Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Swakuho podcast.
Speaker: Today's feature topic is sure to be a doozy, student staff accountability.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We are talking follow-up conversations, demerits, terminations, and even coaching people out of their jobs.
Speaker: We are looking at working agreements, the developmental aspects of our accountability processes, and considering if supervisors should feel personally responsible for the failures of their staff.
Speaker: I am fortunate today to be joined by a variety of perspectives because our three guests represent each of the graduate level, mid-level, and senior level positions.
Speaker: Rest assured, in talking to our guests before the show, I clearly stated the listener expectations of their performance today.
Speaker: And if they fail to meet those expectations, they were going to force me to have a developmental follow-up conversation with them.
Speaker: Our first guest is Alana St.
Speaker: Cyr, who is a second year graduate level residence coordinator at the University of Central Arkansas.
Speaker: Alana is originally from Minnesota and got her Bachelor's of Science in Psychology at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where she fell in love with student leadership and campus involvement.
Speaker: Alana is a first generation college student who strives to explore new places, experiences, and gain diverse perspectives.
Speaker: Her current biggest passions outside of work include reading, yoga, and playing with her dog.
Speaker: Alana, welcome to the show.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: Our second guest is Victor Salazar, the Director of Residence Life at Our Lady of the Lake University.
Speaker: Victor has had a passion for higher education since serving as an RA in college.
Speaker: Victor found the wonderful world of housing and has never left with a career spanning position such as RA, Assistant Hall Director to Hall Director, Staff Training and Development Coordinator, Business Operations, and now as Director.
Speaker: Victor has worked at small private and large public schools and worked with staff sizes ranging from 15 to 150.
Speaker: Victor's very first job was working at a zoo and sometimes thinks he still works at one.
Speaker: Victor, welcome to the show.
Speaker: You know, JC, thank you.
Speaker: I'm going to have you introduce me everywhere I go.
Speaker: I'd be happy to be your hype man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Our third guest is Dr. Jason Titus, who serves as the Associate Director for Housing and Residence Life at Texas Christian University.
Speaker: Born and raised in Missouri, Jason traveled north to Iowa to receive his bachelor's degree in business administration from Graceland University and then attended the University of Pacific in California, where he earned his master's degree in educational administration and student affairs.
Speaker: Since then, Jason has worked in housing and student union capacities at five different universities spanning 13 years.
Speaker: Jason recently completed his PhD in Curriculum Studies at TCU.
Speaker: He resides in Fort Worth with his wife, Annie, and his two sons.
Speaker: He enjoys soccer, Kansas City sports, spending time with loved ones, and of course, all things TCU.
Speaker: Jason, welcome to the show.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: I didn't realize that you had such a dark podcast voice.
Speaker: Now I feel very sure I'm going to be one of those who gets a demerit at the end of this.
Speaker: We're just waiting for the DeBerritt to come at this point.
Speaker: It's kind of ominous, yeah.
Speaker: It's funny, at a student affairs retreat back at UTA, I did a presentation and afterwards, someone came up and was like, I feel like I just listened to an NPR podcast.
Speaker: So maybe that was the genesis of this whole thing.
Speaker: It's definitely putting a lot of pressure on things.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the way we roll around here, high-pressure situations.
Speaker: But thank you all for joining us.
Speaker: Let's start off.
Speaker: RE working agreements are fairly common documents in housing departments and are closely connected as a reference point in staff accountability processes.
Speaker: So first things first, how many pages are your RE agreements and what is the most obscure item on your RE agreement?
Speaker: You know, something that happened once but had to get told to everyone from now until the end of time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So ours, probably at TCU, about two and a half pages total.
Speaker: It's a web doc.
Speaker: So you just scroll down through.
Speaker: But I got more than a few things on there.
Speaker: I know the more obscure things that are on there because things happened and we had to make sure that they're a part of our code of ethics, which is how we title it, is we needed to add for alcohol, not just to not be drinking while you're on call, but even before you're on call, but most importantly, before university events.
Speaker: Because when you're
Speaker: You're just an RA and you're of age and you have a beer or two and then you go to a university event.
Speaker: You're still an RA out there.
Speaker: Does that include football games?
Speaker: That does include football games.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And so things to consider as you go.
Speaker: Now, the enforcement of the football game.
Speaker: I don't know that anyone's out there smelling breath as they come back out.
Speaker: The other one is dating residents and whatnot.
Speaker: Obviously, that one didn't get plugged in there because no one had thought about dating a resident.
Speaker: I'm sure that occurred and thus gets added into our code of ethics.
Speaker: I dated one of my residents when I was an RA.
Speaker: Demerit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now you're making me think of stuff to add.
Speaker: I didn't even think about adding drinking while on call.
Speaker: So I'm going to have to review our expectations on that one.
Speaker: You just got to cover everything.
Speaker: Not before, not on call, after appropriately.
Speaker: At one of my first institutions, I think our expectations were up to almost 16 pages at one point.
Speaker: Now I think the one I have is about eight pages.
Speaker: And one of the most obscure, they actually have two, being at a religious affiliated school, we actually had to add in there that students are not obligated to participate in religious events.
Speaker: You know, we may ask them to attend as representatives of our department, but we didn't expect them to kneel or to take communion or things of that sort.
Speaker: We had a student at one point who thought we were forcing them to convert.
Speaker: And so that is definitely something we added in there as an expectation.
Speaker: You just need to show up, but you don't necessarily have to.
Speaker: to practice Catholicism at this point, or I guess at any point, really.
Speaker: And another random one that I never thought we would have to have is that we had to add in there that you have to actually live in your room.
Speaker: You know, you would think that that's a simple thing, but we had an RA once who was just staying there while on call, but was living elsewhere.
Speaker: And so that is definitely part of our expectations now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At UCA, we have about eight pages as well.
Speaker: So it's a little bit more of a lengthy document.
Speaker: I wouldn't say there's anything incredibly obscure, but definitely like the relationships, the working relationships for sure is a big one that we cover and consensual relationships.
Speaker: So are RE agreements a helpful tool for defining the scope of the student staff position or are they actually a laundry list of ways our staff can fail us?
Speaker: I would say a thing could be two things.
Speaker: I think that the expectations that get set through our code of ethics start the RA on the pathway towards acknowledging the importance of the position and the expectations of the character that you need to have and hold in order to maintain the role.
Speaker: But it's also a document that details the most egregious ways, not the most egregious ways, but like pretty egregious ways that you can be failing at or no longer be, your behavior wouldn't be acceptable for the position if you engaged in these ways.
Speaker: And so I think that it's kind of a thing can be two things.
Speaker: I think it's both the pictures that you paint.
Speaker: I view it as more of a tool for defining the scope of the student staff position.
Speaker: I also think it's a lot in how you word it, too, because we could word it and say, don't do X, Y, and Z. Or we could say student staff are responsible for this, that, and the third.
Speaker: So I think it's important that we word it in more of an empowering way of like, this is what you get to do as a student staff member.
Speaker: These are your responsibilities, but not don't do this, that
Speaker: that and the other thing because that makes it more like restrictive or like you're going to be fired if you do this.
Speaker: It's like at swimming pools when they say always walk instead of don't run.
Speaker: Yeah, I was just going to add that, you know, I see it as an extension or continuation of the job description.
Speaker: I mean, I don't think the goal is to just retell the job description, but more so how we expect them to conduct themselves.
Speaker: And there's all those little nuances that are not covered maybe by general student employment expectations for your university.
Speaker: And it also even covers that fishbowl kind of concept that most people have probably talked to their students about that.
Speaker: Remember, you're an extension of us.
Speaker: And what does that look like?
Speaker: And so it's kind of those hard examples of what that is.
Speaker: I definitely think they're a laundry list of ways our staff can fail us.
Speaker: With that kind of podcast voice, you need to.
Speaker: Rather, you mean a list of how they have failed you, and now you're just reminding the others to not do as those before you.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: This random RA in this very unique situation that will never happen again.
Speaker: I got to make sure just in case.
Speaker: It's like I feel like we just need – I just need one bullet point on my RA agreement.
Speaker: Don't be a scumbag, and then the rest is all good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: God defines come back.
Speaker: That's too broad.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: People need to exercise their phronesis and like on their own.
Speaker: Some kind of reverse other duties as a sign.
Speaker: Catch all of some sort.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Alana, I want to go back to your point about wording them more positively.
Speaker: I think the idea of like, you know, do we really need to tell staff not to break federal laws?
