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Naomi Heindel, Executive Director of North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vt. naomi@northbranchnaturecenter.org

Nikolas Katrick, Executive Director of The Nature Museum in Grafton, Vt. nikolas@nature-museum.org

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Did you look at combining sick and annual into just a leave section where the employee gets to decide when they need to take leave?  Gives more flexibility and reduced the calling in sick to use up their time. 

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Did you look at combining sick and annual into just a leave section where the employee gets to decide when they need to take leave?  Gives more flexibility and reduced the calling in sick to use up their time. 

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Putting Staff First: Personnel Policy Overhaul

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Putting Staff First: Personnel Policy Overhaul

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Naomi Heindel, Executive Director of North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vt.
Nikolas Katrick, Executive Director of The Nature Museum in Grafton, Vt.
At the 2022 ANCA Annual Summit, we met and discovered that we were both new Executive Directors of small nature centers in Vermont - and that we were both in the midst of personnel policy and benefits overhauls. We decided to stay in touch, shared our revised policies with each other, and then co-presented a facilitated discussion on the topic at the 2023 ANCA Annual Summit. For both of us, this process of overhauling our personnel policies and benefits has been about putting staff first. We're excited to share our process and guiding principles here and hope that other nature center leaders will undertake this important work to support their staff.
Naomi: I became Executive Director of North Branch Nature Center (NBNC) in 2022, following in the footsteps of NBNC's founding director. The organization has grown a lot in its 26 years, and now has a staff of almost 20 and a budget of over $1 million. I found that our personnel policies and employee benefits, however, hadn't grown up in parallel. Together with an HR Committee and HR Consultant, I spent a good part of my first year diving in deep to bring NBNC's policies and benefits up to speed. Nick: When I was hired as the Executive Director of The Nature Museum (TNM) in 2021, we already had a professionally written and reviewed employee handbook - but the pandemic was a catalyst for many changes at our small organization (annual budget of ~$300,000). In 2022, our HR Committee and I looked at PTO policies to make room for Covid-19 related leave, but expanded our work to make several other small, but important changes to our employee handbook.
Five Principles for the Process

When revising personnel policies at our respective organizations, five principles guided our process.

1. Provide structure and clarity in order to support staff

When we work at small, community-oriented organizations, it's easy to think we don't need structure or policies, that we can keep things unwritten and casual. As the NBNC personnel policy grew longer, Naomi worried that lengthening the policy was unnecessary, overdone, or risked making NBNC feel corporate. Actually, staff need structure and clarity to feel supported. One newer staff member specifically said that having all the policies written down reinforced boundaries, provided safety and security in her job, and meant that subjective interpretation, usually honed after decades at a job, wasn't required for understanding basic things like how time off worked.

2. Support diversity among staff

Nature centers celebrate and teach about the resilience, power, and beauty of diversity in the surrounding world on a daily basis. Modeling those values has to start from within. An employee handbook is among the first documents a new employee receives; making sure those employees are appreciated, acknowledged, and their needs accommodated sends a clear signal about their value in the organization. First and foremost, consider gender-inclusive language in the handbook. "He and/or she" is outdated and doesn't reflect actual gender diversity in our populations. Using "they/them" is a great first step, though there are other options as well.

Non-discrimination statements indicate that your organization is serious about inclusivity. Look to federal and state regulations for what's required, but if they are lacking, consider statements from organizations you trust and have a good track record for supporting diversity. Similarly, you may have state regulations around minimum parental and family leave, including accommodations for lactating parents. Also consider your policy around holidays. TNM decided to give staff the choice of when to take their compensated holidays (12 for full-time, 8 for part-time). This does involve an extra step of discussing schedules with supervisors, but it gives flexibility for staff to take holidays that work with their traditions, schedule, and family.

3. Build appreciation and gratitude for staff into language and practice

Staff are often the lifeblood of an organization. Their work culture, skills, interests, and countless hours of effort drive forward organizational missions. Recognizing those efforts isn't just nice - it's essential. Too often, nonprofit culture encourages overworking, inappropriate volunteerism, and burnout as a badge of honor. The only way to counter these physically, emotionally, and organizationally destructive behaviors is to steer the other direction with intention and action.

TNM now gives full-time employees 15-20 vacation days, 10 sick days, and 12 flexible holidays per year, in addition to a flexible vacation policy. This is a first step toward a healthier time-off policy, but not an end point. Also, handbook language is only one part of the equation. You can have unlimited vacation days at your organization, but it means nothing if the staff culture discourages use of time off. Employees that have time off for family, creative pursuits, travel, or to simply do nothing at all will be healthier, happier, and bring more back to your organization. In this way, gratitude is a regular combination of listening, recognition, acknowledgement, and action. Say "thank you" over and over again - and mean it.

4. Provide clarity on types of positions

At NBNC, part of the policy revamp involved classifying each employee, determining whether they were hourly or salaried, full-time or part-time, school-year, and exempt or non-exempt. Before doing this, employee classification was murky, leading to equally murky understandings of time off, flex time, accrual, pay, and more. This was the hardest part of the revamp, especially because it meant treating different types of employees differently, which is challenging at an organization that values equality. In the end, especially after new letters of hire and individual conversations to go over the details for everyone, it led to a collective sigh of relief, not to mention practices better in line with labor laws.

