The journey project

Carole Jackson, Student Centre Manager, UTS presented a session entitled ‘Changing expectations – on the way from Misery to Happiness (ah-huh, ah-huh)’ on Friday 24^th April (0955–1030) at the ATEM Student Services Centre Conference, Fremantle, WA

I think Scottish band ‘The Proclaimers’ would be proud to know that their song written back in the 80s is still getting air-play on the other side of the world as it was played as the introduction to Carole’s talk.

Carole briefly referred to Kathryn and Robert’s talk from yesterday (see blog post below) and outlined the series of staffing challenges facing the new student service centre at UTS (from the size of the audience it looked like many people are also interested in overcoming staff resistance and improving customer service).  As well as staffing issues, Carole noted that the physical space exacerbated the problems of staff morale, gaps in knowledge, low motivation and no team spirit!

Searching for inspiration, Carole turned to Roosevelt’s advice of doing your best with what you’ve got – and so a program of team building began with Carole trying to find out what her staff wanted and why they were there.

The first step was a workshop to brainstorm work plans and position descriptions with a focus on students as customers.  Issues of trying to meet numerous tasks (e.g. phone, email and counter enquiries at the same time!) meant that staff were taking sick leave because they were so stressed at work.  Carole countered this by establishing clear rules about taking leave and to e very honest about what working in the Student Centre involves (this was met with many stunned faces).  Not to be put off, Carole established 2 work-streams that better enabled staff to spend time and effort on team-related tasks as well as the requirements of dealing with enquiries.

Tools were needed to build on the early commitment which mainly came in the form of training and professional development in areas such as leadership, communication and customer service.  Time was also set aside for team meetings, unit half-days and joint centre sessions.  Staff were also given the opportunity to rotate functions throughout the unit which had the added bonus of maintaining ‘corporate knowledge’ within the unit.

BIO – After a career in teaching, Carole worked in the corporate sector as an administrator and manager before entering the university sector. Since March 2008 Carole has been manager of the Building 10 student centre, which was the first student centre to open at UTS in late 2006. It has delegated authority for student administration for three faculties. Carole has been instrumental in developing and implementing strategies for staff training and professional development, building team morale and strengthening relations between Building 10 student centre and faculties. Carole also designed and delivered a casual staff induction and training program for the Contact Centre initiative at UTS in 2008.

ABSTRACT – OK, so you inherit a team, most of whom don’t want to be there – and show it. Student facing customer service? “that’s not what I signed up for”; telephones? “if I wanted to work in a call centre, I would”; sharing the load? “not my job”. What do you do? Through a combination of team building, training, personal development - and yum-cha – a cohesive, service-focused team whose members see student administration as a career has emerged. This is the story of changing a team’s perception of itself instead of changing the team.

Also presented during this timeslot:

• The merging of Customer Service Teams, a story of success at RMIT by Terrie Healy, Ann Hornsby and Finn Leach from RMIT

Kathryn Blyth. Group Manager, Student Centres, Student Administration at University of Technology, Sydney presented a session entitled ‘Changing Expectations at UTS: A warts and all case study!’ on Thursday 23rd April 09 (11.00-11.40) at the ATEM Student Services Centre Conference, Fremantle, WA

Well the room was packed to hear Kathryn and her colleague Robert Jones talk about the challenges they faced throughout the implementation of a new student system at UTS and the resulting restructure of Student Administration (including Kathryn’s own job changing dramatically).  Kathryn spoke about the challenges that students face going to many enquiry counters and how this was dealt with during the project – in lieu of a one-stop-shop, UTS implemented 5 service points across campus, a solution that worked for UTS and a challenge that still faces many institutions (my own included)!

Implementation invovled reviews of building use, looking at staff preferences for placement, training and induction and change planning and management.  The new structure had 5 student centres which is quite a shift from 2 student centres and 9 Faculty enquiry desks.  The 5 new centres advise students on pretty much everything on a student’s wish-list!

Robert took the next section of the talk and admitted to being a bit nervous soon settled into his material on the success (and otherwise) of the project.  The audience empathised and connected with Robert’s analogies of a plate of spaghetti (chaotic, sticky and never-ending!) and a tree in the middle of a motorway.  There seemed to be lots of good news at UTS in terms of staff morale before the restructure (well done to anyone who survived their group ‘trust’ activity!) although a challenge arose when staff who had always worked in Faculties didn’t find it easy to take those hats off!  Disparate IT services and support didn’t help either and timing issues, staff shortages and lack of resources soon started to eat into eariler good spirits! 

Roberts tips for a successful process included:

do some proper planning!

have a project team

communication is key

document processes into a manual

choose your timing wisely

staff need time to grieve and adjust

Kathryn’s final section focused on the future of the project most of which was shaped by dealing with 33,000 phone calls in the early weeks after the centres opened. Credibility was lost and the porject certainly got a lot of attention.  However, the enquiries (emails, calls etc) did eventually get answered and the project got back on track.  2008 was a different year! More casual staff and a reviewed process meant that the system started to work, the University was lot more aware of the importance of Student Administration and proper statistics about enquiries is now kept and distributed.  An unexpected bonus was that dealing with enquiries stopped being a ‘hidden’ activity and a hidden cost!

As people started filling in their evaluation forms, I scooted next door to present my paper on the Online Student Journey Project….

BIO – Kathryn Blyth is the Group Manager, Student Centres at the University of Technology, Sydney. Prior to this role, she was Project Manager for the restructure and implementation of the UTS Student Centres in 2007. Her role is currently focussed on enhancing the student experience at UTS through the development of strong customer centred initiatives. This includes the development of an Enquiry Management System to further improve the delivery of student administrative services at UTS, and a strategic approach to advancing staff training, recruitment, career progression and retention.  She has a B. Arts (Japanese) from the University of Canterbury, (NZ) and recently completed an MBA from Henley Management College (UK).

ABSTRACT – Changing the delivery of services to students drove a major restructure that culminated in the opening of five student centres across UTS in November 2007. UTS has made enormous progress aligning student administration activities and developing a service focussed approach 15 months after opening. This story takes us from a process focussed environment largely unchanged for many years to one of customer service outcomes, visibility and performance. The bumpy journey has included staff resistance techniques, issues with training and processes, and about 100,000 more transactions than we planned for.  As we redefine service quality a new culture of engagement and transparency is emerging. This workshop will present the transition challenges overcome as we aspire to achieve a seamless and customer-centric service.

Also presented during this timeslot (but not liveblogged):
o    Making entry to medical school a reality for rural and outer metropolitan students by Dr Annette Mercer and Sue Pougnault, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, UWA
o    Customer Relationship Management @ Deakin by Jodie Aanensen from Deakin University