Speaker: And so I think the reverse of that and what you would suggest is be like, follow federal laws, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I think encouraging good behavior is definitely a positive thing.
Speaker: I think a lot of times students are very restricted to, you can't do this, you can't do this.
Speaker: And college is a space for them to kind of explore.
Speaker: So telling them the things that they are able to do, I also think opens them up to opportunities of how can I also like make this job my own and really make the role something that means something to me and helps me develop in the way that I want to.
Speaker: And so I think by giving them that power to choose that, it's more powerful than saying, don't do this, don't do this.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: So our number one takeaway so far for all of our listeners is that the challenge for today is to go home and make everything on their RE agreement positively worded.
Speaker: straight from Milana at the University of Central Arkansas.
Speaker: Let me know how it goes.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Anyone who does that, you're an auto guest on the show in the future.
Speaker: I've always been concerned about how these documents are then reviewed during staff training.
Speaker: Like, hey, it's the first day of training and everyone is excited that this is our community team and we're going to make meaningful differences in shepherding these students to academic success.
Speaker: But wait, before we get to the fun stuff, we'll sit down and read through these eight page documents of ways you can fail in your job or the extended expectations of your job description.
Speaker: Sound good?
Speaker: Is that the best way to set the tone or are there other ways that you all do it in training that makes it a little bit more palatable?
Speaker: Yeah, just sit them down and say right away, welcome.
Speaker: And here's the 18 pages.
Speaker: I learned this from one of my state school experiences that I've continued even here at Arlie of the Lake.
Speaker: We take the job description or the, I'm sorry, the agreements and we break it up over training and we discuss it during the applicable parts of training.
Speaker: And so, you know, we'll pull out,
Speaker: when we're talking about programming, okay, here are programming expectations and those parts of the agreement.
Speaker: And we kind of break it up over that week or so, whatever, of training to kind of make it a little more prevalent.
Speaker: So that's worked for us.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: I personally have mostly just experienced a let's sit down and look it over and everyone popcorn reads it and we sit around.
Speaker: Do I think that's the most effective way to keep them engaged with it?
Speaker: Probably not, but that's what I've seen.
Speaker: I think it's important, and you'll hear me say this a lot, it's our ethos here, is that you lead with care, right?
Speaker: And if we're going to care about you, A, I want you to know the job before you agree to it.
Speaker: I think that's important, right?
Speaker: I don't want you just agreeing to do things when you don't even know what you're about to do.
Speaker: Like, that's, I think, a poor life development lesson.
Speaker: The other thing is that, like, I think entering into these conversations and caring about people means that you're not framing it as the checklist of death over there, right?
Speaker: Instead, like, you're...
Speaker: Like, you know, it's like family or family agreement.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, so for all of us to be in this together, which is going to be some good times, but also sometimes we're on campus shoveling snow and ice and everyone else is gone or we're dealing with masks and COVID and all these other things in a way that other people are not.
Speaker: You know, like here's the agreement for us, for us to care and appreciate for each other, but to be able to lean on each other.
Speaker: and hold each other to a higher standard.
Speaker: Most of these things come because it impacts the position.
Speaker: If you drink before you are on the RA roll, you're less equipped to be on the RA roll.
Speaker: It hurts everybody.
Speaker: If you're dating a resident, that hurts the staff camaraderie and that hurts the staff.
Speaker: If you're not...
Speaker: Being a good student, that hurts your ability to articulate what it takes to be a good student to other students, right?
Speaker: So each one of those things manifests itself.
Speaker: And it's important that we understand our shared values, but also that we do that in a way that articulates care.
Speaker: And I would also say that if it ever got to the point, which it does sometimes, of termination, you can still terminate people by caring about them.
Speaker: Like sometimes the role itself is not what's best for them or the decisions they're making are showing that
Speaker: They need other development or other opportunities to teach them in a way the role can't anymore.
Speaker: And because of that, it's time for the position and the person to depart from each other.
Speaker: And I think that to me, that's okay.
Speaker: I just think it's really important to engage with care as you do so, so that people can disassociate their worth and their works as you're having these conversations.
Speaker: Well, Jason, I think you just touched on like every topic.
Speaker: So we're good to go.
Speaker: Like this episode to wrap already.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Alana, you were an RA.
Speaker: So what's it like moving from a position as a student RA now into a role of it?
Speaker: Like you have to hold your staff accountable and have follow-up conversations with them, whether they're big or small.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it definitely has been a transition for me.
Speaker: One thing that I've really enjoyed about it is that because I've just come from
Speaker: the student side and the RA side, I can put myself in their shoes a little bit more because my experience was more recent.
Speaker: And so as much as the conversation is about maybe like the job action or something, I'm also remembering that they're human, they're students, they have all these other identities that they hold.
Speaker: And so that really plays a role into maybe why did you make this decision or why
Speaker: Have things been going like this within the job?
Speaker: So being able to relate in that way and kind of take a step back and be like, okay, where was I at a couple of years ago?
Speaker: And how would I have felt in this situation?
Speaker: I think that's given me some really good insight to having developmental conversations with my staff.
Speaker: And Jason and Victor, what's one small piece of advice you would give to a new professional who just moved into a role where they have to hold people accountable for expectations and may have just been on the receiving end of that a year ago?
Speaker: I mean, I kind of just stated it, but the first thing I typically lead with is that the need to separate a person's works and their worth.
Speaker: Like if we're having a conversation and a hall doctor needs to talk to an RA, I want to make sure that what we're talking about is the work that's being done or not done, the deadlines that aren't being built or met.
Speaker: But even within that, that person still feels valued and cared for in that process because we're an integration of education into a development of an opportunity.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so, like, I think caring for that person during it is important.
Speaker: Sometimes that means putting yourself into their shoes and asking like how you would want the conversation to go if you had been dropping the ball in this way.
Speaker: Like, how would you like that engagement to happen?
Speaker: Whether or not you deliver solutions for them or help them come up with their own solutions, each one of those may vary by circumstance.
Speaker: But I think it's really important that you to realize that you can address people's works and expect more of those works while still holding up their worth.
Speaker: And I would hope that they would do the same to the hall director come evaluation time or whatever the case may be.
Speaker: And I would have the expectation that anyone that I supervise or ends that tree of supervision would do that up and down along those lines.
Speaker: I would say giving yourself just some grace to mess up.
Speaker: These are just as much a learning experience for you as it is for the students that you're working with.
Speaker: And after how many years I've been doing this, I can't say I've got it down to 100%, those developmental conversations, especially as you start dealing with professional staff.
Speaker: But I think the other advice I would give to a brand new staff member who's supervising is to just prepare as much as possible for those conversations.
Speaker: RAs, they like to nitpick and give me an example or what exactly, and they wanna know the hard facts.
Speaker: And so prepare for those conversations.
Speaker: Sometimes they have to happen on the fly, but when you have the chance and you know that conversation's coming up, prepare for it, write down your examples and make sure you're ready for the rebuttal.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: They got to see the receipts.
Speaker: Very much.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So we've talked a little bit about how they should be developmental.
Speaker: Are accountability models, like how are they developmental?
Speaker: And do we care about this more than other industries?
Speaker: We care about it longer.
Speaker: To your question of is it developmental, I think it can be.
Speaker: Obviously, it depends on all the participants.
Speaker: And if an RA is kind of already checked out, sometimes the model just elongates their checked outness longer and longer until it's time for termination or separation, however that goes.
Speaker: What I've experienced both outside of higher ed or, you know, higher ed adjacent is most places are much quicker in the model, right?
Speaker: They have data or statistics that are showing them, you know, the logistics of lack of performance, right?
Speaker: There's proof that they're bringing the receipts or whatever, and they're faster to move to, I think what's traditional, which is, you know,
Speaker: verbal warning, written warning, probation, termination, those things happen, at least in my experience, much faster.
Speaker: Because I feel like at the university level, it happens within the department, but then depending on the university I've been at, HR has a say one way or another at times because it's termination from employment.
Speaker: It's a state school that operates differently, in my experience, than a private school, but it just gets really elongated, which for some students is better and even gives them a chance to heal from whatever was harming them that was causing their impact to suffer so they can recoup.
Speaker: Yeah, just a little bit longer in my experience.
Speaker: Completely agree.
Speaker: I think for in our discipline, too, like we want to see them grow and develop holistically.
Speaker: And so therefore, I think that we have more patience and we see them go through a lot more things.
