Camp Happy Valley Case

Camp Happy Valley Case

Trent Scaman

MGMT-1006EL-02

Management of Organizations I

Professor Laughren

10/17/2016

Executive Summary

Camp Happy Valley has been suffering from a lack of staff and camper morale, mostly due to the unorganized recruiting process and the very low staff retention ratio. Sue Johnson, the head director of the camp, has appointed Adam Cameron to be the new Camp Programmer and hopefully bring some new ideas that will help turn the camp around. Adam is faced with a weak recruitment process, a poor organizational culture, a boring staff training week, and low compensation due to the legal exemptions of camps. He has a few alternatives that could swing the camps momentum in a more positive direction. Each alternative focuses on improving the overall morale at the camp. They include starting an advertising campaign to recruit more appropriate staff members, finding a way to increase compensation for the staff, or restructuring the staff training week which was the recommendation made in this case. Through the restructure he should be able to strengthen the overall morale at the camp and help campers receive a more positive camp experience. Hopefully it should also help solve the camps issues and bring the reputation back to where it was, or maybe even improve on it, thus giving staff more motivation to return for following summers. As well this alternative will help Adam prove to Sue that he was the right person for the job and that the camp is definitely prepared to handle the upcoming problems that the future will bring.

Problem Statement

Adam Cameron, who was recently promoted to be the Camp Programmer at Happy Valley, must figure out a way to increase staff and camper morale. The main areas of focus are on the staff recruitment process and the retention of staff for the next summer as only 1 in 4 members are returning each year.

Problems

One of, if not the largest area of concern for Adam should be the recruitment process for the camp. There seems to be several steps that are mandatory before an individual can be offered a position, however there isn’t clear direction or leadership as to who should complete each task. For example when it comes to the interview process of returning staff, there is no clear guidelines to who interviews who and when they should do it. It literally says that interviews are conducted “whenever they have a chance”. This shows a lack of organization and hints that maybe the