[civsa] Tour Guide - Paid or Incentive?

[Roper, Adam Paul]

Allison,

We have a stipend of $5100 per semester for our Southern Ambassadors. We have 51 Southern Ambassadors. They get different points for each activity. 1 point for a tour, 2 points for an admission event, 3 points for overnight hosting, and we have the occasional miscellaneous point for things like calling students and office work. At the end of each semester we calculate all of the points awarded and divide each ambassador's point by the total. This semester we had 350 total points, so if an ambassador had 10 points they would receive $145. Ideally, they all do the same work and get paid the same $100, but that doesn't happen. This is the best solution I have found for incentivizing and making it "fair". This is the second year that we've done it and it's been pretty successful. All of our tours fill up fairly fast, and we always have enough volunteers for events. If you're wondering, a point is usually worth $8-$10 an hour.

We also have some side things with points. We have "Harry Potter" style houses among the Southern Ambassadors, so whatever house has the most points at the end of the year gets the "House Award" and then whatever individual has the most points receives the "Ambassador of the Year Award."

Adam


Adam Roper
Admission Counselor
Birmingham-Southern College
900 Arkadelphia Road
Box 549008
Birmingham, AL 35254
(205) 226-4673
aroper at bsc.edu

[cid:image001.png at 01CF8015.D05E4020]

Explore. Experience. Excel.
www.bsc.edu

From: listserv [mailto:listserv-bounces at civsa.org] On Behalf Of Barkowski, Debra L.
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2015 9:15 AM
To: listserv at civsa.org
Subject: Re: [civsa] Tour Guide - Paid or Incentive?

We pay our student ambassadors. In Chicago the minimum wage just changed to $10/hour.  We advocated for a paid tour guide system about four or five years ago, and it had an overwhelmingly positive effect on tour guides showing up and being more engaged and active.  There are some other incentives as well where students can earn points for covering tours and doing other things, and those with the most points are selected to attend the annual Scholarship Ball in spring.

At the same time we advocated for compensation, we also instituted a First Year Ambassador program where freshmen could shadow tours, participate on student panels for special group visits, and participate in other recruitment events, all as volunteers.  At the end of their first year, they could apply for paid positions.  We have good success with this program too because it allows the students and us to see if this is a good fit for everyone.

From: listserv [mailto:listserv-bounces at civsa.org] On Behalf Of Allison Fannon
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2015 8:42 AM
To: listserv at civsa.org<mailto:listserv at civsa.org>
Subject: [civsa] Tour Guide - Paid or Incentive?

Morning and Warm Holiday Wishes!

I wanted to inquire about if your tour guides are all paid or if there are incentives for them. Currently, we offer free parking and they do a certain amount of tours a semester, but that doesn't seem to be working well. We are looking at hiring some, but I wanted to see what others do to provide student tour guides for general campus tours.

Thanks in advance for your help! Looking forward to your responses!

Best,


Allison Fannon
Coordinator, Campus Tours & Events
University of Central Oklahoma
100 N. University Drive
Edmond, OK 73034
Phone: 405.974.5331 | Fax: 405.974.3841
www.uco.edu<http://www.uco.edu/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://civsa.org/pipermail/listserv_civsa.org/attachments/20151217/265e8c2f/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 8921 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://civsa.org/pipermail/listserv_civsa.org/attachments/20151217/265e8c2f/attachment-0001.png>