Speaker: And we also connect with them on a deeper level than some other disciplines may.
Speaker: Not to say that supervisors don't connect with their employees in other disciplines, but I think we are really
Speaker: sometimes strictly here for their development to see them become leaders and become just better students and more well-rounded.
Speaker: And so we are going to support them through those mistakes and through those bumps in the road and things.
Speaker: We're probably going to have a little bit more tolerance for that if we're able to.
Speaker: And I love what you just said.
Speaker: I would add on to that.
Speaker: Sometimes we're in a toxic relationship that we don't realize the position is what's toxic for the student.
Speaker: And I think there's times that we can enter in because we care so much and our relationship is tied to them in the position to not realize that by either separating or terminating them from the role might actually be the healthiest thing for them.
Speaker: And instead, we take on our savior complex that, no, no, through this role, I can save you.
Speaker: And I think it's important that we realize that accountability sometimes in individual circumstance.
Speaker: that because we care so much, we're actually adding a toxicity to the relationship with the RA.
Speaker: And so I think it's a great, great point and something that at least I've seen new professionals, but seasoned professionals just as much as sometimes, if not more, kind of having their blinders on by how important the RA position is and being willing to have that almost harm the person that needs to be out of the role.
Speaker: You know, I think we also get blinders based on our circumstance.
Speaker: You know, am I short-staffed?
Speaker: How close are we to the end of the semester?
Speaker: They're a senior and, you know, or they're the loved staff member.
Speaker: You know, I think those tend to sometimes, unfortunately, impact our interaction there because, you know, we just, it's part of the circumstance that we're in.
Speaker: So it's just remembering that as well.
Speaker: Yeah, those are all great points.
Speaker: And I think the talking about ones we've invested so much time and energy and development in and like, you know, we quote care so much.
Speaker: Like I remember some of them that I've interacted with, like the ones that I've invested most time is like when you see actual growth and like the next year they come back and it's like, wow, wow.
Speaker: There has been like, that's a really validating experience, but it always, that wasn't always the case.
Speaker: So I've known supervisors who have been like, I had this great success with someone who was doing terrible.
Speaker: And now they're already of the year.
Speaker: I can do that to everyone.
Speaker: Jason, like you're saying, sometimes there's toxic relationships that, that is not always the relationship that's going to play out.
Speaker: And so I think one piece of advice I give is just, you know, manage expectations on like,
Speaker: the outcome is going to be different for every one of them.
Speaker: One thing I think about when talking about the development piece is like, I think sometimes we fixate, or at least the people in my orbit fixate on goals of like, here's some goals.
Speaker: Like, I don't want to be late to any meetings.
Speaker: Like I'm not going to be late to meetings anymore.
Speaker: And I, it took me like seven years to figure out like, why don't, how can we reframe the conversation?
Speaker: So it's more about like identity, where it's like,
Speaker: Instead of being like, I don't want to be late to meetings.
Speaker: I want to be the person my boss can rely on unconditionally.
Speaker: And we can do that in any number of ways.
Speaker: We can not be late to meetings.
Speaker: We can come through on our tasks, put our reports in on time.
Speaker: And I found that when I flipped it that way, the conversation changed a whole bunch too because it wasn't just about
Speaker: well, your weekly report was late again, you dummy.
Speaker: It was, who are you wanting to become?
Speaker: And is this a role that you want to fulfill?
Speaker: And I think that's one thing that helped me.
Speaker: And unfortunately, it came about seven years too late.
Speaker: But, you know, all things come to those who wait.
Speaker: I think that's interesting.
Speaker: I don't know if this is too off topic, but in counseling theories, we were talking just a couple of days ago about how
Speaker: when talking to students and like praise versus encouragement and how you could say like, I'm really proud of you.
Speaker: Or you could say, I really like how you put in the effort on building your community and just how like phrasing that is just very different.
Speaker: I feel like that connects to what you're saying is like making it more personal to the student or to yourself and like how you're going to take that action or what they actually did a good job in instead of just saying, I'm proud or I'm not going to be late anymore and things like that.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And nobody likes to follow it up on the administrative menial tasks because it's like, yeah, I could easily submit that report.
Speaker: I just didn't.
Speaker: And now talking about it for 45 minutes of what led me to that decision-making process just makes me feel even worse because it's like so stupid and easy.
Speaker: I think that's a really good addition of like, so we've talked about positive psychology and now we're into like solution-based counseling.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think that like,
Speaker: And those are real things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So people listening, look that stuff up.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because some of what I would say that is really helpful that I've learned similar to JC's story is that the more I pour into my new hires or whatever the case may be, and I show them a pathway of success, the more they've invested, not just in their own success, but mine.
Speaker: And I think that it can be hard, but it's important.
Speaker: And I really am the type of person that believes the more I care about you, typically that care is symbiotic and reciprocated because the type of person typically that's trying to be an RA is being attracted to a relationship oriented position, at least at the schools that I've been at.
Speaker: And obviously there's compensation.
Speaker: you have to be careful about power dynamics that sometimes people are attracted to.
Speaker: But if they're the type of person that's attracted to that relationship and they're getting fed in that way with appropriate professional boundaries, like I think it's easier for them to want to become the person that wants to make sure that things are going well for their supervisor.
Speaker: I think it's hard for a positionality of power like a boss or a supervisor to try to instill into a staff member that I need you to be the person that always wants to be available to me and perform for me.
Speaker: To me, that is asking someone to deliver into a relationship that only can exist if I'm also delivering that back.
Speaker: Because if not, then nobody wants to pour one way for too long.
Speaker: It's just in my experience, right, that it ends up tapping them out one way or another.
Speaker: I become the bad guy or, you know, they burn out or whatever the terminology we want to be using.
Speaker: And so I think what was really smart about what you were just talking about is the combination of positive psychology and solutions based psychology and intertwining those two.
Speaker: to compliment what they're doing and going to do versus, you know, just the moment, right?
Speaker: Or allowing them to dwell on negative aspects of things.
Speaker: That and motivational interviewing is another one I tell people to look up.
Speaker: It's a really strong combination between those three to really find out what's going on.
Speaker: I'm going to put that on a quote, like on our advertising.
Speaker: This podcast has positive psychology and solution-based psychology.
Speaker: Jason Titus, PhD.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I didn't introduce it.
Speaker: I'm just complimenting the introduction of it to it.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: We cover the breath here.
Speaker: Like no topic is off topic.
Speaker: But I think you bring up a good point.
Speaker: And this whole conversation kind of leads nicely into the next part about Jason, you're talking about the relationship based parts of the job.
Speaker: I referenced the administrative pieces.
Speaker: In your experience, does it seem like we disproportionately have formal accountability conversations about administrative pieces or like the relationship building?
Speaker: Because sometimes those things are a little bit harder to quantify.
Speaker: We definitely have more conversations about administrative works than we do relationship works because of the quantifiable aspects of it.
Speaker: It's really easy to know you showed up late or you didn't turn in a report.
Speaker: It comes later that you figure out that the student staff member or professional staff member hasn't been developing relationships in the hall.
Speaker: hasn't been connecting with their residents or helping council residents through whatever the situations may be for academic stuff or whatever.
Speaker: The relationship stuff comes to bear in a longer timeline.
Speaker: And so by the time that stuff is hitting, it's oftentimes further along and likely admin stuff has already popped up to go along with it in my experience.
Speaker: But the admin stuff is really tangible.
Speaker: A common mistake I see is that we take someone who's struggling with relationship development and
Speaker: And we give them like probation with admin style things to do in order to get themselves off of probation.
Speaker: And all we're doing is putting up more barriers for them to actually establish the relationship that they need to have to be successful.
Speaker: And I think because it's not tangible, people are afraid to, to try to make the relationship tangible, but there's ways to do it in the amount of conversations, connections, you know, how many times did you interact with a resident?
Speaker: How many times did you get one resident to interact with another resident?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Like there's ways to quantify it if we thought about it, but instead we're just like, oh, you, you know, you haven't done well connecting on this side.
Speaker: So I'm going to need, you know, I need you to do X, Y, and Z. And it's like more admin work or some form of, you know, when university was, that was like a paper or you had to do this entire sociogram of writing everyone's, you know, where they were.
Speaker: And also, Hey, that's all cool.
Speaker: But while they're doing that, like they're still not doing the thing that led you to the conversation.
