Seasonal (first ever) Employee - job description
hi ThinkTankers,
after 17 years of hardcore 100% volunteer powered ebbs and flows, Troy Bike Rescue is poised to take a risk and hire one seasonal staff person (called shop manager at this point, but it could change) to help us increase consistency and accessibility of our workshop space. for us board members and for me as founder and forever volunteer, it feels a little like stepping off a cliff, but the current board is badass and motivated and feeling ready, and I am getting behind it.
Because there is a lot to talk about here, I am writing with the *specific purpose *of soliciting feedback about writing a job description for said position. and I know the think tank will provide. i love and am perpetually amazed at the dialog and community demonstrated on this list.
Things we are thinking about: how can we attract someone with the perfect blend of people and bike skills with a bunch of words in email or facebook or indeed or wherever?
is making a seasonal 'limit' a bad idea? it limits our financial risk, but will also limit the pool of potential applicants.
how can we make a comprehensive and accurate list of job descriptions without overwhelming a potential applicant or basicall saying "your job is to do everything!"?
and etc. etc.
If you have a job description handy that has been successful, maybe you want to paste it into this thread. if you have feedback that doesnt stray too far from some of the questions above, that will be helpful too!
Thanks!! Andrew - Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
ps. we are coming to bikebike NE and two youthshop coordinators are headed to youthbike summit! see yinz there.
Hi Andrew,
How exciting for your organization! Congratulations on this big step. For us, having dedicated staff who we pay for their time has made a big difference in our ability to carry out our mission and function effectively. I'm sharing two documents: one is a list of duties for the Shop Manager. Our current manager has been on staff for over 4 years, so that job description is several years old. We would update it if we were hiring for the position today. So because of that I'm also sending our Mechanic Educator (a position that reports to the Shop Manager) job description, which includes our most current verbiage and will make a better template for filling in the appropriate information and duties.
If there is a possibility of the position continuing beyond the stated term or being re-hired in the next year, I'd include that information. However since seasonality is a common factor in the wider bike industry, I don't think limiting the term is necessarily a deal breaker. While a secure year-round position is desirable, most qualified applicants are aware of this. You may have to find someone new the next time, though; and if your hire is a real gem, I'd do what I could to hang on to them.
With regard to the wide scope of responsibilities for your position, it might help to indicated tasks that are to be completed independently, tasks the person will receive support from board in, and tasks the person is responsible for overseeing, but which can/should be delegated to volunteers.
Good luck :) Genevieve, Reno Bike Project
On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 12:56 PM breathingplanet breathingplanet@gmail.com wrote:
hi ThinkTankers,
after 17 years of hardcore 100% volunteer powered ebbs and flows, Troy Bike Rescue is poised to take a risk and hire one seasonal staff person (called shop manager at this point, but it could change) to help us increase consistency and accessibility of our workshop space. for us board members and for me as founder and forever volunteer, it feels a little like stepping off a cliff, but the current board is badass and motivated and feeling ready, and I am getting behind it.
Because there is a lot to talk about here, I am writing with the *specific purpose *of soliciting feedback about writing a job description for said position. and I know the think tank will provide. i love and am perpetually amazed at the dialog and community demonstrated on this list.
Things we are thinking about: how can we attract someone with the perfect blend of people and bike skills with a bunch of words in email or facebook or indeed or wherever?
is making a seasonal 'limit' a bad idea? it limits our financial risk, but will also limit the pool of potential applicants.
how can we make a comprehensive and accurate list of job descriptions without overwhelming a potential applicant or basicall saying "your job is to do everything!"?
and etc. etc.
If you have a job description handy that has been successful, maybe you want to paste it into this thread. if you have feedback that doesnt stray too far from some of the questions above, that will be helpful too!
Thanks!! Andrew - Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
ps. we are coming to bikebike NE and two youthshop coordinators are headed to youthbike summit! see yinz there.
