What Frontline Education Support Staff Need From You

Since 2010, Just For Schools has been helping schools by educating and motivating frontline Education Support Staff to become Customer Service Professionals. We have travelled across Victoria from Geelong to Gippsland, Mildura to Melbourne, Benalla to Ballarat, and Horsham to Hoppers Crossing. We have a loyal base of Schools and Business Managers, and we love what we do!

But this blog is not for our existing schools. It’s for schools who don’t provide their ESS with soft skill development. It might be for you and your team or your school, but don’t worry, we’re not going to ‘shame’ or belittle you for not giving your staff soft skill development.

This blog is to help you by showing how easy it can be and how it can be free.

So, what are soft skills?

The two skills sets that every employee in every workplace needs are hard skills and soft skills. 

Hard skills are often referred to as technical skills. They cover things such as operating a cash register, driving a forklift, using a computer program, following safety procedures, or ordering stock. Hard skills are the tangible skills that once learned are usually set, meaning they are retained and with repetition they are typically improved. 

The word HARD in the sense of skills means set, not difficult.

Soft skills are the intangible qualities that an employee uses when they are interacting with others. They are related to self awareness, self-regulation, empathy, internal motivation and social skills. Just like hard skills they are a set of skills and with practise, we can improve, but unlike hard skills, they are difficult to measure – ‘one size does not fit all’.

The word SOFT in the sense of skills means flexible, not weak. 

Education Support Staff are made, not born, and hard and soft skill training is how you make them remarkable. Just For Schools specialises in soft skill development. Spending money on soft skills training is investing in the most important asset in any school – staff.

Bringing soft skills to your ESS does not mean you have to spend money. Read on for some ideas of what you can do without dipping into the budget.

DIY SOLUTIONS

Search online – Use the internet to find loads of free training resources – just make sure the providers/creators are reputable and the content is relevant to your goals and the needs of the team. Google: Soft skills.

Inspect what you expect – Watch, listen and provide constructive feedback on school community interactions. Feedback should be regular and balanced with compliments and suggestions on how to improve.

Ask the team – What do they want to learn? What interactions do they find difficult? Who has best practices they can share? Involving your team in their skills development and confirming you know they have valuable soft skills, can bring a sense of confidence to the team and respect for you.

Tell them your stories – Sharing your experiences of dealing with difficult customers and how you worked through times of stress is not a sign of your limitations, it’s permission for them to share and ask for help.

LET US HELP YOU

Remember that your time is money. For every coworker disagreement or customer complaint, consider the amount of time you have to spend addressing the issue and multiply that by your hourly rate – this is money that could be spent on the soft skills training that empowers your ESS to self-manage those situations.

By contacting us, we will learn more about what your ESS need to help them feel motivated, valued and respected. We are then able to customise content that best suits your ESS from an extensive range of training topics. View the entire list here.

“Our PD Day with Cate Shreck from Just For Schools was a huge success. ES Team at Hoppers Crossing Secondary College have a wide range of different roles and they felt that her content was extremely relevant and that she was communicating directly to them. Many of the ES staff have expressed their gratitude for providing such a supportive, informative and knowledgeable speaker. One who understood their roles within a large secondary college and was able to provide excellent information to improve their personal performance and increase their job satisfaction.”

Gay Torner, Hoppers Crossing Secondary College