Staff Service Awards Update 2017

August 24, 2017

For some time, an update to the annual service awards system for organizational leaders has been in process. Service award applications for organizational leaders have diminished significantly in recent years since the new JBEI model was implemented, and the decline has made it increasingly clear that an update was in order.

Purpose of Service Awards

Service awards in Royal Rangers serve three important purposes:

1. Provide ongoing recognition to leaders for their efforts in fulfilling their duties in the program.
2. Serve as a leader’s performance benchmark by providing the leader with valuable feedback that highlights his areas of success as well as areas in need of improvement.
3. Provide statistical data to program leadership at outpost, district, and national levels to enable them to monitor the health of the program within their areas of responsibility.

According to the JBEI model implemented in 2010 as part of the “Johnnie Barnes Excellence Initiative” training seminar, the service awards for organizational leaders should align with the job description of that leader, which in turn aligns with specific objectives and outcomes that relate to the responsibilities of that leader. These three pieces together form an inter-related system of responsibilities, objectives, and recognition that enable program leadership to continually monitor the health and success of the program while providing recognition to staff for their efforts in making that success possible.

While this system continues to serve as the core of our service awards process for organizational leaders, many leaders in recent years have chosen not to submit an award application, citing the difficulty of accumulating the required data, the complexity of the calculations involved, and the lack of direct relevance much of the data has in relation to their job duties. Thus, the purposes of these awards are not being fulfilled.

Changes Beginning 2017-2018

To rectify these problems, the following changes have been implemented, beginning with the 2017-2018 award reporting period:

• Most data tracking and calculations have been removed from the individual award applications.
• Most data tracking and calculations are now performed by the region.
• Each district must send to their region an “Annual District Report,” providing any data not available to the region.
• The region will then track these statistics over time, calculate “scores,” and feed that information back to the districts to be included on the individual staff service award applications.

This process is much easier for individual award applicants since it frees them and the district from the burden of accumulating and tracking data because that role has now been handed up to the region. The individual award applications now only contain information the applicant will already have, such as their own personal training accomplishments or attendance at district events, or scores they receive from their region.

World Class District

An added feature not present in the previous awards system is the “World Class District” (WCD) designation. Based on the “World Class Outpost” (WCO) model, the WCD designation is awarded by the region based on the score each district earns for the various statistical data tracked by the region. This data includes both that which was provided by the district on the Annual District Report as well as data collected from the national office on training, national event attendance, etc.

Details on the criteria and scoring for the World Class District designation can be found in the "World Class District Scorecard" which can be found in the "District Director's Resources" section of AG Passport.  The Annual District Report form can be found there as well.

For More information

Additional information can be found on the Staff Awards page.  Revised award applications for the following organizational leaders (staff) service awards can be found on the Award Applications page.