Staff Positions Vs. Staff Members

What's the Difference Between Staff Members & Staff Positions?

This is a great question and where lots of people get a little confused. So let us start by explaining the two separately, and then we will explain how you use them together.

Staff Members

These are the actual humans you are hiring to run activities. This is Bob, who is your Arts & Crafts Specialist. Sally, who is your ropes course Specialist.

Staff Positions

Think of these as the type of people you would hire. Lifeguards. Specialist. Counselors, Waterfront. Arts. Farm Staff. These are categories of staff members, or "staff positions", not individual people or activities.

So How Do You Use The Staff Module?

The first step in setting up the Staff Module is adding your Staff Positions. These positions will be connected to each Staff Member and include the Activities that your Staff Members are eligible to be assigned to. You can create a single position of General Specialist or you can get more granular (i.e. Athletics Specialist, Arts Specialist, Aquatics Specialist, etc)

Click on Staff Positions and then click on the orange plus sign to add a new Position. Type in the name of the position, and select type from the drop down menu. (These staff type names are editable in your Camp Settings (*See Note). Next you'll select which Activities this position is eligible to run. The click on Save in the top right corner of the page. After adding all of your Staff Positions you'll begin adding the Staff Members.

When it comes to actually creating a staff person, click the orange plus sign to add a new staff member.

In the next pop-up, you will type in the staff member’s name, and choose the staff person’s gender if you’d like. Then hit the orange ‘save’ button.

Now in the next column, under Staff Sessions, hit the orange plus sign to add a session. Choose the appropriate Session, and click the orange ‘ok’ button.

Then from the drop down select the appropriate Position for this person, then select which activities they are eligible to lead from the list associated with that Position. Once you’ve selected the appropriate weight (3, 2, or 1) then set their schedule.

"3 - Primary (5x)" means that the staff person should be regularly scheduled to lead this activity. Depending on how many staff members you have who can lead this activity, this person will get this activity frequently.
"2 - Secondary (1x)" means they should get this activity, but not that frequently and are likely needed elsewhere more frequently.
"1 - last resort" means that they will only get scheduled for this activity if there are no other staff options, the group still needs the activity and they have a spot on their schedule.

Setting their Availability

When you are ready to set their availability, in the last column you will see these accordion days and periods, that are based on the day schedules you have previously assigned in the weekly scheduler. By default, a newly created staff person is available for every day and every period. But this is where you can customize that based on the staff person. Are they always off on Thursdays? Will they miss a few days in week 3? You no longer have to remember when the staff person is going to be out when scheduling. As you put them into the system, simply go in and choose the proper week from the drop down then uncheck the day(s) and period(s) they are unavailable and hit save in the top right corner.

A Few Recommendations

Don't wait until you've hired everyone to put them into the staff module. You can use placeholder "names" like we've done here in this support document. Adventure 02. Adventure 03. Adventure 04. etc. When you hire Bob, change out the name Adventure 02 and put in Bob's name, what activities he can actually do within the Adventure position and then adjust his availability.
Only create one position for each session. The system will allow you to create more than one, but only do this if their availability is mutually exclusive. If there is any overlap, you will be double scheduling the staff person regularly!
If you have multiple sessions or from year to year, you can use the "copy" icon found under "Staff Sessions" so you won't have to recreate it from session to session or even year to year if they will be similar. This will be a huge time savings for you in the long run!
If Bob is always going to be at Arts & Crafts and nobody else teaches Arts & Crafts, then you don't need to put Bob into the system. Use the Staff module when you have multiple people who could work at an activity or when you need Bob to man different activities at different times.

Still have questions? Send us an email or give us a call!

*Note: You can change what the Staff Position Types are called in "Camp Settings" -> "Staff Types and Camper Preferences"