using your human resources

It is interesting to note that the concept of “supply and demand” is not limited to economics.  It also has to do with any need that one is trying to fill.  In my workplace, this might mean finding host families for international students; at home, this would be spending time with those family members that need attention; and at school, this means actually putting in the time to study for that next exam.  Always a thing to do (supply) for a need (demand).

When it comes to building a new civilization, we need the builders.

I live in a city where there is a huge shortage of every kind of worker.  I could walk into any business right now – be it a bank, burger-joint, retail store, office, or the headquarters of a huge multimillion dollar company – and ask them: do you have a job opening and their answer would be yes, and please fill out this form and etc etc etc.  The company that I work for was actually about to hire a totally unqualified person to do one of their pilot projects! Can you imagine?  The name of your company is at stake, and all you have to choose from is “unqualified” and “less qualified”.  Anyway, that’s a bit of a tangent…

The fact of the matter is that the demand is greater than the supply.

I’m struggling with the same thing in my cluster right now.  We have just started a new children’s class – and actually, now that I think about it, it’s not really a new one if the other one you had in the same area stopped as this “new” one started… and I’m looking for people to take it over for the summer.  I have a side project that I need to work on, and just need two people – literally two committed individuals to do 12 classes.  I got together with the relevant institutions, went through the list of over 60 children’s class teachers… and realized that actually, I can’t pull out.  How depressing is that?

At the same time, when we’ve told the community about the children’s classes, people come, but they come late, or they come and have loud conversations right close to the class, or they disrupt the class with their incessant picture taking (have they not heard of candid shots?!).  And then the question becomes, ok, so maybe we’re just not using our human resources effectively.  But then again, I look at that list, and none of these people can take over the class… but they can maybe help out with this or that small activity.  Maybe.

It’s depressing, and borderline frustrating.  Ok, no, it actually is frustrating.  I’m not sure if maybe I’m just not able to see people’s actual abilities for what they are.  Maybe I’m afraid of giving them a task that they can’t do – and then we’re all disappointed and the class falls.  I guess then the answer is that we have to build capacity in others – walk with them on a path of service, as it were – but then, that’s a long term commitment, on everyone’s part.  And that’s the other question: how do you know if someone is committed?  And should we put energy into building capacity in someone who isn’t yet committed, but might be at some point in the future?

I guess I’ll leave all my half reflections there… I’d like to hear your thoughts and experiences.  This certainly is an ongoing challenge for me, and so I think I’ll revisit it in a few posts and perhaps share with you some of the learning from this upcoming week.  It should be interesting!