-- Andrew Lynn Certified Arborist Magai Arboriculture 518-573-7947
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
Hi Troy,
I am currently one of two people filling that role at Kickstand Community Bikes in Vancouver, BC ('Program Coordinator' is the job title we use, and a few of my predecessors are on this list as well!). My colleague and both work 15 hours a week. Here's a link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EYMMKwQvnjg1-jPAvBQEeaM814kqlrhU311YWapnKHE/edit to our job description.
I was an internal applicant (had been volunteering for some time), so I had some idea of what the job entailed. My counterpart was not, but had worked with many other DIY community spaces, and has done great job at jumping in and sussing out priorities. I imagine his experiences in these other organization prepared him, to some extent, for the 'your job is to do everything'-ness of our shop. Further, we've had predecessors who've done an excellent job of 'defining' the role, and served as resources for training and institutional memory. It has been an evolution, but I think right now we have a fairly good balance that keeps the spirit and form of a volunteer organization, without burning out our volunteers on thankless tasks (banking, etc.).
One difference between my position and the one that I think you're hiring for, is that I am not paid to work in the shop. When I'm on shift, I'm still a volunteer. While this does mean that we still have to close occasionally, having coordinators to send schedule reminders, run regular volunteer orientations, train keyholders, and notify the public when we're closed has definitely helped our shop's accessibility. As it stands, we're overflowing with keen folks. 500 volunteer hours in January alone! And lots of new volunteers taking on big projects (like building a custom POS system for us! Grant writing!)
As for the seasonal limit, I think listing a contract (i.e. 6 months) with the possibility of extension is completely acceptable. We've traditionally limited our Program Coordinator position to 1 year to prevent them (us) from becoming the de facto bosses by virtue of too much institutional memory in one person.
Alysia
*Kickstand Community Bikes* 1739 Venables Street, Vancouver, BC, V5L 2H3 https://goo.gl/maps/5HK3GtdanMv Entrance on the north side of the building. *Hours of Operation* M • W • F: 5pm to 9pm Sunday: 1pm to 5pm WGQT Night: 2nd & 4th Tuesday of the month, 6:30-8:30pm
kickstandbikes@gmail.com eastvankickstand.org
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Eastvan.Kickstand • Twitter https://twitter.com/kickstandbikes • Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kickstandcommunitybikes/
On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 12:56 PM breathingplanet breathingplanet@gmail.com wrote:
hi ThinkTankers,
after 17 years of hardcore 100% volunteer powered ebbs and flows, Troy Bike Rescue is poised to take a risk and hire one seasonal staff person (called shop manager at this point, but it could change) to help us increase consistency and accessibility of our workshop space. for us board members and for me as founder and forever volunteer, it feels a little like stepping off a cliff, but the current board is badass and motivated and feeling ready, and I am getting behind it.
Because there is a lot to talk about here, I am writing with the *specific purpose *of soliciting feedback about writing a job description for said position. and I know the think tank will provide. i love and am perpetually amazed at the dialog and community demonstrated on this list.
Things we are thinking about: how can we attract someone with the perfect blend of people and bike skills with a bunch of words in email or facebook or indeed or wherever?
is making a seasonal 'limit' a bad idea? it limits our financial risk, but will also limit the pool of potential applicants.
how can we make a comprehensive and accurate list of job descriptions without overwhelming a potential applicant or basicall saying "your job is to do everything!"?
and etc. etc.
If you have a job description handy that has been successful, maybe you want to paste it into this thread. if you have feedback that doesnt stray too far from some of the questions above, that will be helpful too!
Thanks!! Andrew - Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
ps. we are coming to bikebike NE and two youthshop coordinators are headed to youthbike summit! see yinz there.
-- Andrew Lynn Certified Arborist Magai Arboriculture 518-573-7947
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
Hi Andrew!
So exciting!
I'm including my giant collection of job descriptions her as an attachment.