Speaker: I love developmental papers, like in conduct and stuff, because it's like it,
Speaker: It punishes two people.
Speaker: It punishes the person who has to write it and then also the person who has to read it.
Speaker: Typically, it just punishes the person that has to write it because the other person didn't actually read it, which makes it even worse because they can write anything in there.
Speaker: I learned nothing, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And the house of cards crumbles.
Speaker: I agree that we do hold them to a standard with administrative work, but I also think it's good when we can make our administrative work
Speaker: reflect our community development more.
Speaker: Like something we recently started doing at UCA is doing like a community map instead of just writing down like the conversations that you've had with residents.
Speaker: So not only are you making notes about that, but you're also highlighting like which rooms do you think are doing really well right now?
Speaker: Which ones do you foresee having issues?
Speaker: Who talks to one another?
Speaker: What students are involved in different things?
Speaker: Just so we can see that like the RA is actually making those connections and trying to develop in their community instead of just saying, write a summary of what you talked about with five people.
Speaker: So I think it's cool if we could push our administrative work to reflect our community development a little more.
Speaker: That would be valuable.
Speaker: You know, it's so funny what I latched onto was conversations because...
Speaker: it was two previous schools of mine where it became really big to quantify those personal interactions.
Speaker: You know, you need to have 16 conversations about academic success and transitions and homesickness and make sure you log every single conversation and how long was the conversation and did you follow up with them?
Speaker: And so you're almost making it a deterrent to want to have that positive social interaction.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: I'm not a fan of that in no disrespect to anybody, any of our listeners out there who do do that.
Speaker: It's just not my style.
Speaker: But I think where the accountability and the follow up on those pieces for me come from just the presence, you know, are they able to talk about their residents?
Speaker: Do they know what's going on?
Speaker: You know, I'm at a smaller school.
Speaker: I have just over 400 residents.
Speaker: And so it's a lot easier to keep tabs on my RAs and on my residents.
Speaker: And so versus like at a very large state public institution where you've got several thousand students under your purview.
Speaker: But I think when that's where it is for me, it's just that are you able to even speak to your residents or situations, what's going on with them and assessing, well, why is it that you can't?
Speaker: You know, is it that you're just never there?
Speaker: And not focusing so much on the, I guess, getting them in trouble or holding them accountable in some kind of administrative respect, but what is stopping you from making that connection with your residents and being able to have that relationship with them?
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: The one thing I would add is some form of mechanism that shows them how.
Speaker: One of the things I would say is oftentimes like a hall director will say to me, like, here's a way that Ari is dropping the ball.
Speaker: And I'd be like, cool.
Speaker: So have you shown them how to do it?
Speaker: Well, they should just know that.
Speaker: Well, not everything is just known.
Speaker: Like we're talking about a whole lot of knowledge that comes from a lot of different places.
Speaker: And so if my expectation is that you go and knock on doors and you build relationships, like I'll go one time with you.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: And I'm going to knock on, we're going to, first I'll lead, then you'll lead and I'll show you how to do it.
Speaker: I think a lot of times, even with forums and stuff like that, we hand it to them and we're like, you know how to do this.
Speaker: I mean, it's not always the case.
Speaker: And I think walking people through, I mean, it's the same thing with brand new hall directors.
Speaker: Like if I don't show them where the master keys are and I don't show them like the tangibles of the building and things like that, I can't expect them to just know it, right?
Speaker: Like I can't just be like, Hey, go find the keys, right?
Speaker: Like
Speaker: We need to, the nuts and bolts of it are important, even if it's about things like relationships that are a little bit more subjective, the nuts and bolts of it are still important.
Speaker: So I think role modeling it while doing everything that you just said is an absolute perfect thing to do because it kind of also takes all the excuses off the table.
Speaker: No one can tell you, well, I have no idea how to do that.
Speaker: I just showed you.
Speaker: I literally was there doing it with you.
Speaker: See?
Speaker: And so now I know that you know how to do it.
Speaker: You saw me do it.
Speaker: You know my expectations.
Speaker: So now if you still can't do it, well, this is a different conversation.
Speaker: This isn't about the unknowns.
Speaker: It's about you intentionally making choices about the known.
Speaker: And that's a different pathway on the forms or that's the different pathway in the conversations.
Speaker: You know, and I completely agree with you.
Speaker: And what I was thinking is like, maybe call it elementary, but it goes back to knowing that
Speaker: the strengths and weaknesses of your team from the get go.
Speaker: And one thing that I became really a big fan of, you know, I know there's like true colors and, and all the other personality typologies out there, but, um, I got addicted to Enneagram.
Speaker: And so if you've never heard of the Enneagram or if you've never practiced it, um, that was really big at my previous institution.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: I brought the bootleg version of it with me here to Our Lady of the Lake and my staff loved it, you know, and we reference it often and it really helped them understand how each other work.
Speaker: And it's helped my supervisors, my supervising staff really be able to understand how to best work with their RAs.
Speaker: And so finding something that fits for you, I am a fan of that, yeah.
Speaker: What's your number?
Speaker: I am a 23.
Speaker: I'm a three-wing two.
Speaker: Look at us.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: For our listeners out there, look it up.
Speaker: Find your primary number in your wing.
Speaker: I love the Enneagram.
Speaker: We'll link to a place where you can take it online in the show notes.
Speaker: How long is the show notes?
Speaker: Depends on the episode and how many outside references there are.
Speaker: Jason, you're talking about, I'm going to show you how to do this.
Speaker: Like I'm reflecting now the amount of times I have started a conversation with, this is going to sound, this may sound incredibly patronizing, but I'm going to show you how we hang up posters in this department.
Speaker: Because there is a way to do it and there are a whole lot of ways not to do it.
Speaker: And this is one of those things that eats me alive is when I see posters that look like garbage.
Speaker: So we're doing all four corners on the backside and this is how you do it.
Speaker: And it's just like the amount of times I said, this is going to be real.
Speaker: It's like when someone's computer is not working or their phone is not working.
Speaker: It's like, well, did you turn it on?
Speaker: Like, yeah, like I'm not a total idiot, but sometimes I am.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: I didn't turn it on.
Speaker: Well, I think some of that is that you know yourself, you know, your hot button, right?
Speaker: So like you're sitting there and you know, if you do this wrong, it's going to bother me.
Speaker: So instead of like having a moment where I get to have an extra conversation with you because you wouldn't know it would bother me.
Speaker: now you know it bothers me.
Speaker: And so that's why I'm going to point it out.
Speaker: And I think if we as supervisors know, hey, like here are the things that really get me, right?
Speaker: Like if I see you next to someone that needs help and I see you choose not to help, like that's a bothersome thing for me because I'm like, you're there, you have the capacity, why not help, right?
Speaker: And so I think being able to articulate those things early in the conversations is really helpful.
Speaker: And then showcasing how to do those things is really helpful.
Speaker: Because it also sets a culture.
Speaker: Like each one of those are data points that people are collecting to see what the culture is of the place.
Speaker: And each one of our places has different cultures.
Speaker: And so I think it's smart to know ourselves as we're engaging into this work to be better supervisors and to hold people accountable.
Speaker: I love how you called it an extra conversation.
Speaker: Like, I think that is how it should be reframed.
Speaker: This is not staff accountability conversation.
Speaker: Just view this as you get to have an extra conversation with me.
Speaker: Like talk about some positive spin there.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Oh, because in the end of the day, it's like, it's like when your director comes in and asks you to do something.
Speaker: Or your VP asks you to do something.
Speaker: Very kind of them to ask, but you got to do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not like, well, no.
Speaker: You're like, oh, yes, yes, I would love to do that thing.
Speaker: I'm like, no, you were just told you just came in the form of being asked.
Speaker: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to demonstrate my value to this department once again.
Speaker: And if you're the person that said no, well, you won't be that person too, Bob.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So do you feel or should we feel responsible when a student gets held accountable for something they did?
Speaker: Did we fail them in some way?
Speaker: I think we should investigate our responsibility.
Speaker: And then depending on what we find, go from there.
Speaker: I don't think we should just assume we're definitely not responsible.
Speaker: It's like my statement about the toxic relationship can sometimes be on our side.
Speaker: But I think we should investigate it by the same point in time.
Speaker: They're human.
Speaker: They're in charge of their actions.
Speaker: They have agency.
Speaker: Like typically what I find out is very rarely are we the cause of what the student's choices are.
Speaker: Oftentimes it's something else, something external.
Speaker: But I think it should be investigated.
