A lot of people dream about a big inheritance someday and what they plan to do with it. No one would turn down an inheritance, right? I mean at least in the movies, I’ve known a person or two to even kill for an inheritance. When it comes to inheriting a team of student staff, there’s a lot of emotions involved, excitement, anxiety, fear, and an inherited staff can quickly turn into a nightmare, but it doesn’t have to be! Going into an inherited staff with a plan can ensure that the year is meaningful for both you and the students you work with.
Read the Transition Report. Transition reports are meant to be tools to ease the transition from one RD to the next and include details about community trends, quirks, RA assignments, in-unit partners, etc . They can be super helpful, mid, or nonexistent (which is completely unhelpful!). If your department does have a transition report prepped for you, I recommend printing it out, highlighting it, writing on it, and rereading it over and over again. This should be your go-to guide on learning about your new community/placement. If your department does not have a transition report, have an intentional conversation with your supervisor about the building dynamics, staff dynamics, and potential challenges (and maybe advocate for a transition report system to be set up!).
Be a supervisor, not a friend. Being a supervisor is arguably the most important part of your job as an RD. RAs don’t need you to be their friend – they have plenty of those already – they need you to be a competent supervisor. That means you need to set clear expectations, create boundaries, and hold staff accountable for their mistakes. There is nothing that hurts a staff team more than someone who consistently does not do their job and is never held accountable for it. As a supervisor, it is your job to have hard conversations with student staff when they are making mistakes and to hold them accountable for their actions. This may mean that a returner who has allegedly been doing a great job for the past however many years will have to go through a discipline process under your supervision. While that may be hard, it ultimately is the right thing to do for the future of the team.
Lean on Returners. The student staff that are returning to your community were hired for a reason, just like you were hired for a reason. The returners in your new community are a wealth of knowledge and can be your greatest ally or your biggest opposition. Identify those who have the loudest voices, those who have the most influence amongst the team, and the true leaders of the group – they may all be the same person, but likely they won’t be! Loud does not always equal a leader or even a role model, and it’s more important to have the staff member that everyone looks up to on your side than the one who is the loudest in the room. Returners also likely know your new community better than any other person on your campus, and their knowledge will be integral to a smooth transition.
Rely on your Peers. Just as the returning RAs have a lot of knowledge, your peers also have a lot of wisdom when it comes to this role. As issues potentially come up, they are a great resource for support and likely have insight to offer based on their previous experience. Ask them what worked for them when inheriting a staff, what boundaries they wished they had set immediately, and other advice for making this transition seamless.
Make changes that make sense. If I had a nickel for every time I heard “… well *insert past supervisor’s name* did x this way in the past, NOT that way,” I could probably retire at age 26. You will inevitably do things differently than the person before you, just as they inevitably did things differently than the RD before them. Change is hard for a reason, but it can be especially hard if there is no rhyme or reason to the changes being made. I have found staff are much more open to changes if they know the “why” behind the change. If you can’t explain a reason why you are making a change, then maybe you shouldn’t be making it.
Ask for feedback and apply what you can. The only way to grow is by embracing feedback. Oftentimes, the staff you work with will be able to identify areas where you need to improve better than you or your supervisor because they see you at your best and at your worst. I give RAs the opportunity to give feedback during every one-on-one meeting so that they are able to provide it in a timely manner and they also have formal surveys they can fill out to provide feedback confidentially. Most of the time, I try to incorporate the feedback they give, but sometimes it isn’t possible – not all feedback is given equally. For example, in my first two years as a RD, I had multiple student staff write on my formal evaluation that I was “too young” for the job, which is obviously something I couldn’t apply to grow in my supervision skills.
Acknowledge the emotions involved. Being a new supervisor and HAVING a new supervisor both come with big feelings. Throughout the year, you may go through a rollercoaster of emotions and so will the RAs you supervise! It’s possible that even with all the planning in the world, the year could still end with feelings of frustration – both on your end and on the RAs end. Some things will be out of your control, and instead of dwelling on the past, acknowledge the feelings from the past year and focus on what you can change in the future.
Inheriting a staff is inevitable as an RD. The way you plan and prepare for an inherited staff is not and can be the difference between a nightmare inheritance and a gift.
