Thursday, January 20, 2011
Rigidity
Now that I no longer have a job, I have agreed to assist a friend who works in an art based day program. She is a staff person whose job description apparently includes having some wood working skills since she is the sculpture teacher. She doesn't need to be a cabinet maker, but just have some basic skills in case a client shows an interest in working with wood as a sculpture medium.
The problem is, she has absolutely no interest in wood working. None. Nada. Apparently no client has been knocking down the door to work with wood, either... but since its in the job description, she has to learn the skills in order to keep her job.
I have volunteered to go in to teach her some basics and she keeps resisting and complaining. There is one of her co-workers, though, who is dying to learn the skills and she also sits in on the lessons.
My question is: Why does my friend have to learn skills that she has no interest in when there is another very capable staff member who really wants to learn the skills?
I understand that it is in my friend's job description... but it is a pretty minor part of her job, and she really has no interest in that part.
If one of my supervisors in my old program had this dilemma, I would suggest to the supervisor that in some circumstances, we focus on each staff person's special talents, skills and interests... no matter what some job description says.
Please understand that I am talking about this one situation, and you certainly can't just let staff only do the parts of the job that they enjoy. If that were the case, no client would ever receive personal care (changing) during the day and no one would ever work with the behaviorally challenged clients. I get that.
But in some situations, being so rigid that we make our staff people dread coming to work each day, just doesn't make any sense to me. Is it really worth losing an otherwise valuable staff person just so we make sure that we follow the written job description in a situation like this?
The problem is, she has absolutely no interest in wood working. None. Nada. Apparently no client has been knocking down the door to work with wood, either... but since its in the job description, she has to learn the skills in order to keep her job.
I have volunteered to go in to teach her some basics and she keeps resisting and complaining. There is one of her co-workers, though, who is dying to learn the skills and she also sits in on the lessons.
My question is: Why does my friend have to learn skills that she has no interest in when there is another very capable staff member who really wants to learn the skills?
I understand that it is in my friend's job description... but it is a pretty minor part of her job, and she really has no interest in that part.
If one of my supervisors in my old program had this dilemma, I would suggest to the supervisor that in some circumstances, we focus on each staff person's special talents, skills and interests... no matter what some job description says.
Please understand that I am talking about this one situation, and you certainly can't just let staff only do the parts of the job that they enjoy. If that were the case, no client would ever receive personal care (changing) during the day and no one would ever work with the behaviorally challenged clients. I get that.
But in some situations, being so rigid that we make our staff people dread coming to work each day, just doesn't make any sense to me. Is it really worth losing an otherwise valuable staff person just so we make sure that we follow the written job description in a situation like this?
