Creating a positive, open-door employee relations culture is vital in any workplace, but it takes on heightened importance in a day or overnight children’s camp environment. Camps are fast-paced, emotionally charged spaces where teamwork, resilience, and compassion are nonnegotiable. When the staff is diverse, which often it is — across culture, nationality, and life experience — intentional practices that promote trust, inclusion, and collaboration become essential for delivering a safe and enriching experience for every child as well as for the staff charged with their care.

The Foundation: Share Purpose and Values

At the heart of a successful camp culture is a shared mission: to support the healthy development of children through meaningful experiences on a safe campus. Aligning all staff with this purpose helps unite diverse individuals. From the first day of orientation, camp leaders should emphasize their camp’s shared values — such as respect, integrity, empathy, kindness, teamwork, and trying hard — and connect these values to everyday decision-making and interactions with campers, leadership, and staff alike.

In today’s dynamic and interconnected environments, fostering a strong employee relations culture is more important than ever. One of the most effective strategies for achieving this is cultivating a positive and inclusive open-door culture, where communication flows freely, your staff feel heard, and trust is the foundation of relationships between leadership and staff.

What Is an Inclusive Open-Door Culture?

An inclusive open-door culture is one where camp leadership encourages staff at all levels to voice concerns, offer feedback, and discuss ideas directly with leaders without fear of reprisal. It’s not just about keeping office doors physically open; it’s about cultivating accessibility, trust, and psychological safety for those at camp.

Baking inclusion into your open-door practices matters, because doing so:

• Boosts engagement. When staff feel their voices are heard, they’re more likely to be engaged and committed to their role and the camp.
• Improves problem-solving. Open communication helps surface issues early, before they escalate, allowing proactive solutions — which are especially critical in camp environments.
• Builds trust. Consistently listening and responding to staff builds credibility and strengthens relationships.
• Encourages innovation. Staff are more likely to share creative ideas when they believe their input is valued.
• Empowers voices who historically haven’t felt equally heard. Camp staff who come from different cultures or countries than the campers they serve may hesitate to speak up without intentional outreach and reassurance.
• Allows for different communication styles. An inclusive approach respects how your staff from various backgrounds express ideas or raise concerns.

Important Steps Toward the Culture You Want

An effective, inclusive open-door camp staff culture incorporates these five core elements, among other practices:

• Leadership accessibility. Camp directors and their leadership teams must be approachable. This means actively inviting feedback, asking open-ended questions, and making time for unscheduled conversations in a private and safe space.
• Psychological safety. Employees must feel safe to speak openly without fear of negative consequences. This includes creating a judgment-free environment and responding constructively to feedback or criticism, whether about camp, a camper, or a fellow staff member.
• Active listening. Listening is more than just hearing words. Camp leadership must show genuine interest, ask clarifying questions, and follow up on conversations to demonstrate that feedback is taken seriously.
• Clear communication channels. While face-to-face interaction is ideal, available time at camp can be scarce, so establish a clear chain of command of camp leaders who can accommodate listening and trouble-shooting an issue.
• Timely follow-up. Responding to concerns or issues promptly shows respect and commitment.

Building Blocks

Cementing an inclusive open-door culture among your camp staff takes time and intention. These building blocks will help camp leaders model and encourage the practices they want to see.

• Lead by example. Camp leadership (at all levels) should model open communication by being transparent about their own challenges and decisions and encouraging collaboration and group input.
• Train group leaders and up-and-coming leaders. Not all group leaders, specialty program directors, or newly minted camp leaders naturally possess strong interpersonal skills. Offering training during orientation and throughout the summer in communication, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence can help them support a healthy camp environment.
• Recognize and reward openness. Celebrate teams and individuals who demonstrate openness and collaboration. Public recognition reinforces the value of open dialogue.
• Create a safe reporting environment. Establish clear, confidential processes for raising concerns — especially for sensitive issues.
• Solicit regular feedback. Use morning or evening meetings to evaluate and improve camp, as needed.

Issues to Watch Out For

Building an inclusive open-door culture is not without its challenges. Here are some potential issues to look out for:

• Tokenism. Encouraging feedback without acting on it leads to cynicism and disengagement.
• Favoritism. If only certain voices are heard or rewarded, it undermines fairness and inclusiveness.
• Micromanagement. An open-door policy shouldn’t become a surveillance tool. Trust and autonomy must coexist with accessibility.
• Unconscious bias. Even well-meaning leaders can unintentionally favor certain voices. Bias training and self-reflection are essential.
• Performative openness. Simply saying, “My door is always open” isn’t enough. Leaders must actively reach out and demonstrate that engagement is welcome.
• Over-reliance on one channel. Don’t assume that everyone is comfortable speaking up face-to-face. Diversify your feedback mechanisms.

The Long-Term Payoff

A positive open-door culture isn’t built overnight, but when nurtured, it becomes a part of the fabric of a camp community and a competitive advantage for recruitment and retention. It empowers staff and leadership alike, strengthens resilience, and creates a community where information can be used for good.

Creating an inclusive open-door employee relations culture at camp isn’t a one-time initiative; it is a mindset and a continuous commitment. When directors and camp leadership genuinely listen and act with empathy, they create a vibrant, inclusive camp community where everyone thrives. And, in a place where every moment can shape a child’s sense of self, confidence, and belonging, that makes all the difference with happy staff who feel heard, and seen.

Photo courtesy of Metrowest YMCA Hopkinton Outdoor Center, Hopkinton, MA.

Lauren Breitman Tanen, JD, is a highly collaborative inclusion and belonging, legal, and human resources thought leader with over 20 years of experience in building inclusive, fast-paced, and high-performing workplaces. Lauren designs and delivers training for directors, leaders, and staff on inclusion, employee morale, belonging, and allyship initiatives to drive positive, safe, and communicative environments. Lauren specializes in providing high-impact, practical, and effective advice in educational, residential, and day camp settings. She understands keenly the unique challenges presented to educators and regularly coaches community and camp leaders through challenging issues. By training, Lauren is a management-side employment lawyer and employee relations expert. She has spent over a decade in-house at Shopify, Spotify, PVH (Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger parent company), and Action Network leading employment law, data privacy, employee and labor relations, and human resources teams.