Running a successful youth academy is hugely challenging… 

Operations staff are in charge of streamlining safeguarding processes which can be complex and time-consuming. Often involving multiple stakeholders and various procedures across several different apps and devices. Kairos helps the operations team streamline these processes, making them more efficient and effective, but importantly, giving operations staff some time back for themselves! Its safeguarding features can help these organisations meet regulatory requirements, streamline processes, and build trust with parents, all while keeping young athletes safe. 

But, what makes Kairos so effective for the operations staff tasked with running an efficient youth academy? 

SCHEDULE 📅

The Kairos schedule is the pulse that keeps the planning and communication flow alive across all academies. The feature that everyone refers back to, it offers those who aren’t directly involved in the team an option to oversee multiple teams – keeping them involved in what’s going on at the heart of their club at any time, in any place. 

For those users who are involved in the granular, day-to-day, Kairos offers a daily, weekly and monthly view that compliments all users: whether you like to know a month in advance, or the day before. With recurring events at the core of what makes the schedule feature so productive, having attendees update their responses for each event increases player accountability while simultaneously granting coaches the ability to plan ahead for the exact number attending that session.

Drawing on the adaptability of the Kairos platform, the schedule itself is colour coded, ensuring each activity stands out – keeping your plans legible and simple. Real-time updates will cater for last-minute weather warnings, location updates or time changes. Making the most of those last minute changes, and notifying all relevant users immediately. 

MESSENGER 💬

Instant messaging on WhatsApp or iMessage is great, it helps build those 1-1 relationships that contribute to the communication flow in teams ahead of training or game-day. But, is it really professional to engage with parents, guardians or club members on an unauthorized platform, not built for the nuances of elite sport? 

Kairos messenger facilitates group communication, individual communication and perhaps most importantly, staff communication. Keeping the operations team behind the team focused and on task.

Did we mention you can schedule messages? Ensuring they are delivered to the relevant stakeholders at the right time, in the right setting. 

NB: Those on the receiving end will never know you really sent the message at 9pm (we’ll keep this between us!).

FILE SHARING 📁

Collaboration is integral in the planning processes of elite sport. Whether it’s the operations team behind the team, or the team itself. 

Operations and coaching staff can store and share critical files like videos, PDFs and player information through our file sharing feature. The functionality of this feature has a strong link to our privacy settings, you choose who can access what files. 

It should be noted though, files are viewable and easily accessed all year round whether it’s on iPad, desktop or mobile. You can forget the dreaded WeTransfer link and our personal favourite – the WhatsApp scroll, desperately searching for that file we all know you should have saved and favourited. 

SURVEYS 📝

Surveys, surveys everywhere…

Operations staff often liaise with all performance based staff to distribute surveys to players and parents/guardians to ensure seamless collaboration and inclusion across all departments.  It becomes difficult to prioritize deadlines while simultaneously remembering all the information that needs to be submitted at that exact moment to ensure the survey’s success for that specific department.

What sets the Kairos survey feature apart? While it’s great you can set deadlines for surveys, you can set reminders too. For those ‘we’ll do it later’ users… simply set a reminder for the recipients, a week, a day and hour before the due-date and we take care of the rest. And, for the users who pride themselves in getting things done, surveys can be left open to modify responses should requirements or answers change ahead of the deadline.

James Young, Head of Analysis and Data at Sunderland AFC acknowledged the utility in surveys across multiple departments when leveraging different age groups under the one club, “We’re getting regular surveys out to players of every age from first team down to academy”. 

What does this mean for operations staff? More. Free. Time.

The lack of audit trail means information is easily lost, causing fragmentation across teams and clubs as an extension. Losing control of who sees what, and who sends what to whom means that information is easily lost. Through encrypted cloud technology, all your information is secure and protected. Kairos is ISO 27001 certified, meaning that every possible action has been taken to make sure that the highest standards are met.

If necessary, you can track messages which allows for a clear audit trail of communication. You can even control who views, accesses or changes your documents helping your players and staff have one source of truth. In short, the operations staff have greater ownership over their internal operations and communications.