things referred to as "Staff Checks" and other tasks designated as "staff" responsibilities are meant to be assigned to someone with advanced knowledge of Vote Smart policies and procedures, experience with and knowledge of the data, and the capacity to identify and resolve errors. This may or may not correspond with someone's employment status- for example, select experienced or returning interns may be better equipped for these tasks than a staff member who is new to the task. New staff or those otherwise "in training" shouldn't be given this authority without another layer of review by their supervisor.

The authority to conduct "staff" responsibilities is at the discretion of department directors, but staff may nominate someone to their director. It is best to delegate authority when possible, but also be sensitive to the necessity of proper "staff" review.


Evaluating Problems
If someone's performance is not falling within the acceptable range of quantity or quality, a more thorough evaluation may be required to determine the cause of the problem. Strategies may include:
In the event that no problem can be identified or insufficient improvement is being made, you may considering trying that person on another task, as sometimes it is just a matter of assignment fit. See: Discipline Meetings

Giving Feedback

You should become accustomed to giving regular, frequent feedback to those you supervise based on your checks and observations. Feedback should be clear and proportional to the seriousness and severity of problems vs. good work. It is best to give specific examples, when possible. You may find it helpful to keep a log of notable issues and achievements. There should be no big surprises come the time of Formal Evaluations (see below). These feedback sessions should be a two-way communication, as it is also an opportunity to solicit questions and feedback from those you supervise.



Discipline Meetings
There will be cases of interns or staff that just aren't working out-they're always late, distracting others, surfing the web and never actually working, or have such a negative attitude that it's bad for morale. When this happens it needs to be dealt with immediately or it will bring down the morale and quality of everyone else. This is the hardest part of managing people so we've developed a process to use in dealing with these situations and some talking points for each meeting.

After any of the above discipline meetings are held you need to document them with the date and a brief account of the meeting and give a copy to the intern coordinator/office manager for their file. This way if it comes down to having to ask the person to leave we have the problem documented.



FORMAL EVALUATIONS

We often assume that staff or interns realize if they are doing well in the office or doing poorly, but this is not always the case.

When performing evaluations, it is our responsibility to provide feedback that is useful. The nature of our program requires people to take a bit of a leap of faith when they start work with us, and we need to do our best to provide a situation where our interns receive feedback that will better prepare them for future work in professional settings, or their career with Vote Smart if they are staff.

The evaluations are probably the most crucial piece of the program, so be sure to schedule them in advance and work your schedule around them. Things will get so hectic that you'll be tempted to skip them-don't, they're too important. You'll be able to let the ones that are working really hard know that you've noticed and appreciate it. And you'll be able to hold people accountable if they begin to slack off. You'll also get valuable feedback from them on how they're enjoying their internship or employment.

Before you do the evaluation take some time to really think about each person and fill out the form, using specific examples whenever possible- it will carry much more weight and won't sound generic.

The reason for a written evaluation is to have progress reports on each people onranch file in case they use Vote Smart as a reference in the future and the purpose of a spoken evaluation is to open up a formal channel of communication between staff and interns. Interns and employees deserve to know exactly where they stand compared to your expectations, where the department stands compared to your supervisors' goals, and how their individual work fits into the overall goals of Vote Smart. Those being evaluated should be encouraged to come to evals with questions and feedback.

These evaluations can be done anywhere as long as it's private, comfortable and convenient.

The key to really making these evaluations valuable is to follow up on them within three days whenever possible. Follow-up may mean giving someone more responsibility, really enforcing the time they arrive each morning, even getting them more information about a PVS program their interested in.

Intern evaluations should be accessible to the Internship Coordinator, your supervising Director, and, of course, the intern.
Staff evaluations should be accessible to the National Director, your supervising Director, and the staff member.


Advice on Performance Evaluations

1. Why do we do performance appraisals when our goal is to be giving feedback on a regular, ongoing basis through the year? Answer: To provide a substantive, overall assessment of employees' performance and ensure the manager and employee are on the same page; to provide suggestions for growth and improvement, helping fair performers become good and good performers become great; to provide an opportunity to delegate more responsibility to the employee; to find out how the employee is doing internally – happy, thinking of leaving in the next year, wanting more responsibility, etc.; and in the case of poor performers, to send (additional) clear messages about needed improvements and to supplement documentation in the event termination becomes necessary.

2. How long should a manager expect to spend on the process? Answer: Plan to allow at least an hour to write each appraisal, if not more, and allow another hour to meet with each employee individually. And no matter how tempting procrastination may be, don't put it off, since it sends a terrible message to the employee when their evaluation is delayed and delayed.

3. Be specific and use examples to illustrate your points, both when praising and when identifying areas for improvement. For instance, you could say "you did a great job with the new inventory system," but it's more effective to say "your revamping of the inventory system has saved the company money and I've heard several people comment about how much easier you've made it to find the supplies they need."

4. Be honest and direct about problem areas. If you have any complaints/concerns, they must be included. Potentially uncomfortable, yes, but it's also your obligation as a manager. (And if you ever find yourself needing to defend a firing in court, you'll be in real trouble if the plaintiff's performance reviews were misleadingly positive.)

5. Be specific about what can be done to improve. Note that that says "can be done," not "needs to be done." That's because even if someone is doing a good job, you should still take the opportunity to tell them how they could to move from good to great.

And be sure to be specific here too. Don't just say "work faster" when you could say "process all checks within three days and respond to customer emails within two days."

6. Pay attention to the overall picture you're painting. I've seen managers write bizarrely lukewarm evaluations for employees I know they love and would devastated to lose. Likewise, if the employee is a mess and needs to make major improvements, make sure that comes through in the overall message. Make sure that the sum of the parts adds up to the correct whole

7. What if the employee has struggled with something all year but recently improved? What if he or she has done well all year but recently had a major error? Answer: Resist the temptation to be overly influenced by recent events; the evaluation is (in most cases) for the whole year, not just the last few months. That said, if someone has struggled all year but improved recently, be sure to note that so the person doesn't feel his or her efforts are unnoticed.

8. Consider getting feedback (in confidence) from others who work closely with the employee. You may find out aspects of the person's performance, both good and bad, that you didn't know about.


Intern Evaluation Forms
The 2 Week evaluation is required, but it is up to you as far as how formal you make it. If you want to print out the form and discuss it with the intern that is fine. At the very least, please check in with your intern in a verbal manner.

The midterm evaluation needs to be written, and you will discuss each one along with each intern and the Intern Coordinator. If there are any problems or issues that have not been addressed by week 5, it is crucial that you address them with this evaluation. The intern will be made aware in writing and verbally of any problems or improvements to make - this will provide a situation where there is no confusion about their quality of work in the office. This does not have to be a long meeting at all, just make sure to bring up anything that needs to be addressed.

The final evaluation also needs to be written and discussed with the intern and the Intern Coordinator. This will provide a final summary for each intern, and if someone made clear improvement from the midterm to the final evaluation, make sure to emphasize that. The most important question on here is probably the question of re-hire.

During the intern's last week, they should be given the exit evaluation to fill out. The purpose of the exit eval is to allow the intern to give us feedback as an organization and as supervisors. The Exit evaluation needs to be filled out privately by the intern on their last day in the office. Staff members may NOT read exit evaluations unless given prior approval by the Internship Coordinator or National Director. When they have completed the evaluation, interns should be instructed to turn their evaluation directly in to the Internship Coordinator.


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