Not a typical job

Unlike a typical 9-5 desk job, being a Souled Coach means that you make your own schedule. You decide which days of the week and what hours of the day you want to work. Although this is very convenient, it can also lead to confusion when reporting your work hours. Sometimes, you might find yourself wondering, "Which part of my day was considered work?". Below are some guidelines to help you understand when you should and should not report your time as work hours.

How long to meet for

In general, you should be meeting with students for 45 minutes, once a week or once every two weeks. If your meeting goes longer than 60 minutes, you can still report the entire meeting as work, even if it goes past an hour. However, you should not be meeting with students for longer than an hour on a regular basis. Sometimes a student has a hard time with 45 minute meetings. It's ok to limit meetings for certain students to 30 minutes, but make sure that you are able to have meaningful conversations and learning.

Best practice: work set hours, record hours daily

It's important to consider that the best practice is to have set extended periods of time throughout the week when you schedule your meetings with students, one after the other. This will allow you to remain focused, and utilize your time in the most productive way. It will also make reporting a lot simpler. Another important best practice is to record your work hours on a daily basis. Leaving it to the next day is not recommended. It's easy to forget the details or get confused

What is considered work

1. Communicating with your students outside of meetings

Time that you spend in your weekly (or bi-weekly) meetings with your students are considered work time. You are encouraged to keep your communication outside of these meetings with students to a minimum. Texting students on a regular basis can lead to a sense of being overwhelmed, and create too much of a dependency of the student on you. There are, of course, exceptions. Students may need to speak to you or text you between meetings in some situations. But as a rule, it's best to make it short and suggest continuing the discussion in your next meeting. In general, you should not be counting time spent communicating with a student as work time. If you feel that an exception should be made, please discuss this with your manager.

2. Arranging “experiences”, trips, and events for your students

Your regular meetings with students are the best time to discuss trips, experiences, and events. Sometimes, however, you might need to put in more time arranging a “spiritual experience” for your student (e.g. arranging a Shabbos meal or looking into a local event/trip) or encouraging her to attend a Souled trip/event. When doing so, this time can be considered up to one hour of work time. If there is a situation where you feel that you should be able to report more than an hour, please discuss with and get approval from your manager.

3. Hosting or meeting up with a student

If you host a student or spend time with her outside of your scheduled meetings, the entire duration that you were together is not considered work time. However, this can be considered one 45 minute meeting and reported as such, if during that time you had meaningful conversation as you would normally in your meetings. In other words, if you meet a student for coffee and it's esentially an in-person version of your regular meetings, you should report an "experience", report a meeting, and report 45 minutes of work time. On the other hand, if you host your student for a meal but you don't spend time with her one on one, it should not be considered a meeting or work time to be reported.

If you are hosting a group students together, it is considered an experience, but not a meeting with your student. This would not be considered work time. If you want to host an event for a group of students and to be paid for the time, you must get approval first from your manager to do so. 

4. Attending Souled events

Occasionally, Souled runs in-person events for students. Attending these events is not considered work time unless it was approved by your manager prior to the event. When you receive approval to report event attendance as work hours, the approval will include the amount of time that you should report for that particular event. You should not decide on your own.

5. Preparation for meetings with your students

Preparation for meetings with your students is considered work time. For more details about how to calculate prep time, and how much time you should spend on prep, please see this article.

6. Professional development

Souled Coaches are encouraged to use the resources that have been provided in the Souled Staff library (in the portal) to learn more and develop your kiruv and coaching skills. When you have a question or issue relating to one of your students that needs clarification, time spent watching these videos to help you work through the issue is considered work time. If, however, you are simply interested in the library content or want to increase your kiruv skills, the time spent is not considered work time.

 Occasionally, there are professional development opportunities shared with Souled coaches that are not mandatory. Attending or watching these is not considered work time unless specified otherwise by your manager or a member of the Souled executive staff.

7. Reporting

After each meeting with a student, you are required to fill out a report. The time spent on this is considered work time. The same is true for scheduling meetings with your students and documenting updates, using the reporting tool.

8. Staff meetings

Attending mandatory meetings, supervision, or training sessions is considered work time. If you meet with your Coach Manager, the Director of Coaching, or the Program Director for advice regarding your students, it is considered work time.

9. If your student goes on a kiruv trip or a short term seminary experience

If you facilitated one of your students going on a kiruv trip (yay!) and she is therefore unable to meet with you when she normally would, you can consider the missed meeting(s) as work time. The same is true if one of your students goes to seminary short term (when a student goes to seminary long term, she is taken off your list). For each time that you would have met with the student, you can report work time. This allowance is only for students that you send on a kiruv trip or to seminary, not if a student goes on a trip on her own, even if she is going to Israel.

The frequency of when you would have met should be based on the frequency that you have been meeting with this specific student. For example, if you meet with her every other week and she goes to seminary for 3 weeks, if she misses 2 meetings, report 2 meetings of 45 minutes each. If you miss one, report one. The maximum number of meetings you can report for a student going to seminary is 4. If she is going for longer, it is advisable to get another student to fill in the time slot.

10. If your student goes to seminary for an extended period of time

If you have a student who attends seminary for 3 months or more, you can keep her on your list for up to 3 months if you think that she needs your support. If she is happy in seminary and has successfully adapted to the environment to the point that she does not need meetings with you, you should remove her from your list at that point. If, after 3 months in seminary, you still think she needs a Souled Coach, please do not keep her on your list without consulting with your manager and receiving special approval in writing.

11. Meeting with an old student who is no longer in Souled

In Sept. 2023, we instated a rule that Souled coaches can spend up to one hour of work time per week meeting with old students who are no longer part of Souled. The reason for this policy was that at the time, there were a lot of students who had to be removed form the program because they were already observant. Since this is no longer the case, the policy is no longer in effect. You can only spend work time meeting with students who are on your list.

If a student misses a meeting or leaves early

If a student does not show up for a meeting, cancels within 24 hours of the scheduled time, or leaves a meeting early, you can report the meeting as 45 minutes of work time, provided that the meeting was scheduled in the system and you contact the student the same day and communicate that missing meetings can result in her being taken off your list.

When a student does not show up for a meeting, cancels within 24 hours, or leaves early, it is expected that if you have preparation to do for other students (or other Olami work), you will use this paid time to do so. It goes without saying that you cannot bill twice for that time (once for the missed meeting and again for the work done).