Aside from the sprawling detail of everything, that I could go into but won't, (you're all very welcome) the one thing I would like to talk about is the seasonal aspect.
We hired our shop mechanic, Tara, as a seasonal employee, and then we just kind of didn't set a cutoff date, and I don't regret it. Being up here in NY means Winters are slow for bicycle endeavors -but- during the busy season the todo list builds and builds. It was our plan from the beginning to use Winters as shop development time, to take care of the monumental tasks having to help dozens of participants each week wouldn't allow for. Originally I and one other person with only 5hrs per week were going to be the only ones on staff over Winter, but having Tara around at no decreased hours has been incredibly valuable.
We also have not decreased shop hours for the same reasons. On days when we are open but nobody comes in, we just do shop work. In the Spring we hope to sell a hundred bikes or so that we've repaired, and that will be a huge fundraiser for us.
Also I do worry about not being able to get the employee back if we let them go. Part of the reason behind paying someone is to give them a reason to stay.
Another thing - I don't think it's possible to have too much institutional memory in any one person, only to not have enough in others. The more knowledge about how to run your shop, the better. I think the problem comes when there is no documentation, at the very least in the form of an articulate job description, if not a shop constitution or whatever.
Documentation is something that we all need, that generally offsets the "only I hold the secret magic" aspect I think Alysia is concerned about. If anyone can review the procedures, anyone qualified can perform the role.
Andrew, when we created our various job descriptions, I had tremendous trepidation. I got writer's block almost immediately, it seems like a huge cliff to step off and that I had to account for every contingency possible when creating the document. Eventually I just read a bunch of other job descriptions and plagiarized the crap out of several. It gave me something to work from and it was a lot easier to edit other work than imagine a perfect document from scratch. What we came up with (it wasn't only me working on it) is in the RIBs folder of the attached archive.
I know I probably said a bunch of this when I visited you guys awhile back, so I apologize if I've ended up repeating myself.
cyclista Nicholas
On 2019-02-07 20:56, breathingplanet wrote:
hi ThinkTankers,
after 17 years of hardcore 100% volunteer powered ebbs and flows, Troy Bike Rescue is poised to take a risk and hire one seasonal staff person (called shop manager at this point, but it could change) to help us increase consistency and accessibility of our workshop space. for us board members and for me as founder and forever volunteer, it feels a little like stepping off a cliff, but the current board is badass and motivated and feeling ready, and I am getting behind it.
Because there is a lot to talk about here, I am writing with the *specific purpose *of soliciting feedback about writing a job description for said position. and I know the think tank will provide. i love and am perpetually amazed at the dialog and community demonstrated on this list.
Things we are thinking about: how can we attract someone with the perfect blend of people and bike skills with a bunch of words in email or facebook or indeed or wherever?
is making a seasonal 'limit' a bad idea? it limits our financial risk, but will also limit the pool of potential applicants.
how can we make a comprehensive and accurate list of job descriptions without overwhelming a potential applicant or basicall saying "your job is to do everything!"?
and etc. etc.
If you have a job description handy that has been successful, maybe you want to paste it into this thread. if you have feedback that doesnt stray too far from some of the questions above, that will be helpful too!
Thanks!! Andrew - Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
ps. we are coming to bikebike NE and two youthshop coordinators are headed to youthbike summit! see yinz there.
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
It might also be useful to hear where we advertised:
-Here -On the local Human Services listserv -at a local university mailing list (they have several programs for interacting with the community) -flyers posted all around town, including social services hubs like DSS and Catholic Services, colleges/universities at our parent organization which is a community center, and even random posting boards at coffee shops
In the end the person we went with is someone who probably saw none of these postings, and was someone my co-director had met through his social network :/
She was also easily the most qualified among the dozen or more people we interviewed, and we did two rounds of interviews and really took our time. So go figure.
cyclista Nicholas
On 2019-02-08 08:50, Cyclista Nicholas wrote:
Hi Andrew!
So exciting!
