Appreciating Library Support Staff

Everyone likes to feel appreciated and unfortunately the workplace is often one of those places where people feel marginalized or devalued. Libraries are no different. While staff at any level of the organization can feel marginalized or devalued, I am particularly interested in thinking about library support staff.  In many library organizations support staff outnumber librarians two to one.  The work and the mission of the library is strongly supported and enabled by the work of the support staff and it is critical that they feel supported and valued both by the librarians as well as the Dean/University Librarian.

Every library that I have worked at there has been some sort of divide between librarians and library support staff. Sometimes this divide has been insignificant and at times it has been crippling. Significant divides and animosity or resentment between librarians and library staff can be incredibly damaging to an organization and is one of the things that leads to bad staff morale and burnout. While minimizing this divide is important there are many other things that can affect support staff morale.

As a library leader there are things that you can do to make support staff feel valued and supported.

Know their name:  Regardless of the size of the organization, nothing sounds as good as hearing your name, in a positive greeting, from your supervisor, director/dean.  I know this can be difficult in large libraries but believe me, it does make a difference.

Allow them to lead: In many organizations support staff are in jobs with no chance for advancement, without changing jobs.  It is important to provide opportunities for support staff to grow and one way to do this is to provide them with leadership opportunities. These leadership opportunities can be in the library, leading a specific project, or a project on campus.

Committee Service:  While some staff will see committee service within the library or at the college/university level to be burdensome, many will relish the opportunity to contribute their expertise and their voice.  If as the Dean/Director you appoint staff to a committee within the library, it is important that the committee chair sees the staff member as an equal and vital member of the committee. If necessary, remind the chair.

Staff Development:  At many institutions professional development dollars tend to flow towards librarians and administrators.  While it is critical that librarians stay current and professionally involved, it is also important to provide training and development opportunities for non-librarian staff.  This can be online webinars, local conference, training opportunities through HR, and if appropriate national conferences.  A library’s greatest asset is its people and investing in them is critical.

Additional responsibility/upward mobility:  If possible, it is important to identify staff who want to grow and to give them, HR rules allowing, increased responsibilities.  This will give them the experience they need to move to a higher level job.

Communication:  As a library dean I want everyone who works in the library to feel engaged and able to contribute to the library’s mission and vision. As much as possible communication should be ubiquitous so that everyone is included. There might be some push back from some that this provides too much email, but over communication is better than under communication, especially if it is used to make sure support staff are not 2^nd class citizens when it comes to knowing what it happening.

Public thank you:  It is important to say thank you for work well done to staff at all levels.  Support staff often work extremely hard without much of any acknowledgment of their contribution to the library.  While a salary increase is always welcome, a public acknowledgement of their contribution goes a long way to making staff feel an important part of the organization.

An open door:  I’ve always operated with an open door policy.  If I am in the office and not on the phone, on a delightfully engaging webinar, or in a meeting, then my door is open and staff across the library are encouraged to stop by.  While some might argue that they would never get any work done, the amount of “stopping by” isn’t huge. However knowing that the Dean is available to chat, answer a question, or be a sounding board is appreciated by staff.  When someone does stop by and asks a question or raises a concern, I always ask them if they’ve raised the issue/question with their supervisor so as not to undermine the reporting structure.  I have found that this approach has been a healthy approach to encouraging dialogue and allowing staff to know that they have the dean’s ear if they need it.