When you talk reliability, you are talking about more than simply making sure you always show up.
No-shows are rare at higher levels of officiating. They are more common, however, at the amateur league levels. Tolerance for officials who fail to show up for assignments is typically pretty low but, given the demand for officials in some recreational leagues, many assignors have no choice but to keep unreliable officials around. If you are one of those schedulers, a good way to combat a no-show problem is to institute a fee to the official for a no-show. The fee varies but is usually somewhere around the official’s fee for the assignment itself. That policy gives you a way to institute a penalty to officials without having to terminate them. Of course, if you have an abundance of officials, termination is often the best policy for the good of your reputation.
But reliability extends beyond simply showing up. For many assignors, reliability means keeping your scheduler informed. Pickett gives a lot of credibility, and assignments, to those officials who keep in contact with her. That includes notifying the scheduler of availability and schedule changes, attending meetings, informing assignors whenever there is a problem or incident at the game site and keeping schedulers apprised of any other general information that is important for them to have.
That level of communication is frequently lacking in many officials, whose schedules seem too busy to discuss officiating matters during non-officiating time. However, in most cases, a simple telephone call to keep your scheduler “in the loop” and informed about what is going on at the game site is all that’s needed. That small level of conscientiousness will go a long way toward keeping you at the top of your assignor’s preferred list.
Another bane of schedulers, especially at lower levels of officiating, is game swapping among officials. After a schedule is issued, officials will often trade games due to schedule conflicts or various other reasons. That creates a headache for the scheduler who has spent a significant amount of time doing strategic scheduling.
Kelley advocates a game-substitution policy that actively involves the assignor. He requires that all schedule-change requests come through him. While that creates additional work for him, retention of that strategic scheduling control is well worth the effort in his opinion. Assignors generally appreciate you clearing your calendar to the extent that game swapping is kept to a minimum. Officials who try to maximize their schedules by accepting too many games, then “dump” the least desirable assignments, devalue the work of schedulers and do a disservice to the profession. Everyone has unanticipated conflicts, but be responsible about how you arrange your schedule, or that schedule could suddenly have a lot of openings.