I'm including my giant collection of job descriptions her as an attachment.
Aside from the sprawling detail of everything, that I could go into but won't, (you're all very welcome) the one thing I would like to talk about is the seasonal aspect.
We hired our shop mechanic, Tara, as a seasonal employee, and then we just kind of didn't set a cutoff date, and I don't regret it. Being up here in NY means Winters are slow for bicycle endeavors -but- during the busy season the todo list builds and builds. It was our plan from the beginning to use Winters as shop development time, to take care of the monumental tasks having to help dozens of participants each week wouldn't allow for. Originally I and one other person with only 5hrs per week were going to be the only ones on staff over Winter, but having Tara around at no decreased hours has been incredibly valuable.
We also have not decreased shop hours for the same reasons. On days when we are open but nobody comes in, we just do shop work. In the Spring we hope to sell a hundred bikes or so that we've repaired, and that will be a huge fundraiser for us.
Also I do worry about not being able to get the employee back if we let them go. Part of the reason behind paying someone is to give them a reason to stay.
Another thing - I don't think it's possible to have too much institutional memory in any one person, only to not have enough in others. The more knowledge about how to run your shop, the better. I think the problem comes when there is no documentation, at the very least in the form of an articulate job description, if not a shop constitution or whatever.
Documentation is something that we all need, that generally offsets the "only I hold the secret magic" aspect I think Alysia is concerned about. If anyone can review the procedures, anyone qualified can perform the role.
Andrew, when we created our various job descriptions, I had tremendous trepidation. I got writer's block almost immediately, it seems like a huge cliff to step off and that I had to account for every contingency possible when creating the document. Eventually I just read a bunch of other job descriptions and plagiarized the crap out of several. It gave me something to work from and it was a lot easier to edit other work than imagine a perfect document from scratch. What we came up with (it wasn't only me working on it) is in the RIBs folder of the attached archive.
I know I probably said a bunch of this when I visited you guys awhile back, so I apologize if I've ended up repeating myself.
cyclista Nicholas
On 2019-02-07 20:56, breathingplanet wrote:
hi ThinkTankers,
after 17 years of hardcore 100% volunteer powered ebbs and flows, Troy Bike Rescue is poised to take a risk and hire one seasonal staff person (called shop manager at this point, but it could change) to help us increase consistency and accessibility of our workshop space. for us board members and for me as founder and forever volunteer, it feels a little like stepping off a cliff, but the current board is badass and motivated and feeling ready, and I am getting behind it.
Because there is a lot to talk about here, I am writing with the *specific purpose *of soliciting feedback about writing a job description for said position. and I know the think tank will provide. i love and am perpetually amazed at the dialog and community demonstrated on this list.
Things we are thinking about: how can we attract someone with the perfect blend of people and bike skills with a bunch of words in email or facebook or indeed or wherever?
is making a seasonal 'limit' a bad idea? it limits our financial risk, but will also limit the pool of potential applicants.
how can we make a comprehensive and accurate list of job descriptions without overwhelming a potential applicant or basicall saying "your job is to do everything!"?
and etc. etc.
If you have a job description handy that has been successful, maybe you want to paste it into this thread. if you have feedback that doesnt stray too far from some of the questions above, that will be helpful too!
Thanks!! Andrew - Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
ps. we are coming to bikebike NE and two youthshop coordinators are headed to youthbike summit! see yinz there.
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
All the best, Andrew. Say Hello to Dakota and all the rest. Plugging along here at 3rd Ward BikeShop
On Fri, Feb 8, 2019, 03:39 Cyclista Nicholas cyclista@inventati.org wrote:
It might also be useful to hear where we advertised:
-Here -On the local Human Services listserv -at a local university mailing list (they have several programs for interacting with the community) -flyers posted all around town, including social services hubs like DSS and Catholic Services, colleges/universities at our parent organization which is a community center, and even random posting boards at coffee shops
In the end the person we went with is someone who probably saw none of these postings, and was someone my co-director had met through his social network :/
She was also easily the most qualified among the dozen or more people we interviewed, and we did two rounds of interviews and really took our time. So go figure.
cyclista Nicholas
On 2019-02-08 08:50, Cyclista Nicholas wrote:
Hi Andrew!
