Want to keep part-time and seasonal
employees motivated?

Offer them some benefits!

by
Lisa Stevens

Are you having problems with staff turnover? Are you offering good salaries but nothing else? Maybe you should consider putting together a part-time benefit package for your employees.

Now that the idea is forming in your mind, where do you go from there? Well, putting together such a package is not an easy task, especially if you work for a park district. There are many part-time employees ranging from the recreation staff to the maintenance staff to seasonal workers and special event workers. If you put through a benefits program it must encompass all your part-time staff throughout the park district.

The first thing you must do is define what constitutes a part-time employee. Give guidelines as to which employees fall into the part-time category for which you will provide benefits. An example of such a definition is:

"A regular part-time employee is an employee of the district who regularly works more than six months a year, but less than the applicable normal departmental work load."

After you define which employees are entitled, state what benefits are available. In order to do this you must research and/ or survey as to what your part-time employees are looking for in terms of benefits. Do they want medical benefits, or just paid days off from work? Here is a list of possible benefits you can offer:

Direct Subsidy Benefits

Direct subsidy benefits include medical insurance, dental insurance, reimbursement for prescription medicine, life insurance, vision and hearing care, short-term disability, long-term disability, retirement plan, profit sharing, annuities, legal services, tuition reimbursement, dues for professional organizations and conference fees, and cash bonuses for birthdays, holidays and the end of the year.

Indirect Subsidy Benefits

Indirect subsidy benefits include paid holidays, vacations and sick leave; personal days off for family illness, family commitments; "mental health days"; celebrations and parties at work; maternity and paternity leave; child care; and gifts.

Intangible Benefits

Intangible benefits include flexible time schedule, job sharing, breaks during the work day, and sabbaticals or unpaid time off.

After listing what benefits are available, you must check your budget to see which are feasible. Not every park district can afford to offer a major medical plan for part-time employees.

After deciding what will be offered, decide how these will be offered. Will you compensate an employee who works 25 hours per week the same as the one who works only five hours? You might consider when offering, for example, a program discount on classes, or formulating a percentage plan such as this:

Average Hours Worked Per Week	Discount
2-5	10%
6-10	25%
11-15	35%
16-20	45%
21-25	55%
26-30	65%
31-34	75%

In this way you are valuing the amount of time an employee puts in per week. Other ideas for benefits might include issuing coupons for facility use.

For temporary or seasonal employees, first define what constitutes such employees: "A temporary or seasonal employee is a person who is employed by the district for a certain length of time, but less than six months per year."

Offer the benefits the same as mentioned here, but limit it only during the season of employment. For instance, your summer camp staff can take advantage of benefits while doing camp but during the regular school year when they are not employed, the benefits cannot be enforced.

Employee identification cards can be issued for part-time employees to show proof of employment at various facilities. These cards can be made the same as swim passes and should be turned in with keys or other items upon termination or leave of employment.

These benefits can be incorporated into the part-time employee manual and be issued to all part-time and seasonal employees. It can also be made part of all entry-level training sessions.

Keeping staff motivated, enthusiastic and happy is not an easy job. Money might not always be the key to high morale. The little extras such as good supplies and equipment, communication and input, flexibility of work hours and employee's family responsibilities are all excellent ways to keep staff happy. Offering benefits that usually only accompany full-time status is a good way to express the park district's value of part-time employees. Supervisors and superintendents can't run the park district alone. Part-time staff is a crucial part of the team, and by providing benefits you can let them know this.

About the Author

Lisa Stevens is the Pre-school/Special Events Supervisor/or the Park Ridge Park District.