It’s officially recruitment season!
Whether you’re in the early stages of planning your recruitment, already have your new staffers signed up or find yourself somewhere in the middle, you should start thinking about your staff structure for next year.
If you’re still knee deep in the recruitment process, take a look at our recruiting page, where you can watch the webinar, access the Recruiting Yearbook Staffs ebook, download application templates and other recruitment materials to help your recruitment process.
Now let’s take a look at some options for your staff hierarchy next year.
#1 Function Based Staff Structure
The Function based staff structure is designed around the functions and skills of your editors and staffers. The editors take responsibility for their specific function throughout the book, rather than individual sections. This structure suits you best if your editorial staff fits better with specialized responsibilities.
#2 Section Based Staff Structure
Rather than positions based on functions, this structure based structure assigns editors based on sections of the publication. If you have passionate editors about individual areas of the book, this could be the right structure for your staff. With this structure, you have the opportunity to assign writers to sections for the whole year, or you can vary sections from deadline to deadline.
#3 Team Based Staff Structure
Lastly we have the team system which breaks the staff into groups of 4-5 students who work together throughout the school year. Each team consists of a team lead, writers, point people and photographers. For every deadline, assign teams spreads, making them for everything on their assigned spreads, including photos, writing and design. To learn more about the team structure, take a look at the team system article featured in the fall 2024 edition of Idea File magazine written by former adviser Julia Walker, CJE.
Job Descriptions
Now that we’ve considered what your staff structure could look like for next year, let’s think about what positions you’ll have on your staff and what their responsibilities will consist of. Start by making a list of positions with a job description and list of responsibilities for each. Our team has put together a template in Google Docs to get you started.
Collaborate with your graduating editors to get their perspective. What worked well this year? Which editors had too much on their plate? Which editors took on tasks outside of their job description? If your managing editor always winds up doing ladder assignments, maybe that should be included in the managing editor’s list of responsibilities.
Next steps
Once you feel confident in the structure and positions that you have determined for the next year, begin the process for determining which student will hold each position. Gather your returning staffers and share with them the available positions for the upcoming year. Communicate any changes in description and/or responsibilities for each position so the students applying know exactly what would be expected of them in each position. When ready to collect application, our recruiting page has editor applications available in both a PDF and a google form for you.
Staff structures and positions are not one size fits all. Tweak, edit and revise until you find a system that works best for your school, your students and your process. Laying the groundwork now will set you and your staff up for success in the upcoming year.
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