Camp Happy Valley

Executive Summary

Camp Happy Valley is a case is about creating a team out of all the staff members and organizing the way the camp does certain procedures. The issues in this case are like a chain that all affect each other. Adam Cameron is appointed as programmer and is responsible for turning the moral at Camp Happy Valley around.

Long term issues involve the inefficient hiring process and the poor training. These issues cannot be fixed right away since it has already been decided that the hiring and training will remain the same this upcoming summer. Short term issues involve finding out a way to boost the staff morale throughout the summer and finding ways to increase the number of staff that returns next summer.

The alternatives included are having more team building exercises during the summer, organizing the hiring process, making the training more fun, and recognizing the staff’s efforts more.

It was recommended to immediately boost staff morale by having super staff set up activities set up every second week for the employees, this would help staff build and maintain relationships with one another. It was also recommended to find ways to keep staff for next summer, such as recognizing their hard work and having them participate more in camp activities instead of just supervising them.

Issues such as the hiring and training process would have to be dealt with later on since it isn’t possible to address these issues this year.

Problem Statement

Adam Cameron, a first year University of Western Ontario student has recently been appointed as a programmer for Camp Happy Valley. Many contributing factors such as poor staff training and last minute hiring has led to poor staff morale which has led to unhappy campers. Adam’s goal is to “turn the camp around”.

Problems/Sub-problems

Camp Happy Valley’s problems start with the unorganized hiring process. Due to not having an organized, efficient way of contacting references of potential staff, Camp Happy Valley ends up losing many potential candidates because they have already accepted another summer job

Another big problem is the training of the super staff and the full staff. Due to factors like last-minute hiring, there is not enough time to train the super staff in all the required workshops. The goals in the training for the full staff is to develop staff skills, familiarize staff with the camp, and to have staff members create relationships with one another. Instead, staff found the training boring and a waste of their time. The fun training such as team building activities were left till the end, at which point staff members were not interested.