It never ceases to amaze me how fast things can change here at the group home. Staff and kids come and go. It's the nature of the business. I had been spoiled for quite a while. The staff stayed the same for the most part and we had several kids who had been with us for a year or more. Other houses complained about all their problems, but for all my worrying, things were pretty good.
Now it seems like I can barely keep my head above water. Back in late October we began to lose staff. Most by their own choice and for legitimate reasons (moving, going back to school). Soon we got to a point where we were losing staff faster than we could replace them. And the new staff we were getting either couldn't handle the job or didn't even bother to try. Two weeks ago I had a full staff and a full house of kids. Today I have 2 staff besides myself (lost 3) and 3 kids (also lost 3). We also had the first 2 kids run away since October 2004 which was by far a record for this house.
My senior staff has been here just about a month which is the same for the kid who has been here the longest. The house has been unstable for so long with either a kid or a staff leaving every other week since October. I don't even get my Friday/Saturday off anymore and my schedule seems to change daily.
I'm really starting to doubt my abilities as a manager. It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm not the Great and Powerful Oz; I'm better at being the man behind the curtain. If I was better at this could I have trained the staff better and held onto them? Or were they all really that clueless and unable to handle the job? I don't think it's that hard, but maybe that's just me.
No comments:
Post a Comment