VCNebraska is entering its 14th club season, and has seen tremendous growth in participation. As the number of teams, athletes, and programs have grown, so has the need for qualified staff. Most club directors would agree that the responsibilities that come with hiring, onboarding, and maintaining coaches can be overwhelming: posting and monitoring for openings, responding to applications, setting up interviews, conducting the interviews, acceptance process, onboarding, mentoring, payroll setup, and more. As they’ve seen their coaches jump from 50 to 60 to now over 100 active coaches, Club Director Maggie Griffin quickly realized that the Director of Operations could not handle the load that came with hiring all of these coaches. Lucky for them, VCNebraska has a part-time (1099) coach, Robby White, on staff who has worked as a recruiter and spent time in Human Resources full-time at Hudl, a sports tech company in Lincoln NE. When Maggie suggested the idea of having him come on board in a “staff” role in HR, he was thrilled to help.

They began with a “brain dump” where they discussed all of the responsibilities she wanted him to take the lead on, as well as other ideas she had in the past but hasn’t had the time to tackle. The highest priority was getting the interview process off of the Director of Operations’ plate.

Immediate steps that were identified:
  • Meet as a staff to identify and align on the most important characteristics in hiring new coaches
  • Create a list of questions to ask interviewees
  • Decide when the key hiring periods would be
List of responsibilities:
  • Hiring
    • Advertise for new coaches during key times of the season (see below)
      • Maintain LinkedIn page
      • Attend local job fairs / conventions
    • Interview new hires
    • Review current hiring practices and create an easily maintainable and repeatable hiring process
  • Onboarding
    • Onboard new hires
    • Create onboarding system
    • Setup new coaches with mentor / shadow coach
    • Organize new coach orientations
  • Retention
    • Track coaching retention
    • Help retain coaches
    • Set goals with %
    • Setup a rewards system
    • Coaching engagement/retention via events
      • Organize staff parties / meetings / retreats
  • Feedback + Performance Reviews
    • Avenue for upward feedback
      • Google form for anonymous feedback
        • Practice plan
        • Lead coaching feedback
    • Performance reviews
      • Full time employee employment reviews
      • 1099 Employee reviews
        • Check in on new coaches weekly or monthly
    • Exit interview or survey of coaches who have left
  • Coaches Handbook and Coaching Directory
    • Develop and maintain

This process began in March, and the club has seen a massive improvement in a few ways. While the part-time HR Staff/Coach takes many of the interviews, the interview process has been standardized so that any director can easily interview a prospective coach with confidence. This has reduced the load on the Director of Op’s plate. VCNebraska has a Coaches Handbook that not only outlines the standards that have been set for the club, the core values, history, and expectations for coaches, but also has VCN’s policies clearly laid out for anyone to reference throughout the year. These policies include but are not limited to Safe Sport compliance expectations, pay rate, dress code, phone usage, and tournament expectations.

Advice for clubs:
  • Remember that someone stepping in to an HR role can look differently depending on their area of expertise. This person is not a catch all for your “HR Grey Area” situations. As the club director, you are still responsible for having the hard conversations with the coaches and staff.
  • Your HR staff member should only be advising you and not deciding for you. Robby adds, “My role is to bring Maggie the research and best practices while she, as the Club Director, makes the final call on how to handle situations that arise or policies to implement.”
  • Be clear on who is doing the hiring, what the timeline is, and how the transition will take place. Old habits die hard so it’s easy to want to step in and help in order to ease someone’s load.  “I’ll admit to having done that a few times in this process, and it’s probably confused others and let them off the hook,” shares Maggie.
  • Discuss the time commitment the person you are asking to come on board is able to give if this is going to be a part-time position. Make sure it meets your needs before you both step in to this. Currently, VCN’s HR Staff member works anywhere from 2-10 hours a week depending on the time of year. “If we are hiring at high volumes or we have active projects like the coaches handbook it naturally requires more time.”
  • Set clear expectations and default to over communication.
  • Set timelines, calendar reminders, and recurring check-ins to stay in step with whoever you have running your HR processes. “These check-ins are one area I would love to see us improve on at VCN,” adds Maggie. It is easy to get lost in the shuffle of the season when you have someone working part-time and offsite.
  • Plan well in advance for when you need to start hiring and when you need to have all slots filled. “Every year, we think we’re ahead of the game, but every year we’re still struggling to fill a few positions because coaches drop and schedules change. We’ve learned to over-staff and prepare for those drops.”

While the HR role is still new, VCN aims to bring more standardized but simple processes to more areas beyond hiring. The long term impact to the quality of training the club looks to provide their athletes is directly tied to the consistency in coaching they can provide. That starts with building a tenured coaching staff.

“As we jump in to the 2024 club season, we have a great opportunity to celebrate the amazing coaches we have and I am looking forward to seeing what our HR staff member brings my way for coach retention and recognition,” said Maggie.

The integration of HR practices has not only lightened the administrative load but has also laid the foundation for sustained growth and excellence in coaching, reinforcing VCNebraska’s commitment to providing elite training and life skills for its athletes in volleyball and beyond.

View additional HR Resources and Education

VCNebraska (Lincoln, NE) is a member of the Junior Volleyball Association, an organization committed to enhancing the junior volleyball experience for club directors, coaches, players, and fans.