Speaker: And when they come in, they say, well, they may be super frustrated.
Speaker: And instead of getting defensive, like I think you should listen and see, because oftentimes they have at least a couple of good points in there.
Speaker: I like talking about that investigation portion because I experienced my first like job action conversation not that long ago.
Speaker: And I immediately did.
Speaker: I felt guilty at first.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, hold on.
Speaker: Let me like look at all the facts here.
Speaker: Like what have I done to like ensure their success?
Speaker: Where have I maybe lacked that?
Speaker: And kind of vice versa, you know.
Speaker: And I realized I think if we're putting in as much effort as we possibly can to like help them develop in their choosing to
Speaker: still make choices that don't align with what we're trying to help them with, I think we can't feel guilty for that, trying our best in that scenario.
Speaker: But I like the term investigate because I think that highlights how it should be.
Speaker: Yeah, I definitely encourage you to keep that alone with that, you know, self-reflection piece of it because even as a supervisor of professional staff, you keep having that conversation with yourself of like, could I have done something a little differently or
Speaker: What could I have done better to maybe circumvent the situation?
Speaker: But like Jason said, ultimately, you know, they have the ability to make the decisions.
Speaker: They had all the same information that was given to the rest of the staff, and they ultimately chose to ignore or deny whatever it was, not partake or participate that led to this conversation or maybe even termination.
Speaker: Hand over heart, like Arya Stark with her list of names.
Speaker: I literally used to go down the list of student staff who had been terminated in my area like every night being like, hmm, what could I have done?
Speaker: And I certainly don't think that level of obsession was healthy.
Speaker: And once the list got a certain length, it was like, I can't even remember these names anymore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: Like, I think it's healthy to have some like, well, people will say, like, I feel responsible.
Speaker: And I'll tell like staff of mine will say, I feel responsible for the road.
Speaker: So I was like, that's good.
Speaker: Like, that's healthy.
Speaker: You should, but you should also recognize that there's only so much we can do, you know, like,
Speaker: you could have done training completely differently.
Speaker: You could have had more conversations.
Speaker: You could have had less, like who knows what it is.
Speaker: Like, it's good to have that reflection like Alana was talking about, but you know, at some point we got to kind of move on and accept that like, it's just people have agency.
Speaker: We, they make decisions.
Speaker: Sometimes they're not good.
Speaker: Like no matter what we do, people are going to make bad decisions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and in that moment,
Speaker: That person, whether or not you're framing it as they're in trouble or not, likely feel like they're in trouble.
Speaker: And a friendly reminder that we all act differently when we're in trouble, right?
Speaker: Like, you know, sometimes it's very similar to my two or five year old that's in trouble when I'm with the college students in trouble, sometimes wildly different.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But like just because they don't know how to present themselves or handle themselves in that moment doesn't mean what they're saying doesn't have value.
Speaker: And that moment still needs to be OK, even though they're not necessarily presenting themselves well and they're like turning it, making it about you or getting super defensive.
Speaker: Because otherwise, why do we learn all that student development theory to not realize that like where they are in these stages or where they are in these moments that.
Speaker: And the regression that happens when all of a sudden they're going back to a flight or flight, right?
Speaker: Or they're going back to kind of youthful responses or whatever the case may be, right?
Speaker: Like we're different in those moments and it's easier to be practiced on the side of holding people accountable than it is to be that student that maybe this is the first time in their life they're being held accountable or not.
Speaker: Maybe so many other things are going on.
Speaker: They're just, you know, there's trauma or whatever.
Speaker: But like, I think it's important to note that like, I don't expect them to handle it well.
Speaker: And don't take that personally at the same point in time.
Speaker: Don't be surprised when they're not handling it the best they can, because humans don't typically handle it well when we're in trouble.
Speaker: You know, you've got to realize where you are in the room, your positionalities as you're entering in, like to have the expectation that the person across from you is going to be perfect in these moments sets you up for failure as a supervisor trying to engage with care.
Speaker: Well, the one thing that always grates me a little bit is when people are like, am I in trouble?
Speaker: I just want to be like, first of all, we're not in third grade.
Speaker: We're not in trouble.
Speaker: Like you're not sitting in the corner or like not getting recess.
Speaker: Like, can we not talk about this as like what it isn't?
Speaker: So their body may be responding like they are in timeout or they are losing recess.
Speaker: Like, cause not all of this is mental, right?
Speaker: Like you get anxiety, your fingers, you know, like, like your heart starts beating, like all these things happen.
Speaker: You know, that's why, like, I appreciate that you try and frame it to be more mature, but like sometimes you can talk that way, but your body's still doing something different.
Speaker: My RA agreement says you're not going to say that you're in trouble.
Speaker: That's rule number one.
Speaker: So we've talked a little bit about the inevitable time when we've all had a staff member who like, no matter how hard we try and how hard they try, the job just isn't for them.
Speaker: Let's talk about coaching people out of their jobs.
Speaker: Is this a skill that can be developed?
Speaker: It has to be something that you develop because...
Speaker: You know, we were talking earlier about dealing with developmental conversations as a result of your circumstance.
Speaker: You know, we see that this person is not performing, but we're so close to the end of the semester and we've got so many things happening.
Speaker: And I think there are points in the semester or the year, whatever, that you start to see this is not working.
Speaker: And if you're hopefully doing your job as a supervisor correct,
Speaker: you've already started that conversation of the red flags that you're seeing.
Speaker: And ultimately, the conversation will just be, this is where I have seen your lack of performance in A, B, or C areas.
Speaker: We've had these conversations.
Speaker: And if you have them using examples of what the RA has shared with you about how they're feeling in the job and just getting them to realize that they're not growing in the position, they're not connected to the position.
Speaker: And it's kind of a disservice to both
Speaker: You know, maybe it's just that they're hanging on to the, well, I need the free room and board or else I can't come here.
Speaker: And we've all been in that position where you have that RA who's like, if I don't have this job, I can't come here anymore.
Speaker: Well, I apologize about that.
Speaker: However, you know, and that's, this is where we are.
Speaker: And that's not a reason enough to keep you is because you can't come to the university anymore.
Speaker: So it's definitely a skill that I've had to develop and work at.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's definitely something all supervisors have to learn and grow.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I would agree.
Speaker: I think it's a skill to be developed.
Speaker: I think that the times where I get frustrated as a supervisor of supervisors is if someone's trying to coach somebody out of a position, but they don't have a warning.
Speaker: They don't have probation.
Speaker: They don't even know that they're doing bad at their job, really.
Speaker: They just know they're not the best.
Speaker: And typically in that RA's mind, they're not the favorite, right, is how it oftentimes gets mentally articulated to themselves.
Speaker: And so, like...
Speaker: I'm all for developing the skill and utilizing the skill of coaching somebody out of the position, but it can't be like just out of nowhere.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They're like all of a sudden, you know, you're not my right.
Speaker: And so like typically by the time that you're coaching someone out of the position, if you go by that, like you're talking about, Hey, here's what got you that warning.
Speaker: Here's why you were on probation.
Speaker: You may have done enough to come off of probation.
Speaker: This is what I see it the most.
Speaker: Like you've done enough to come off probation, but you haven't really done enough to
Speaker: to really thrive in this.
Speaker: And if anything, like you seem miserable, it's not really a positive impact for the residents and for the staff.
Speaker: And so like, let's talk about like, what are other areas on campus that you could really thrive in, you could do better in, that maybe better fits, because I think the pathway that I'm seeing for you here is a pathway that inevitably you may be out of the position anyway.
Speaker: And I want to make sure that I'm continuing to find foundation for you to be successful, right?
Speaker: And different universities have different policies on termination, but I think
Speaker: You can definitely develop the skill of coaching someone out of that position.
Speaker: But I think people need to realize, in my opinion, that it's a much longer game than what gives it credit for.
Speaker: Like that conversation starts months in advance and builds and builds and builds and is building off of honesty.
Speaker: So you can't be the supervisor that's afraid of the...
Speaker: caring yet real conversation of how someone's really performing the deficiencies.
Speaker: You're really seeing, you know, patterns of growth that you're hoping that they take on, but then they don't and thus accountability or whatever the case may be.
Speaker: I see a lot of people try to fast track it.
Speaker: There's a month left in school and they try to push them off to another staff and like return replacement, but that didn't work.
Speaker: And so now they're just going to race it to try and coach them out.
