Support for Support Staff in local councils

There are great resources and training put into the development, retention, and growth of our executive staff yet there is very little for local council support staff.

In every local council the support staff play a key role in the success of a council. Executives come and go but it seems that support staff have a much longer tenure in their position and interact with volunteers from all over. A high performing council has a strong executive staff and support staff. In larger council's the office manager who oversees the support staff may have the largest number of direct reports but has little or no BSA leadership or management training. Although you can send an office manager to FTSLO or PM this seems like success by accident and not by design.

Most executives do not have experience managing support staff until they become Scout Executive. How to effectively manage support staff, proper support staff flow chart, and best practices are currently no where in our Talent Management system.

Develop a training track for support staff that would include job skill development such as use of MS Outlook and Office, customer service, the role of district executives and basic district and council operations.

Something that would give local councils a way to improve and build a high performing support staff, including best practices from local councils. A tool for local councils to evaluate the structure of their support staff to evaluate effeciency, mode, and performance.

A first generation of this could be as simple as an on-line training video for support staff on basic district and council operations and customer service.

Training for FTSEO and Senior Leadership that talks about support staff managment and development. Right now we are not successful with half of our staff by design, we are perhaps successful by accident. A design for success with our support staff who are the backbone of our organization.