So exciting!
I'm including my giant collection of job descriptions her as an attachment.
Aside from the sprawling detail of everything, that I could go into but won't, (you're all very welcome) the one thing I would like to talk about is the seasonal aspect.
We hired our shop mechanic, Tara, as a seasonal employee, and then we just kind of didn't set a cutoff date, and I don't regret it. Being up here in NY means Winters are slow for bicycle endeavors -but- during the busy season the todo list builds and builds. It was our plan from the beginning to use Winters as shop development time, to take care of the monumental tasks having to help dozens of participants each week wouldn't allow for. Originally I and one other person with only 5hrs per week were going to be the only ones on staff over Winter, but having Tara around at no decreased hours has been incredibly valuable.
We also have not decreased shop hours for the same reasons. On days when we are open but nobody comes in, we just do shop work. In the Spring we hope to sell a hundred bikes or so that we've repaired, and that will be a huge fundraiser for us.
Also I do worry about not being able to get the employee back if we let them go. Part of the reason behind paying someone is to give them a reason to stay.
Another thing - I don't think it's possible to have too much institutional memory in any one person, only to not have enough in others. The more knowledge about how to run your shop, the better. I think the problem comes when there is no documentation, at the very least in the form of an articulate job description, if not a shop constitution or whatever.
Documentation is something that we all need, that generally offsets the "only I hold the secret magic" aspect I think Alysia is concerned about. If anyone can review the procedures, anyone qualified can perform the role.
Andrew, when we created our various job descriptions, I had tremendous trepidation. I got writer's block almost immediately, it seems like a huge cliff to step off and that I had to account for every contingency possible when creating the document. Eventually I just read a bunch of other job descriptions and plagiarized the crap out of several. It gave me something to work from and it was a lot easier to edit other work than imagine a perfect document from scratch. What we came up with (it wasn't only me working on it) is in the RIBs folder of the attached archive.
I know I probably said a bunch of this when I visited you guys awhile back, so I apologize if I've ended up repeating myself.
cyclista Nicholas
On 2019-02-07 20:56, breathingplanet wrote:
hi ThinkTankers,
after 17 years of hardcore 100% volunteer powered ebbs and flows, Troy Bike Rescue is poised to take a risk and hire one seasonal staff person (called shop manager at this point, but it could change) to help us increase consistency and accessibility of our workshop space. for us board members and for me as founder and forever volunteer, it feels a little like stepping off a cliff, but the current board is badass and motivated and feeling ready, and I am getting behind it.
Because there is a lot to talk about here, I am writing with the *specific purpose *of soliciting feedback about writing a job description for said position. and I know the think tank will provide. i love and am perpetually amazed at the dialog and community demonstrated on this list.
Things we are thinking about: how can we attract someone with the perfect blend of people and bike skills with a bunch of words in email or facebook or indeed or wherever?
is making a seasonal 'limit' a bad idea? it limits our financial risk, but will also limit the pool of potential applicants.
how can we make a comprehensive and accurate list of job descriptions without overwhelming a potential applicant or basicall saying "your job is to do everything!"?
and etc. etc.
If you have a job description handy that has been successful, maybe you want to paste it into this thread. if you have feedback that doesnt stray too far from some of the questions above, that will be helpful too!
Thanks!! Andrew - Troy Bike Rescue Troy, NY
ps. we are coming to bikebike NE and two youthshop coordinators are headed to youthbike summit! see yinz there.
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here:
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here:
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or... ____________________________________
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
participants (5)
-
breathingplanet -
Cyclista Nicholas -
General Manager -
Kickstand -
Reno Bike Project