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: I would say that like we are still developmental to the student and that's not developmental to the student.
Speaker: That's just trying to offload.
Speaker: And at that point in time, to me, at least sometimes I would say that that staff member probably could use more development with a student like that to learn how to do that.
Speaker: And so that changes my, at least my level, the difference of opinion I might have into that scenario.
Speaker: Yeah, I definitely have less experience with this scale.
Speaker: But something that we do emphasize a lot here is it should never be a surprise to them.
Speaker: just like what you were saying.
Speaker: So maybe having an accountability log or something where we're just keeping note of the things that they're doing well, but also maybe things that they're struggling with too, just so we have note of that.
Speaker: And they also know everything that's on that log.
Speaker: So it should never be a surprise.
Speaker: And then I also like the point that you're talking about, like following up and connecting them to other resources and things on campus, because hopefully you have a relationship that is rich enough where you know what their interests are and you know other places are involved on campus.
Speaker: And maybe they have a lot of other strengths, but maybe it's just not for the department or the role.
Speaker: So I think it's cool to be able to follow up with them and be like, oh, like, how are things going on campus?
Speaker: What else have you gotten involved in since you've left?
Speaker: Because you still have that relationship and you should still foster that.
Speaker: Yeah, you made me think also, Alana, that that documentation piece is so key, regardless if that's like a true letter of warning or just an email or like you said, a log of those interactions.
Speaker: I
Speaker: I have staff, supervised staff right now.
Speaker: They're like, was this a warning?
Speaker: Is this probation?
Speaker: And trying to get them not so stuck on a true progressive discipline plan, but more so like, let's just have a conversation with them about what is going on and then document it.
Speaker: In some way, shape, or form, document it so that way you have that log
Speaker: of sorts that we've been discussing this issue for said period of time.
Speaker: So I completely agree with that activity log or whatever it is that you're using.
Speaker: Yes, definitely.
Speaker: Well, that's where we get a perception issue is like, oh, I had a quote verbal warning.
Speaker: And now I'm emailing you to document our conversation.
Speaker: And then they're like, wait, this was a verbal warning.
Speaker: And now it's written.
Speaker: What is what is going on here?
Speaker: This feels a whole lot worse than what it really is.
Speaker: And no way to explain that away.
Speaker: Like, no, it's a verbal warning.
Speaker: But I just wanted you to have an account of what we talked about in our verbal conversation.
Speaker: I think if you tell them in the conversation, like, hey, here's what I'm going to do.
Speaker: I'm going to send you an email that recaps this.
Speaker: It's just our verbal conversation.
Speaker: And I think it takes a little bit of the fear away.
Speaker: The other thing, just being super honest here, is when we're in conversations about job action and termination, there should be some mechanism of protecting yourself as the supervisor as well.
Speaker: And so I think the notes do a really good job of helping with the development of the student, but also just in case there's some form of retaliation thing that comes forth,
Speaker: or anything like that, like still entering these conversations with care and all these things that I've said before, but just recognize that when people are, you know, just like they're in trouble, like losing jobs or whatever the case may be, there may be times that you're going to need these records to be able to go back to if your human resource department's getting involved.
Speaker: And so just keep that in the back of your head, especially for any new and entry level folks that are coming in that maybe haven't dabbled in this.
Speaker: You know, like if anything, keep your own journal at the bare minimum.
Speaker: Keep your own documentation, your own journal, maybe pass it up to your supervisor.
Speaker: If you're not really on a campus that shares it with the student staff member.
Speaker: But make sure you always take account of those types of serious conversations about job action.
Speaker: And I would argue keep those things for about three years.
Speaker: Yeah, and keep that journal separate from your at-home journal or else if it ever gets subpoenaed, everything you've written about personally and love life and things you want to do all of a sudden is now record.
Speaker: Unless you secretly want it to be read.
Speaker: That's your moment.
Speaker: But you know, and that's so tricky too because even with phones, like why I keep my notes on my phone and if it's a department-issued phone or not, man, that's a whole other rabbit hole.
Speaker: But yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and if it's, like I said, three years is, I think, good on the side.
Speaker: If it is, the other thing, some, I mean, everyone has different policies on this and whether you delete records and what records get deleted one year after, three years after, whatever the case may be.
Speaker: And so just know your institutional policies on that will be important.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm no lawyer, but there is, it's called a sole possession file where like it is, if you're the only one who's ever read it or ever looked at it, like it is considered sole possession and is not like, it cannot be subpoenaed.
Speaker: So like there, there does exist that option.
Speaker: And now we're getting like into like, this is the worst thing ever.
Speaker: And here's all the terrible things that's going to happen.
Speaker: How is it the guy who talked about care all of a sudden start talking about HR?
Speaker: What's this stuff?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Human resources, stay out of here.
Speaker: But if any of our listeners h ave a legal background or experience here, please write in and correct me on the ins and outs of sole possession files.
Speaker: Jason, you had talked about the RAs trying to pass off a low performer to someone else during like return or draft or whatever.
Speaker: And I think that is, this whole conversation is a perfect illustration of like
Speaker: the importance of like departmental like structure, because I was at a place that I was very thankful that there was a very clear delineation that was communicated like, you know, whatever that midpoint of their performance evaluation was anyone that it was at the midpoint or lower,
Speaker: like would not be rehired unless there was like a very strong articulated, uh, and exception to that rule.
Speaker: And so that made it very possible.
Speaker: And it may not be in midpoint.
Speaker: I can't remember what it was.
Speaker: I think it was the midpoint, but that, that was the cutoff.
Speaker: And so like low performers that only I knew about on my staff, I couldn't pass over and be like, Oh, they're great.
Speaker: Take them so I can clear up space for the number one draft pick on the new hires.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's such an important point is like, if we don't talk about staff accountability, except for those moments when it's like, we're in the thick of it right now and got to deal with this.
Speaker: We never stopped to think about what's the departmental procedure that's helping protect the staff of all levels in navigating through that.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So let's talk about terminating staff.
Speaker: Sometimes I feel it's like Ari on the bachelor when he broke up with Becca and
Speaker: And always coming back because, you know, he had he delivered the news, but then kept coming back in the door and had to say more because he got to feel good about myself.
Speaker: How do we go about this so that it's it is what it is?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, first, like, it's either not a surprise because it's built to the moment.
Speaker: Or it isn't a surprise because something so egregious just happened.
Speaker: And I think those are very two different scenarios, right?
Speaker: So like in the first one, like I'm re-articulating, you know, the care that we've had, all the steps that we've taken, but I'm also letting you know, here's where you didn't meet your side of the bargain.
Speaker: Like here's what I did, but here's where you didn't step up and meet your side of the bargain.
Speaker: And oftentimes in my experience at most schools, this isn't technically termination.
Speaker: It ends up being an offer to resign because we've tried, we're working together.
Speaker: It hasn't been so egregious since someone's been harmed or anything like that.
Speaker: Most of the schools, at least that I've been at, I feel like that moment's been like, hey, you can't continue with us.
Speaker: We'll give you this opportunity to step away.
Speaker: Or if you don't, then sorry, the alternative is that we'll be letting you go.
Speaker: It's a very different conversation when someone's misused keys or access to students or someone's been really harmed or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And I would argue the hardest conversations are the ones where I'm woken up in the middle of the night because something happened that was
Speaker: terribly egregious.
Speaker: And the beginning of the next day when I get into work is with others terminating that student employee because of what the harm they had, because it typically is a series of hard conversations they have that day.
Speaker: And, you know, if they're lucky, even longer, if not, then they've
Speaker: needed to leave the university on that day or whatever the case may be.
Speaker: So I don't think terminations are all built the same.
Speaker: And it's hard to be as caring on the second side when typically if it's that swift of a termination, someone's something's gone really wrong.
Speaker: But on the front on the first side, like, I mean, you're just, I think, are rearticulating how you got to this point.
Speaker: I always like to tell them, because I mean this, even as you leave here, you're not an RA anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you.
Speaker: That doesn't mean I'm not here as a resource for you.
Speaker: That doesn't mean I don't have more ideas on how you can be successful and would love to stay invested in that if you'll have me.
Speaker: And I think that's important to say it and mean it and to remember that when they're not an RA, they're still a student of your university and you're still tasked with caring for the students of your university.
Speaker: And so even if they were a thorn in your side for a while,
Speaker: They still deserve care, in my opinion.
Speaker: The other thing that came to mind was, I guess over the years, terminating staff has, I don't want to say gotten easier, but, um, gotten easier.
