During my session at TOSEE 2023 on the topic, Understanding Your Role as a Support Staff in a School Environment, , I emphasised the need to treat the cleaning staff very well, to boost their morale on their job.
You see, this group of workers usually have a low self-esteem and have a way of regarding their job as menial and not too important in school system, which is very far from the truth.
Whenever I take on a new school administrator role, I like to find out how the cleaning staff like to be addressed. Usually, we would refer to them as the janitorial staff, environmental staff or sanitation staff.
I’ll never forget an experience I had in one of the schools where I was an administrator.
We were taking photographs for the Yearbook, and I took pictures with the staff in every section and department in the school. Since it was cluster of three schools, I had to be in the early years section, primary school, and then the secondary school. Then I had a photo session with the senior leadership team, the different departments, core admin team, boarding house staff, and so on. I realised that two departments were omitted from the pictures schedule - the security department and the cleaning unit.
I immediately asked the admin officer to coordinate these two departments each for a group picture with me and the senior leadership team. The cleaning team seemed particularly happy to have taken that picture and I didn’t realise how much this meant to them until the next day. Apparently, they had never had pictures taken of them for the yearbook.
The following day, I was informed by the front desk officer that a few members of the sanitation department wanted to see me, and this was just before noon. They came with two bottles of groundnuts to say thank you to me for the ‘kind gesture’ of the pictures with them yesterday. One of hem knelt down to present the groundnuts to me on behalf of her colleagues.
Honestly, I was really touched and embarrassed at the same time! I got teary at this. They told me it was the first time any administrator in the school had taken pictures with them, and that it meant a lot to them. And that it showed I had a kind heart.
I asked them to get up immediately and that I was only doing my job. My job required that I take pictures with everyone, and it had nothing to do with a kind heart or not. They had a right to appear in the Year book as much as every other member of the team.
I made them to understand that I had a job because they existed, and that without them, the school would not function well at all. I urged them to treat their positions with a sense of significance, ensuring them that they had my support to perform well on their positions for the growth of the school.
They left my office with a new spring to their steps.
And this got me thinking because I couldn’t wrap my had around why some school administrators treat junior staff the way they do.
Why were the members of the cleaning team never featured in the School yearbook before my tenure?
What did others think of them in a school system that made them not to want to include them in the pictures for the yearbook?
How did they fell all these years when they were totally ignored or excluded from most things that went on, except to be called to serve others? How did that affect their morale on the job?
And now, I’ll throw these questions at you, dear school owner or administrator.
How do you refer to the cleaning staff and other junior workers in your organisation? What name do you call them?
Very importantly, how is your attitude towards them?
Do you have job descriptions and a performance system in place for them?
Do they undergo a proper onboarding to be integrated into your school system?
Do they know how important their jobs are as it relates to the rest of the school and the school’s image and growth?
Do you train them?
Have you stopped to ponder that these people play an integral part in your school’s admission process, considering that prospective parents always want to check out your school’s toilets before enrolling their children?
Are these staff aware that they are a part of the admission process and can make or mar a parents decision to enrol their children at your school just by the way they keep the school surroundings and toilets clean?
I urge you to please treat them well and make them feel like an integral part of your school.
T for thanks!
Do you need in-house training for the non-academic staff of your school? Admin and management-related training sessions?
Then reach out to my team at Pezu Smith Consulting using the email info@nancyekpezu.com and copy pezusmithconsulting@gmail.com. Or reach out via WhatsApp at +234-8035880367. We will be delighted to work with you in-person or virtually.
In the other news, you can register fro my training on boarding house administration using the link: https://forms.gle/bCddH8KsywoFqeTBA.