Finger on the Pulse: Why (And How!) You Should Be Thinking About Your Staff Culture Now, Before It’s Too Late
by Max Claman and Kim Aycock of Project Real Job
Do we really understand what our staff need and want? How does that fit in with what we need and want?
ACA’s Project Real Job team is hosting a Tri-State Pre-Conference Workshop to dive into those very questions! The full service workshop session with Max Claman, thought leader and camp consultant, will begin at 1:00 pm EST and provide a framework for putting a finger on the pulse of staff culture at your camp. Throughout the afternoon, there will be an opportunity to collaborate and exchange next practices relating to staff culture with session attendees. Time will also be dedicated to showcasing ACA Project Real Job resources that are available to help with staff recruiting, hiring, and retention efforts. You will leave with renewed energy and tangible tips, tricks, and tools that you can start using this year (and beyond) that speed up cultural competency and slow down staff burnout!
Details and registration link for the Staff Culture TS Pre-Con Workshop can be found HERE. Not registered for the conference yet? You can do so HERE and add the Pre-Con on the proper page. Already registered for #TSCamp2025? Email ACA (info@acanynj.org) for steps on how to add on the Pre-Con.
Are Your Camp’s Values Aligned?
Camps love to highlight their values and culture when speaking with prospective families and staff. And seeing how camps pretty much all have varying degrees of the same “stuff,” it is often core values and culture that truly distinguish one camp from another – and can often be what prospective members of their community base their final decision(s) on. And while we often think about our values as intangible pieces of our culture, are we spending enough time thinking about how our values tangibly shape, affect, and/or impact our operation?
When we share and promote our values, are we considering the message it sends to our community about the things that matter (and don’t matter) to us? When it comes to staff, shouldn’t our core values be a reflection of the things we value in our people? As our practices and procedures continue to be placed under a microscope by staff more than ever before, perhaps it’s time that we begin to look internally for ways we can redefine or adapt our values in a more tangible way.
So much of the staff experience comes down to their expectations, and how that matches up with the reality of a given summer. And while each summer is different, there are many ways we can more realistically and effectively set meaningful expectations for staff before, during, and after the summer. As we’ve seen in recent summers, failing to do so can lead staff to shut down, give up, or even simply walk away. Hiring is already challenging enough as it is – so anything that reduces early departures and increases retention has to be prioritized! Starting with how you define, communicate, and operationalize your camp’s values is a great place to start.
Take arguably the most common core value at camps in 2024: Respect. While a fairly ambiguous label, we talk about it quite a lot at camp, particularly as it pertains to our culture and community practices. But if it’s truly one of our core values, shouldn’t it be something we also attribute to our staff? By aligning our core values with our operational practices, we can create a universal standard and language that can enhance everyone’s understanding of their expectations, and how they’ll be evaluated on that.
Using Respect as an example, there are many ways we can tangibly quantify/qualify this value… Perhaps it’s about “respecting time” (not being late/absent), “respecting space/nature” (cleaning up after yourself), or maybe even something as bold as “respecting the work” (doing what’s asked of you, professionalism, tone, etc.). Each of these examples can be defined very tangibly in terms of what’s expected, what it looks like in practice, and how it’s evaluated – and having that kind of consistent throughline can help staff feel much more at ease about understanding their role.
Once you’ve established and re-defined your values in the form of tangible expectations and outcomes, you can then use these values as the foundation upon which your entire staffing process is built. Imagine how simplified the staff experience would be if your job descriptions, interviews, onboarding, orientation, training, and evaluations all used the same universal language. Everyone would (quite literally!) be on the same page! This can streamline communication, enhance feedback, and even improve morale – not to mention make it very easy to identify (tangibly!) when someone isn’t a good fit for your community, or vice versa.
As Summer 2025 rapidly approaches, it may be a little late in the cycle to start implementing this at full scale; however, this summer can be an excellent opportunity to start to re-evaluate which of your values can be operationalized, which ones are currently just “for show,” and which ones maybe need to go… It can also be an opportunity to view your staff through a values-based lens and help determine what you truly value in your personnel. Helping set clearer expectations for your staff, ones that have clear and actionable outcomes, is of vital importance to hiring and retention, and the time to start defining those things is now!
A longtime senior leader in the camp industry, Max Claman has been working in the experiential education field for close to two decades, having served as a director for both day and residential camps, and having worked in both private and nonprofit settings. Drawing from experience leading programs of over 500 campers and 150 staff, Max now serves as an educational consultant, speaker, trainer, and author, facilitating workshops and presenting at conferences across the country. His sessions have ranged in size from one-on-one coaching to large-scale presentations with over 1,000 participants. Max has helped support dozens of camps throughout North America, and has engaged with thousands of camp professionals since 2018. He can be reached at max.claman@gmail.com.
Kim Aycock, MST, has several decades of experience equipping young people with skills robots are unable to do. While blending the talents of a master teacher with the knowledge of a seasoned camp expert, Kim ignites learning for varying levels of camp pros worldwide through her interactive and innovative presentations. Kim speaks at regional and national conferences, contributes regularly to Camping Magazine and ACA blogs, and serves as co-chair of ACA’s Staff Recruitment & Retention Committee and Staffing Summit. She can be contacted at kimdaycock@gmail.com.