Speaker: I guess, I guess that there's really no other way to say it, but I think the part that's still hard is the staff fallout.
Speaker: You know, what does that do to your team when from one day to the next, someone's gone, you know, and some know what happened, some don't know what happened.
Speaker: And obviously you can't be just sharing all the details and, um,
Speaker: You know, that's tough too.
Speaker: That's almost just as tough as losing those staff members is helping your team recover from that sudden change of things.
Speaker: And it's just similarly helping them recoup, you know, kind of giving them as little information as possible, but just talking to them about how do we move forward?
Speaker: What is it going to look like from here on out?
Speaker: How do we get to the midpoint of the semester or whatever?
Speaker: And helping them recover just as much.
Speaker: The hard part about that is, and probably the most frustrating part about the whole thing is, you know, as an employer, we legally cannot share any information about personnel files.
Speaker: The person who's been terminated can say absolutely whatever they want.
Speaker: And there is no way we can rebut it other than like ambiguities of like, I hope you trust the decisions I make or, you know, things like that.
Speaker: And that's, I think, one of the most challenging things, especially your
Speaker: for new professionals is like, this person is saying things that are not true.
Speaker: And I look like a terrible person because of what they're saying and navigating that.
Speaker: It does get easier and not that that's something to be proud of because it's like, oh, I've terminated so many people.
Speaker: Like when we start talking about termination, it sounds like all we do is terminate people, which isn't the case.
Speaker: I mean, hopefully at least.
Speaker: But it's also like a skill to be developed.
Speaker: It comes each time we get a little bit better.
Speaker: We get better every day.
Speaker: And just like coaching people out of jobs or coaching people to other opportunities, as we may say.
Speaker: So those are, you know, it's important to keep that in mind.
Speaker: It's like your first termination is not going to be your best one.
Speaker: And it's probably going to be your worst one.
Speaker: Even though it gets easier, I hope it never gets easy.
Speaker: Well said.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And what I mean by that is that like, it's still a person across from you.
Speaker: It's still for some livelihood because we're been bored or whatever the case may be.
Speaker: So like, I mean, I should have some reverence at the same point in time, you know, you shouldn't have the list that JC had, you know, before going back and, and the names or all those things like, like,
Speaker: It was two sides or multiple sides of the story and to what happened and you shouldn't take on whatever's occurring at the same point in time.
Speaker: Like I do think it's a moment that deserves reverence.
Speaker: And if you ever get to the point where like it is just super easy to do, I think you should really check how your empathy and sympathy is performing in the care of the people that you supervise.
Speaker: Because I don't know how you can just flip a switch and not have it happen anymore one day because they underperformed for even...
Speaker: months on end, like if, if you're, I just don't know how that would happen if, if the care was genuine.
Speaker: We talked about offer to resign and there's two pieces of advice that I've gotten.
Speaker: Again, very limited training has been provided on how do we fire people or how do we like staff accountability?
Speaker: Like there's no classes really on it that are like nitty gritty.
Speaker: Like we'll have HR classes and all that.
Speaker: But two pieces of advice I got that were very offhanded happening was one was about resignations.
Speaker: And it was if anybody ever that you want to or try and determine wants to resign, you let them.
Speaker: No matter how good, like sometimes it's like people have done so much.
Speaker: They've wronged so many ways.
Speaker: Like, no, I won't.
Speaker: You got to be fired.
Speaker: Like it is not fair because of all the things that have happened for you to resign.
Speaker: But if someone offers resign, you just let them.
Speaker: And be done with it because then you've got your documentation that they've elected to do this and whatever comes after that or any appeals or complaints is like, I didn't fire you.
Speaker: You resigned.
Speaker: And sometimes I've worked with staff.
Speaker: It's like that is the hardest pill to swallow sometimes is letting someone who deserves to be terminated resign.
Speaker: And the second one is talking to someone in HR at some meeting.
Speaker: And I don't know how we got on the topic, but he's like,
Speaker: I don't know what you all do.
Speaker: Like termination conversations, they're super easy.
Speaker: They should be in and out 10 minutes max.
Speaker: Really they should be five minutes, but no more than 10 minutes.
Speaker: Once you start rehashing it, like there's nothing to rehash at that point.
Speaker: Like get in, get out and be done and move on with your day.
Speaker: And I think that's a little harder to do in reality sometimes, but I think about that often of like, just get in and get out.
Speaker: Cause like Jason was saying, it shouldn't be a surprise that we're having this conversation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: So for listeners out there, those are my two takeaways that, you know.
Speaker: I mean, I think they're interesting.
Speaker: I think the second point, what I would say is they have two statuses with you.
Speaker: If they're an RA, they have two statuses with you in that meeting before they lose a status.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they're a student and they're a student staff member.
Speaker: You terminate them.
Speaker: They're no longer a student staff member.
Speaker: Still a student.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so like, you know, like to me, I would say that the whole, the in and out like part, the difference is I think, you know, going back to the whole, like, here's the resources, here's the things that I think would help you, I think is, is maybe a better approach that I would take.
Speaker: And I think the mechanism of care would be really important there.
Speaker: I had something to say about your first one, but I apologize.
Speaker: Cause I want
Speaker: About resign.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: And then I was, I totally agree about allowing them to resign.
Speaker: So the, the common complaint I hear back about me saying that to somebody, but then they win is like the common thing back to me.
Speaker: And I'm like, explain to me how someone who no longer has a job one over someone who still has their job, right?
Speaker: Like it's a different, it's a different thing to be thinking about.
Speaker: And you shouldn't be thinking about it as winning and losing anyway.
Speaker: But if you're going to, it's a faulty argument to be able to, to make, um,
Speaker: And sometimes the mechanism of empowerment, if something's really going terrible in their life and you're giving them the opportunity to resign and they choose to, that may be a tipping point for them to take hold of things, right?
Speaker: Because they're taking some control of the conversation.
Speaker: by choosing to resign because there are some staff members that are so bad at breakups.
Speaker: They need the other person to always break up with them.
Speaker: And in this relationship, that means that you have to terminate them because they'll refuse to resign.
Speaker: And so those moments will still happen.
Speaker: But I very much agree that like, unless it's really egregious and that you need to show as an institution that you fire the person, because sometimes something can be so bad that the institution needs to show for, you know,
Speaker: brand or for legally that they terminated this person, right?
Speaker: Like, unless it's that egregious, I always will lean towards the side of loading, letting someone resign and having them out of the position and not having them have much recourse against the office because of it.
Speaker: You know, it's funny you're talking about refusing to resign, and I was also thinking about refusing to be terminated.
Speaker: You know, if I have some advice as a rookie mistake, early on I had an old form, like an old format for termination letters, and it had a signature line on it, and the students had to sign that they received the letter, you know, they refused to sign it.
Speaker: I refuse to sign this, therefore I'm refusing to be terminated, so I'm
Speaker: I'm still good.
Speaker: That's not actually how this works.
Speaker: So whether they sign for it or not, they're still terminated.
Speaker: So just keep that in mind.
Speaker: I had this one situation, probably the most anxious I ever felt was it had something very similar to that.
Speaker: Whereas like an RA didn't do something like I was giving them the written warning and it was like clearly stating the expectations for the like, you need to acknowledge that this is a job responsibility.
Speaker: and they refused to sign it.
Speaker: And ultimately, it doesn't matter if you sign it or not, but this one was particular.
Speaker: It's just acknowledging that we had this conversation, but this one was particular that clearly stated the responsibilities that needed to be acknowledged to be done.
Speaker: And so the outcome of this conversation, I had two letters in my office.
Speaker: One was a probation letter and one was a determination letter.
Speaker: And if the person refused to sign acknowledging the responsibilities of the job that was expected of them, it was going to be the termination letter.
Speaker: If it was the other one, it was going to be the probation letter.
Speaker: And I tell you what, like I coded those letters with little things in the corner so I knew which one was which.
Speaker: And when the outcome finally came across, I felt like I was going to send the RA accept letters, like you're going to be an RA to the people who got declined.
Speaker: And I put the letter on the table and slid it across.
Speaker: And then two years later, these RAs were sharing this story that they had heard.
Speaker: And they think the myth is bigger than the person.
Speaker: And I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker: They're like, this time you put a letter on a table firing someone and you just like threw it at them across the table.
Speaker: I was like, that's not how it went down.
