Business Solutions: The Responsibilities and Impact of an HR Position

VCNebraska is entering its 14th club season, and has seen tremendous growth in participation. As the number of teams, athletes, and programs have grown, so has the need for qualified staff. Most club directors would agree that the responsibilities that come with hiring, onboarding, and maintaining coaches can be overwhelming: posting and monitoring for openings, responding to applications, setting up interviews, conducting the interviews, acceptance process, onboarding, mentoring, payroll setup, and more. As we’ve seen our coaches jump from 50 to 60 to now over 100 active coaches, Club Director Maggie Griffin quickly realized that the Director of Operations could not handle the load that came with hiring all of these coaches. Lucky for them, VCNebraska has a part-time (1099) coach on staff who has worked as a recruiter and spent time in Human Resources full-time for a tech company in Lincoln, Nebraska. When Maggie suggested the idea of having him come on board in a “staff” role in HR, he was thrilled to help.

They began with a “brain dump” where they discussed all of the responsibilities she wanted him to take the lead on, as well as other ideas she had in the past but hasn’t had the time to tackle. The highest priority was getting the interview process off of the Director of Operations’ plate.

Immediate steps that were identified:

• Meet as a staff to identify and align on the most important characteristics in hiring new coaches
• Create a list of questions to ask interviewees
• Decide when the key hiring periods would be

List of responsibilities:

• Hiring
  • Advertise for new coaches during key times of the season (see below)
    • Maintain LinkedIn page
    • Attend local job fairs / conventions
  • Interview new hires
  • Review current hiring practices and create an easily maintainable and repeatable hiring process
• Onboarding
  • Onboard new hires
  • Create onboarding system
  • Setup new coaches with mentor / shadow coach
  • Organize new coach orientations
• Retention
  • Track coaching retention
  • Help retain coaches
  • Set goals with %
  • Setup a rewards system
  • Coaching engagement/retention via events
    • Organize staff parties / meetings / retreats
• Feedback + Performance Reviews
  • Avenue for upward feedback
    • Google form for anonymous feedback
      • Practice plan
      • Lead coaching feedback
  • Performance reviews
    • Full time employee employment reviews
    • 1099 Employee reviews
      • Check in on new coaches weekly or monthly
  • Exit interview or survey of coaches who have left
• Coaches Handbook and Coaching Directory

This process began in March, and the club…