The #1 Thing That Makes School Business Managers Hang Their Head
One minute your Education Support Staff are working together in harmony, customers at your school are happy, and complaints are low. Things are going well, and you’re able to do your work without having to worry about your ESS, until one day you notice some bad habits.
Slightly longer lunch breaks, less tidy work areas, gossip between co-workers about other co-workers, customers rolling their eyes, increased complaints, and employees sighing when asked to do things. You’re sure that each bad habit is only minor, and you can fix them all with a little pep talk.
At the next meeting, you give a little “speech” about the value of teamwork and a focus on providing excellent customer service. You feel hopeful that bad habits will be gone and you will see a return to the service and teamwork focused ESS they once were. But it doesn’t work.
You are left chewing the end of your pen wondering what happened to your once excellent ESS. How did this happen under your watch?
Providing exceptional customer service is often considered as…well…common sense. Be polite, be friendly and seek to work in harmony with your team – common sense right? Wrong.
Customer service excellence is NOT common sense. In fact, it is very rare and harder to create and maintain in a team; a team of humans, who each have their own idea of what excellent customer service is AND who need different things to maintain a daily focus on service excellence and teamwork.
Asking, telling, suggesting or begging your staff to provide excellent customer service is what happens when you have a goal of a fabulous ESS without a plan to make it happen. A goal without a plan is a dream – a wonderful dream, but for it to come true, your staff and your customers need you to wake up.
The #1 skillset ESS needs are called Soft Skills (people skills) and without consistent focus and support, they are the most difficult skill set for employees to master and maintain. Soft skills are what every ESS team in every school need help with – especially if their Manager (you) want to stop chewing pens. (Seriously, it’s unhealthy, so best stop it.)
How long does it take and how much does it cost?
This depends on the teamwork and customer service goals of the school and the existing level of soft skill knowledge and ability of staff. Not everyone will require deep level soft skill training, but all ESS teams need consistent soft skill brush up and support.
To find out exactly what your team needs, how long it will take, and how much it will cost, your first step is to discuss with us which option for professional development is best suited to your team.
You already wear 2 big hats as manager and leader of your team. Trying to wear a 3rd hat of Soft Skills Trainer without having the skills or the time to do it correctly, will make your head heavy and no one likes a manager with a heavy head – least of all the manager.
By Cate Schreck – Author of ‘The A-Z of Service Excellence’