Creating and maintaining an effective life saving team requires developing a clear mission and strategic plan, building the right team through careful hiring and onboarding, and keeping the team motivated through performance management, continuing education, and people enrichment. Key aspects include writing detailed job descriptions; conducting structured interviews; providing a thorough orientation; setting specific, measurable performance objectives; giving regular feedback and reviews; supporting training and certification; and organizing social activities to foster communication. The overall goal is to attract, develop, and retain a cohesive team aligned with and working to achieve the organization's mission.

1. Creating/Keeping a
Great Life Saving
Team

2. Creating and Keeping a
Great Life Saving Team
Mission/Strategy
Looking for a New Employee or Volunteer:
Job Descriptions, Interview and Hiring
Onboarding New Volunteers/Staff Members
Performance Management and Development
Continuing Education
People Need Enrichment, Too

3. 3
Keeping the Team

4. For Starters –
What is Your Big Picture?
What is Your Mission?
Do You Have a Strategic Plan?
What Are Your Strategies to Accomplish
Your Mission/ Strategic Plan?

5. Strategies vs. Tactics
- Strategy: What we need to do to get
what we want.
- Tactics: What are the specific actions
(programs, projects, initiatives,
campaigns, events, etc.) that your
division will take to implement its
strategies? (These action statements
should describe what, why, how, who,
when, where and how much.)

6. Building the Team
Your team
and what positions
you have,
be it staff or
volunteers,
are all tactics
to achieve
your goals!

7. Building the Team
Job Descriptions:
Know what duties you are
looking to be handled:
-What type of competencies
are required for this position?
Understand what values you
require in a new employee
Makethis process a priority!
Decide where you want to look

8. Building the Team
Job Descriptions:
• List only primary responsibilities
(what they need to do on a regular
basis) for benefit of new applicant
and hired staff/volunteer:
• Let other duties as assigned catch the rest.
• Make sure you communicate
requirements that fit the need of
your organization and the position
hired:
– If needed for nights and weekends, put
it on there
– If it is manual labor heavy, put it on
there, etc.
• The Job Description should always
be a reference point/priority tool
for what someone should be doing
day to day.

9. Building the Team
Interview Process:
- What is your process?
- It should be a priority
- Screen for the basics over the phone
first for time purposes
- Single or panel interviews, what is the
difference?
- Working interviews
- Questions
- Make sure they reflect competencies of
the job
- Ensure they reflect your values for an
employee
- Same questions for applicants applying
for the same jobs
- Illegal vs. legal
- Let them ask questions

10. Building the Team
Interview Process:
- Roles:
- Who is doing the
interviews?
- Who is the decision
maker?
- Do I need others
involved?
- What is the role of the
others?
- Managing expectations

11. Building the Team
Building accountability for interviewer and
interview team, along with the interviewee,
through the process is a win/win

12. Keeping the Team
Onboarding Process:
- Good orientation on the group/organization for
employee or volunteer coming on board:
- How do they fit into the mission?
- What are the group or the organization’s core
values?
- Review of key handbook points for those who
have staff or key areas of need for volunteer
leader:
- Places where other staff may have struggled
- Code of conduct/pet peeves for groups
- Pay frequencies and time off for staff
- Review JD and perform performance objectives

13. 13
Keeping the Team

16. Keeping the Team: Setting Performance
Objectives – Why Is It So Important?
• Drives individual employee results
toward the achievement of mission
• Sets/clarifies expectations for
performance
• Enables organization to achieve our
strategy
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound
Organizational Strategic
Objectives
Division/Department Objectives
Individual Performance
Objectives

17. Keeping the Team:
Communication - RACI and Project Management
RACI Charts help a project team be more
effective or projects that may, for example, be
part of the tactics of how we implement our
strategies. RACI stands for:
• R = Responsible - main person who is
responsible for getting the project outcome
achieved
• A = Accountable - person who is ultimately
answerable for the proper and complete
achievement of the project outcome
• C = Consulted - the people whose input is
sought
• I = Informed - the people who are kept up-
to-date on the status of the project

18. Keeping the Team:
Performance Management - Reviews
Reviews are important for the organization and
staff when built around communication,
expectations and accountability
1. List the Primary Responsibilities, Performance
Objectives and Measures of Success agreed upon at
the beginning of the review period.
2. Summarize WHAT the employee accomplished
against (a) Performance Objectives & (b) Primary Job
Responsibilities. Consider:
– Results attained versus expectations
– Contributions made
– Value added results
– Results that went beyond expectations or fell
below expectations
– Quantifiable results
– Account for results over the entire period
– Use your STAR documentation
3. Determine a rating for each section by comparing
what the employee accomplished vs. the Measures of
Success.

19. Keeping the Team: Performance Management -
Performance Documentation
• Good?
– Specific, factual, clear, objective, quantitative, behaviors
exhibited, actions taken, results achieved or not achieved
• Poor?
– Broad, ambiguous, vague, feelings, subjective, easily
misinterpreted
• STAR Technique:
– Situation
– Task
– Action
– Result
• Capture both Results and Behavior in your documentation

20. Keeping the Team:
Mid- Year Review
• This is an informal discussion
about performance (year to
date) between the employee
and their manager
• To ensure employee feedback
is given and there are ‘no
surprises’ at year end
• Mid-Cycle Review:
– Brief review done in July
– Use section in Objectives Form
to summarize notes
– No final rating given

21. Keeping the Team:
Continuing Education
• Conferences
• Certifications
• Workshops
• Idea exchanges
• Classes
What is the benefit?

22. Continuing Education:
People Enrichment
Employee/Volunteer Enrichment will attract, retain and
motivate your team
• Hackman and Oldham identified five factors of job design
that typically contribute to people's enjoyment of a job:
– Skill Variety – Increasing the number of skills that individuals
use while performing work.
– Task Identity – Enabling people to perform a job from start to
finish.
– Task Significance – Providing work that has a direct impact on
the organization or its stakeholders.
– Autonomy – Increasing the degree of decision making, and
the freedom to choose how and when work is done.
– Feedback – Increasing the amount of recognition for doing a
job well, and communicate the results of people's work.
• Talk about the tough things and keep up the
communication: social media outbursts, pets we have lost
• Staff and volunteer events/parties

23. Marc Peralta
Executive Director
Best Friends Animal Society -Los Angeles
marcp@bestfriends.org
Questions?