Want Loyal Staff? Teach Them to Turn Camp Skills into Career Assets

Sept 5th, 2024

When your staff believe that camp helps them, it helps them to come back to camp

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You’re probably already thinking about camper recruitment, you have to! A full camp pays the bills, fulfills the mission, and makes the rest of the off season make sense.

Did you see Travis’s latest email with his camp marketing book? - no commission, just tryna get more kids to better camps

Next step: RECRUIT INCREDIBLE STAFF.

TL;DR

Connect connect connect - connected staff come back!

Help your staff with their careers - it helps you.

Be flexible.

Send your staff this free email course to help them leverage their camp experience

Recruiting Great Staff Starts With Your Past Great Staff

My most loyal staff members were folks I really worked to connect with and support. Not only did they come back year after year, but they brought friends.

If you can make camp as much about your staff as it is about your campers, everyone’s experience will improve tenfold.

Plus, happy staff come back.

Remember your Pokemon and YES CHEF water bottle sticker dream advertisement?

LOVE & HELP YOUR STAFF

Show them how camp actually helps them - send them this.

Actually help them with your network.

Ask them what they need to get back to camp, or tell them what you need from them.

Show your staff how camp actually helps them

Camp is a leadership laboratory.

Your staff have learned and grown a ton over the summer. They are better prepared for their future because of camp.

BUT “camp” alone still doesn’t look that good on a resume.

I said it. I’m sorry. It can look good, but it takes a lot of work to translate camp to non youth development careers.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in camp - here's me translating camp to business in front of a room full of family business owners - but even in youth development we don’t get the respect we deserve.

When our staff believe camp truly advances their career, they fight harder to come back.

It’s our job to help them translate their camp experience.

I made this to help them. 5 lessons to help summer camp staff leverage camp to advance their careers - (ends by encouraging them to go back to camp!)

PLEASE, SEND IT TO THEM!

And/or get really granular with each of them helping them see what they can do to make their camp experience work for them.

I am obsessed with this topic right now. More on this in future emails.

Next, actually help them!

Ok, now that you have shown them how they can help their resumes, it’s time to help them get connected.

Three quick ways to help your staff in their career:

Build their network - Host a Zoom meet up with five alumni or ‘successful’ parents - invite your staff to ask them questions. AND, here is the most important part, make it very clear that staff can directly connect with the panelists.

Ask about career goals - text one staff member a day asking about their career goals. Use your network to connect your staff with people that might be helpful.

Send 1 Email - Send an email to all your alumni and camper families asking if they would be willing to be added to a list so your staff could reach out to them and ask questions about their profession.

Now you have a list to connect your staff to.

Ask them what they need to get back to camp, or tell them what you need!

Two Types of Staff

1) YES COME BACK!

2) I hope I don't have to hire them...

Let’s be honest, our previous staff often fall into a binary (don’t worry, not in a gender way, we’re crashing the cistem baby!):

The ones we are hoping come back and the ones we don’t.

YES COME BACK!

You know the staff you are begging to come back. For these staff, be proactive. Reach out now and ask what they are thinking for next summer.

What would it take to get them back?

Be flexible. We just did an instagram poll - FOLLOW US - the number one barrier camps are having when recruiting staff is committing to the whole summer.

You can solve this. It will be different for each camp and maybe each staff member, but you can find solutions if you start planning now.

Reach out now and proactively ask about the barriers for your best staff.

For the Staff You’re Hiring Reluctantly…

Here’s the juicy part: think about whose names make you panic a little when you see them on the schedule.

What would it take for you to hire back these staff members? For me, two things:

Not having enough staff (happens to the best of us)

They show growth over the year

When you’re working with young staff, a year can mean a ton of learning and growth.

Create systems where people can show you growth.

Be honest and make an accountability plan.

It’s hard out there and we’re conflict avoidant (did I say that out loud???) but it pays to be honest.

Make a plan with your staff members you’re not so sure about that outlines what you expect from one another (including what support they need from you).

Working at camp is the best job in the world, and it is a real resume boost, but it’s not as easy as just adding camp counselor to your resume.

Your staff need help telling the story of camp for their career.

I spent the last four years working with business leaders hearing them complain about the next generation.

I spent all summer talking with camp staff all over the country about their careers.

CAMP IS THE ANSWER and your staff need help explaining it.

Help them.

Send them this short email course designed specifically to help camp staff leverage the camp experience and be able to come back to camp next year.