SportsField Management, February 2018

Taking a group of staff members on a field tour provides a forum for discussion FEBRUARY 2018 SportsFieldManagementMagazine com 17 Repetition works Skills practiced over and over become ingrained sooner than those practiced sporadically Develop a retraining program on all the basics at the start of the spring season not just for your seasonal employees but for your entire staff Use all available resources Local regional or national conferences and seminars can provide training and or continuing education for staff members from the least to the most experienced Check out the program offerings to determine which personnel would benefit most from specific sessions and schedule as many attendees as your budget will allow Split up your staff to cover as many relevant sessions as possible and arrange for attendees to give a report on their sessions to your entire staff Follow a similar procedure for turfgrass field days determining from the format whether your staff will gain more by viewing in the field demonstrations and or turf plots individually or as a group Often with these programs interaction within your staff in response to what they are seeing and hearing can be almost as valuable as the formal presentations Arrange in house training sessions with your own experienced personnel serving as the presenters for specific skill sets or operational procedures Use small problems as opportunities for impromptu training on how to resolve that issue Provide opportunities Youve hired intelligent people expect them to have some ideas of their own Give them the opportunity to try something they believe will work There are many paths to the same goal and even the best techniques may benefit from fine tuning Youll both learn from the experience Develop a program for cross training that will enable your staff to learn new skill sets and perhaps lead to career advancement Set the qualifications required to take part in the training and a timetable for completing it Create STEVE TRUSTY opportunities for the employees taking part in cross training to put their new skills to work Teach management strategies Identify those with the interest and ability to move into a management position and develop a program to train them to interact appropriately with the facility or operations management staff coaches and players and other field users suppliers the media and the public Make time to share your personnel management procedures and your turfgrass management program digging into the why as well as the how Encourage As staff members apply the skills theyre learning look for opportunities to praise them for doing something right This builds their skills and their confidence level Acknowledge small milestones sports field management is a combination of art and science and learning takes time Praise in public correct in private Attitude matters Help your staff learn that there always will be circumstances you cant change but its always possible to change the attitude with which you view those circumstances Train your staff to approach problems as opportunities to explore solutions rather than insurmountable obstacles Welcome feedback Invite employee feedback on the training theyve received Find out what parts of the training process worked well for them and why they felt it was effective Be equally open to hear why some segments of the training didnt work for them why they felt that happened and what they would suggest to improve it Ask what training they have not received that theyd like added to your training program and what that training would help them accomplish Encourage them to rate the instructors including you and what it was about that individuals training methods or delivery style that warranted that ranking Continually update your training program Conduct your own training program evaluation Review what training was provided when it was provided who conducted the training and how that training was reflected in employee performance Determine if the results met your expectations and what you could incorporate into the training to make it more efficient and effective Make those adaptations to fine tune your training program SUZ TRUSTY of Trusty Associates is a strong supporter of athletic field managers and always on the lookout for article ideas She can be reached at suz@ trusty bz BACK TO BASICS A year long series of advice from the experts Next Up Look for our next Back to Basics article to cover Turf Varieties 101