Youth & Seasonal Hiring

Welcome to Bayview Glen Camp

For 60 years, Bayview Glen Camp has been providing Greater Toronto Area (GTA) children with positive summertime experiences, new skills, and lasting memories, thanks in part to having excellent staff and innovative programming.

The day camp offers comprehensive programming to children from ages 4 to 15, including several different streams from the youngest “wildlings” to teenage leaders-in-training. The camp is all about developing self-esteem, positive relationships, and exposure to new activities through age-appropriate programs.

Bayview Glen camp hires young adults, typically between 16 and 21 years of age, to be counsellors. These young camp leaders work directly with the camper, running the day-to-day programs which include a variety of activities, often with the support of specialists allowing them not only to gain work experience but to learn.

The challenge

Hiring the staff that the camp needs every summer begins in November and runs all the way to the camp opening, with up to a half a dozen interviews per day to find the right candidates.

“We hire more than 100 staff members every summer, including some returning staff, which is always preferred because it cuts down on training. For new hires we offer job training, but it is preferable to have returning staff who are familiar with the job and don’t need too much training.

The reality is that we must hire 60 or 70 staff members every summer, usually high school and university students, and getting them to commit early in the year and to start planning for summer in the fall or winter isn’t easy.”

– Daniel “Garf” Garfinkel, Camp Director

Garfinkel notes that being a camp counsellor is often their young staff’s first job experience and is a milestone to their future careers in other fields.

Since its temporary closure in 2020 due to Covid-19, the camp has seen rapid regrowth in attendees with approximately 300 campers on site (at the upper grades facility of Bayview Glen Private School) at any given time. With the increase in attendance, the camp is experiencing an even greater need for qualified staff.

Garfinkel saw the camp reopening as a chance to rebrand the camp but to also look for out-of-the-box ways to hire the staff it needed. Finding the right staff has always been a laborious, time-consuming job, and they interview upwards of 300 candidates a year.

Ideally, candidates have camp experience, but they also want staff to have passion, work ethic, a willingness to learn, and not to mention to enjoy working with kids.

“They need to be flexible and be able to adapt and think on their feet, a person who can roll with the punches. It’s an intense seven-week work schedule and at the end of the day our staff are super-tired.”

Those who work with the youngest campers are often looking for experience on their way to careers in education or ECE, while other staff see the job as a means to pay for their education and expenses on their route to other careers. Hiring staff that are only looking for summer employment, in any field, can prove a challenge, as the camp pay alone might not be attractive enough for a university student with greater financial responsibilities. Still, they serve a vital role as they bring maturity and often diverse work experience to the staffing mix.

Daniel set out to develop relationships with employment agencies to help solve his hiring challenges.

“One thing I noticed was there hadn’t been a lot of creativity in how to offset staffing costs.”

The solution

He reached out to the Tropicana Employment Center (TEC), a division of Tropicana Community Services, and found the help he needed.

“With the help of TEC staff member Marvin, we were able to develop a great relationship. We were super transparent with what we needed, and he just said, ‘Let’s see what we can do.’”

TEC helped find and retain Bayview Glen Camp’s youth staff through incentives, as well as supporting them with diversity and inclusion.

Through its Youth Job Connection (YJC) and YJC Summer programs TEC was able to provide grant opportunities for some of the Bayview Glen Camp employees aged 16–29.

For youth searching for employment, the TEC program provides a range of services for young people, particularly those from Black, African, and Caribbean backgrounds, who often face barriers to employment. It allows the participants to learn about jobs and gain work experience to help secure long-term employment and meaningful careers. It also provides paid pre-employment training, job matching and placement support, and ongoing coaching.

For employers, TEC programs can help reduce risk through its on-the-job support for participants and aids with hiring incentives and brings diversity and inclusion to their hiring efforts.

Working with Tropicana

“When we look at the budget for day camp, staffing fees are the biggest line item. By connecting us to certain grant opportunities, Tropicana’s Employment Centre has been able to help us boost the salary scale we can offer some of our seasonal staff.”

Through the programs, the camp was able to offer 10 summer employees in 2021 and 10 in 2022, approximately 60 percent more pay. In addition, TEC provided the staff with pre-employment training around job readiness.

“Tropicana’s training is super-beneficial to not only us but our staff members. It brings real-world experience, and we’ve heard some really good feedback from our staff members.”

A great residual effect of the work with TEC and its YJC program is that the camp has been able to attract and hire more experienced staff members. These employees have been essential as the camp expanded its inclusion program in 2022, offering a more one-on-one experience for campers with physical limitations or on the autism spectrum.

“Being able to hire these more experienced camp members with more than the traditional camp salary has helped improve the overall camp program and ensured that all campers enjoy themselves more as well.”

This helped ensure that these employees are feeling well rewarded for their efforts. After all, camp is a place for campers to learn and grow, but also for staff to gain valuable job skills such as problem solving, flexibility, and adaptability.

“If you can look after a group of 12 to 15 four-year-old campers, anything after that is certainly easy.”

He praises the partnership that has developed with TEC and is looking forward to continuing to work together and grow their collaboration in the future.

“Another benefit of Tropicana is their ability to listen and be flexible. We have conversations about what’s been successful, what can be improved, and they make sure everyone is comfortable with the structure in place. All which are valuable when you’re collaborating.”