5. Match policies and benefits to positions

NBNC, like so many nature centers, has staff doing wildly different jobs, ranging from full-time and part-time administrators, to preschool teachers, to summer camp staff. Before this revamp, benefits and policies were applied the same across the board, without regard to position differences. By carefully considering staff rhythms, NBNC crafted policies and benefits that actually varied from job to job, thus better supporting staff schedules and improving sustainability and morale. For example, since the organization's fiscal year starts January 1st, preschool teachers did not accrue enough PTO to take time off during a February break. So, NBNC moved preschool teachers onto a school-year schedule, with their time off matching the school calendar, rather than accruing from the start of the fiscal year. These structural changes made a huge difference in staff feeling understood and valued.

Updating your own personnel policies

We suggest working with an HR professional during the process who can research potential new benefits, compare policies to state statutes, and add HR language. In addition, we found it helpful to start a document of future changes right away, to make the next revamp all the easier.

There are many dimensions to consider when reviewing personnel policies and benefits at your organization, and because every organization will have different needs, there is no "one-size fits all" solution. We feel these five principles are a great way to start your personnel policy overhaul by putting staff first. We encourage you to reach out to colleagues and other nature centers for help and advice. And remember, you're not alone!

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In addition to other changes mentioned in this article, NBNC and TNM also implemented these updates:
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Putting Staff First: Personnel Policy Overhaul - Association of Nature Center Administrators

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NAOMI HEINDEL & NIKOLAS KATRICK How two organizations in Vermont updated their personnel policies using five guiding principles. Naomi Heindel, Executive Director of North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vt.Nikolas Katrick, Executive Director of The Nature Museum in Grafton, Vt. At the 2022...

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with small teams, specifically in groups with minimal hierarchy, how do you provide opportunities for professional development/career growth? 

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with small teams, specifically in groups with minimal hierarchy, how do you provide opportunities for professional development/career growth? 

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Naomi Heindel, Executive Director of North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vt. naomi@northbranchnaturecenter.org

Nikolas Katrick, Executive Director of The Nature Museum in Grafton, Vt. nikolas@nature-museum.org

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What principles and practices guided our revisions

Provide structure and clarity in order to support staff

Support diversity among staff

Holidays

Non-discrimination statements

Gender inclusive language

Family accommodations

Build in appreciation and gratitude to staff into language and practice

Vacation time, sick time, holidays

Provide clarity on types of positions (hourly, salaried, exempt, non-exempt, full-time, part time)

Conservations with individuals, new letters of hire

Work with a professional at some point in the process (State statutes, professional HR language)

Match policies and benefits to positions

Considering staff rhythms and cycles

Considering staff culture

What we implemented at both nature centers

North Branch Nature Center

The Nature Museum at Grafton

Start a document of future changes to make

3pm Discussion Questions

Breakout Room Questions

What benefit or policy do you have that you like the most or are proudest of?

What is the next benefit you’d like to add or change?

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A state-of-the-art technology solution that transforms how you handle operations like payroll and taxes, and how you hire, manage, and retain your team. Choose one module or deploy the full suite! No matter what you decide, you'll have a single, easy-to-manage payroll and HR system with one dedicated service team to support your operations.

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A state-of-the-art technology solution that transforms how you handle operations like payroll and taxes, and how you hire, manage, and retain your team. Choose one module or deploy the full suite! No matter what you decide, you'll have a single, easy-to-manage payroll and HR system with one dedicated service team to support your operations.

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Here is our ladder through year 6.

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lump sum paid time off at the beginning of the year.

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lump sum paid time off at the beginning of the year.

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short term disability, long term disability, life insurance

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short term disability, long term disability, life insurance

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Comp time for exempt employees on weeks where work requires much more than 40hrs over 5 days

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Comp time for exempt employees on weeks where work requires much more than 40hrs over 5 days

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Currently start at 10 and it maxes out at 25 after 20 years

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We are working on our staff attraction/retention efforts and in addition to a retirement plan (we currently have very few benefits) we are going to do a paid organization-wide shut down in early November. A time to allow ALL staff decompress from a busy summer/fall and rejuvenate for the upcoming holidays.

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We provide professional development reimbursement (with limitations fitting a modest organization) and encourage life long learning. We strive to blend professional development with team building experiences.

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We provide professional development reimbursement (with limitations fitting a modest organization) and encourage life long learning. We strive to blend professional development with team building experiences.

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Anyone willing to share their parental leave policy?

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Anyone willing to share their parental leave policy?

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This is the time of year when we review and make updates to our policy. We want to include benefits for part-time staff and make our language more inclusive. We welcome any/all questions and suggestions from this group!

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2023 Personnel Policy Manual - Approved 4.7.23

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Challenge: expensive health insurance because we are small and don't have a lot of staff on our plan.

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Challenge: expensive health insurance because we are small and don't have a lot of staff on our plan.

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Adding bereavement time off, with flexibility.

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Adding bereavement time off, with flexibility.