Yearbook staff members are the essence of the project. Without a yearbook team, it would be impossible to create a school yearbook. Keep the yearbook staff motivated and feeling good about their work would be the key to produce an environment that will lead to a productive and efficient team, and also to obtain the best outcome.
Different people are motivated by different enticements. For yearbook, some staff members like prizes; most like food, or fun activities. With some, peer pressure and being invested in the yearbook project are enough. Consider some of these inducements, both lighthearted and serious, to get your staff to perform when the pressure of a deadline is not enough.
Here are some of the many ways to motivate yearbook staff:
- Your yearbook staff will work best with everyone pulling in the same direction. Motivate and promote student bonding with team-building activities. Plan a fun and inexpensive activity outside of school, such as dinner, beach day, golfing or a movie.
- Remember food. Have treats to celebrate staff birthdays, holidays, getting drivers’ licenses, deadlines, getting a part in the school play or anything else they want to celebrate.
- Keep your staff motivated and feeling good about their work. You must positively reinforce their work. Rather than criticizing the negative aspects of a page, it is crucial to commend their efforts first and later, in private, enthusiastically and nicely give them tips on how they could improve. Also, using pieces of a student’s page as a positive example to the rest of the class can encourage that student to continue to create quality pages.
- Create staff songs, select team mottos, find a publication mascot and design staff T-shirts.
- Make the students proud of being part of the yearbook staff. Share with other people what the students are doing. Use daily announcements, the school newspaper, news releases to the local papers, and letters or emails to parents.
Promote yearbook sales, with a showcase display. Use several yearbooks from last year, showing the cover and interesting spreads. Display books from five years ago, 10 years ago, and even the school’s first yearbook. If it is sale time, include a sign reminding students to buy a yearbook.
Finally, make sure your yearbook staff fully understands that, the yearbook staff isn’t all about work. Creating your school yearbook should be fun!