Speaker: But if you want to believe that, feel free.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Alana, as a new professional who's never terminated someone, what would be helpful for you as either training or support?
Speaker: Because I'm sure there's a lot of young professional listeners out there who are like, I may have to do that someday.
Speaker: Like, what can we do to support people who haven't done that, but may do it someday?
Speaker: Yeah, I think just talking about the steps that we've talked about today, like I think the documentation piece is really important.
Speaker: But then also like potentially practicing those types of conversations, like we talked about earlier, like how can you expect someone to do something you haven't showed them?
Speaker: And sometimes those skills are just not built or familiar yet.
Speaker: And so I think just offering different ways to approach those conversations.
Speaker: And then I think after that, also, how do you follow up?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: yes, they're no longer a staff member, but they are still a student at your university.
Speaker: When you see them, like, how do you interact?
Speaker: And I think that's something that I struggled with initially.
Speaker: Oh, I don't know if I'm supposed to say hi to them or not, because they're not my staff member anymore.
Speaker: But like, realistically, like, you want to foster that relationship with them and let them know that you're still there for them and a resource.
Speaker: And so I think just offering different perspectives of how to navigate that situation and those conversations would be really helpful.
Speaker: Almost like running behind closed doors for professional staff.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I love that.
Speaker: I think I would also give some advice of if you're not comfortable, I hope you're not being asked to do it by yourself for the first one.
Speaker: I mean, your supervisor should be in there with you.
Speaker: But if you're in a scenario where they're not, I hope that you or any new professional or graduate student is hearing, like, it's okay to ask for them to be there, right?
Speaker: And then depending on the person, maybe you're taking lead and they're there.
Speaker: Maybe they're taking lead and you're there so you can see the first one.
Speaker: And if you ask them to join you and they say no, just remember if it goes sideways and someone comes up to you and they're like, why did that not go well?
Speaker: Well, I asked my supervisor to be there and they said no.
Speaker: And so I did what I thought was best for the situation.
Speaker: Carry some weight as well, because they ought to have been there with you for your very first one.
Speaker: Like they ought to be in that space with you and hopefully be having the conversation with their good supervisor.
Speaker: They also know your staff member.
Speaker: They're also, um,
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like they know you.
Speaker: They're a part of what's been the development along the way.
Speaker: And so that's what I would say is be willing to ask for help, because even if the answer is no, it can still be helpful at the end if it does go sideways.
Speaker: But more often than not, you hopefully will be hearing the answer.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And you'll get joined and you'll find confidence in knowing what you actually should do.
Speaker: Some of us will assume that you know what to do until you tell us you don't.
Speaker: And so if you don't say anything, we'll let you go into that room and then you'll fail and you'll end up hating your supervisor for it when all you had to do is ask.
Speaker: And you would say, well, I shouldn't have to ask.
Speaker: Yes, you should not have to ask.
Speaker: Sometimes you still do.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So any closing thoughts as we wrap up?
Speaker: You know, you're always learning your supervision style.
Speaker: And even as you move away from supervising staff and you go to student staff, you get to graduate staff, professional staff.
Speaker: core principles are still there.
Speaker: And so just continuing to learn and grow as a supervisor yourself and never, you know, Jason said it earlier, if this just becomes like so natural where you just let people go left and right, maybe you really need to evaluate kind of what's going on for yourself.
Speaker: So I would just say continue to reflect, continue to grow.
Speaker: I know that there's always opportunities for change for yourself.
Speaker: I like the theme of just maintaining that level of care throughout
Speaker: the good, the bad, the ugly.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of those things that we face that sometimes are fun and sometimes are not, but remembering that we want the students to develop and we want them, we want to support them through anything that we can is really important and will help us, guide us in the right direction ultimately.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: A few things is the conversation starts early and happens often in a caring way before you ever get to that moment of termination or even probation in order for it to be development.
Speaker: And then when that moment does happen, if it does occur, perfectionism is a myth.
Speaker: It does not exist, right?
Speaker: It's two humans or three humans or whatever entering the room and you're engaging into hopefully a caring conversation about their works, not their worth.
Speaker: And at the end, it's still a student you care about that's exiting that space with you and still someone that hopefully you're willing to follow up and be a resource and a support for later on.
Speaker: Or even a staff member if that happens at the next level up and you're at a conference and you run into each other, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: People grow, people develop, they change.
Speaker: Sometimes the next time you see them, what they've been through will be so formative.
Speaker: They'll be a completely different person in front of you when you next see them.
Speaker: So give them the opportunity to shine.
Speaker: Yeah, I would echo what you said is that it starts with care and ends with care.
Speaker: These can be really difficult conversations.
Speaker: And so you may not be okay afterwards.
Speaker: And so grounding yourself, checking in with yourself, if you're
Speaker: You just let somebody go and they're yelling, hooting, hollering, screaming at you.
Speaker: You may not be okay afterwards and taking some time to take a breath, decompress and document will be something that's really important.
Speaker: But yeah, to anyone that's listening, you're going to do fine.
Speaker: You're going to be okay unless you do way too much, you take it too far and you forget to care about people.
Speaker: And that's typically the way that you all of a sudden aren't okay, either by your institutional standards or emotionally.
Speaker: And so, yeah, lead with care.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: People make mistakes, things happen, we grow, we hopefully make a few less mistakes.
Speaker: It all reminds me of a poem by Pete Hine, who was a Danish polymath, who was, the road to wisdom, well, it's plain and simple to express.
Speaker: Air and air and air again, but less and less and less.
Speaker: And I think about that often as we all try to get better every day and try and help everyone else get better every day.
Speaker: I want to thank Alana, Victor, and Jason for joining us today to talk all things staff accountability.
Speaker: Please do reach out to them and thank them for their insight via their preferred social media contacts listed in the show notes.
Speaker: Typically, staff accountability conversations only happen when there are demerits to issue or when staff performance goes awry, and then it's just playing catch-up to get to a resolution.
Speaker: So I appreciate the candor more abstractly today.
Speaker: I think the lesson here is how value exists in thinking about staff accountability when not facing a situation to fully grasp our personal philosophy and expectations for our staff performance.
Speaker: This was our second feature topic.
Speaker: Be on the lookout for more deep dives into topical areas related to campus housing and housing staff.
Speaker: If you have an idea for a feature topic, send me a quick email at swakuhopodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: At the end of this month is the Swakuho Conference.
Speaker: If you haven't registered yet, there is still time.
Speaker: I've got personal tips for anyone attending their first professional conference.
Speaker: Don't skip the morning on the last day.
Speaker: That's the least attended session because people were out too late the night before.
Speaker: So your presence there will build your visibility political capital and you will get more access to the presenters since less people will be around to take up the valuable Q&A time.
Speaker: And there are seven session blocks, so if you go to six of them, that's about six hours of content, and if each session has three learning outcomes, that's 18 learning outcomes.
Speaker: That's a lot of content to try and synthesize and explain to others.
Speaker: When you leave each session, think about this and only this.
Speaker: What is the one single thing you learned at this session you would share with a colleague who didn't attend?
Speaker: That right there is your fodder to talk about at lunch or the hotel bar as you scheme to network with others.
Speaker: Focus on that one thing instead of trying to break down 50 minutes of content into a five-minute elevator pitch.
Speaker: At the time of this recording, I've only received one submission seeking professional advice.
Speaker: I'd like to believe that means very few people in our region need unfiltered or unbiased advice from a bunch of professional strangers.
Speaker: But remember, the option exists for you to get feedback from housing staff outside your direct echo chamber.
Speaker: Link to ask for advice is in the show notes.
Speaker: And if you consider yourself an overthinker, then our next episode is going to be right up your alley because we are discussing the book Soundtracks, The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by John Acuff.
Speaker: I'll be joined by Jasmine Jennings from Baylor University and Sarah Frick from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Speaker: Together, we will overthink overthinking in campus housing profession while sharing strategies for tempering unproductive overthinking.
Speaker: Even if you only get validation that you aren't the only overthinker in our profession, this episode is for you because we're going to go down so many rabbit holes, it's unbelievable.
Speaker: We're talking committee work, performance evaluations, difficult conversations, and even job searching.
Speaker: I hope you join us for what was sure to be a lively and fun episode.
Speaker: And with that, I say to you, good day.
![027 - 60th Anniversary Reflections | Leanna Payton [Feature Topic]](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=320,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/06c5aca9-3cbf-42bc-8be4-a2294e76736c.png)
