Tag Archives: Support Services

Service Excellence across Educational Systems

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Service Excellence

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Leaders focus on building a culture of service excellence by defining what service looks like for students, for their parents, and for employees. While “customer service” is rarely associated with schools, a focus on exceptional service to internal and external customers actually translates to a great reputation in the community, complimentary recommendations from those interacting with the school system, and loyalty from employees. Building a culture of service excellence is critical for sustained results in a school system.

pillarsWhy Service Excellence in Schools?

Put purpose back into the work that we do. There’s an accountability that grounds the work that leaders do, “you can count on me,” and it is not disconnected from purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference.

Everything we do in education is grounded in good service. Service to folks students, parents, community members, and other external stakeholders, and to those we work with every day in departments and schools across a school system.

Service excellence provides an opportunity to extend and grow trust across the system. How? Feedback and consistency of practice. For example, in most school districts there are pockets of excellence; our commitment must be for all departments and all schools to achieve excellence or “best in class” status. This means consistency in quality no matter where an individual walks in a school system.

School Pride. There is great value in having employees, parents, and community members whose perceptions of the excellent service they receive make them proud to be associated with the district, quick to recommend the district and the schools to others, and most importantly, able to support and defend the district at all times.

Service excellence means serving colleagues, serving educational professionals, and serving others. When we build a culture of service excellence in our schools, we are committed to creating great places for students to learn, for teachers to teach, and for parents to have confidence that their children are receiving a great education.

Studer Education

 

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Our mission at Studer Education is to help education systems achieve measurable results that produce positive outcomes in student achievement, employee engagement, support services, and financial efficiencies and productivity. Our goal is to help school systems provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation and visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

 

“Do you know how transformational your behavior can be?” The 10′ – 5′ Rule

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in How to Lead..., Our Partners, Who's Engaged?

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“Do you know how transformational your behavior can be? … Don’t wait. Just lead,” is a message one of my colleagues delivers when he talks about transforming behavior and solidifying cultures of excellence in an organization, “it’s how we live. It’s who we are.”

In Practice.

Oklahoma City Public Schools began experiencing a change in culture after implementing The 10’ – 5’ Rule (see December, 2012). This is one example of a district acting on feedback from its District Services Survey; leaders implemented and cascaded The 10′ – 5′ Rule, executed it always, and reinforced across all districts and schools the action must always occur. This was the district leadership’s response to what their employees told them… and an opportunity for all employees to engage in new behavior that impacts the culture of the organization.

The 10′ – 5′ Rule: What is it?

Within ten foot of an individual you should acknowledge the individual with some expression, e.g., make eye contact, nod, smile, wave; and within five foot of an individual you should acknowledge the individual verbally.

The key?

The focus of Oklahoma City Public Schools was on one skill to achieve positive results. There is a greater likelihood of (positively) influencing behavior and change when an organization focuses on one goal or objective. Focus on one goal, institutionalize (hardwire) behavior to achieve it — make it your culture, and measure it. And, remember that service excellence begins with one’s leadership and commitment to purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference (Studer, 2008).

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Quotes in initial paragraph from Feb 2014 Studer Group TYYO (Dallas, TX) by Bob Murphy.

Studer, Q. 2008. Results that Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That will Take Your Company to the Top. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Our mission at Studer Education’s EBL K12 is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we partner with teachers and leaders to create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://eblk12.com to learn more about Studer Education and Evidence-Based Leadership in K12. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the sixth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Leading School Districts to Achieve Excellence

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by in How to Lead...

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What purpose brought you to education? The main goal of my colleagues and I is to lead school districts to achieve excellence with the purpose of providing students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education.

We work toward this purpose by partnering with select school districts across the United States who have a true commitment to excellence and want to serve as a model for becoming some of the best school districts in the world. The cornerstone of the evidence-based process is leaders and employees executing measurable and aligned evaluation systems focused on:

Students improving their achievement levels;

Employees believing their leaders provide a good work environment;

Employees providing support service excellence, and

Parents feeling satisfied with their child’s education.

The evidence-based continuous improvement flywheel serves as the centerpiece of these areas (employee engagement, parent satisfaction, support services, and student engagement) with leaders and school districts and shows the need to drive performance to reach excellence. The hub of the performance-driven flywheel centers on “principles, pillar results, and passion.”


When leaders and organizations help employees reconnect to their passion to do worthwhile work, employees are inspired to put in place the principles that turn the flywheel faster and faster until it gains momentum that is unstoppable in achieving organizational goals. This is the importance of the goal of leading school districts to excellence with focus on Student Engagement, Employee Engagement, Support Services, and Parent Satisfaction.

What happens? Districts and schools achieve evidence-based results and achieve our ultimate purpose is to produce better places for teachers to teach, employees to work, and students to learn, and for parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education.

 

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Join leaders with proven results at What’s Right in Education 2013. Learn from and connect with high performing educational leaders, and discuss how to set board and superintendent metrics and cascade those across all levels of leadership in the district; identify what “right” looks like in service excellence; and become part of a district leadership collaborative.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Four “Soft Skills” for Influencing Support Service Excellence

15 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in How to Lead..., Our Partners

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In December, 2012, we blogged about how the Oklahoma City Public Schools had found a “Changing Culture with The 10’ – 5’ Rule.” This is one example of a district applying an ALWAYS Action, developing and institutionalizing a “soft skill” as an action that must always occur, based on the findings from its Support Services Survey.

Consider these four “soft skills” and two operational policies to positively influence support service excellence using more than 28,500 responses from principals and assistant principals across six school districts.

  1. Answer the Telephone (Focus: Accessibility)
  2. Respond to Calls or Emails with an Appropriate Greeting and Information (Focus: Accuracy)
  3. Engage in the 10’ – 5’ Rule (Focus: Attitude)
  4. Return Phone Calls and Emails within 24 Hours always and then Follow-up when Additional Time is Needed (Focus: Timeliness)

Two additional policy items help organizations focus on operations:

  1. Create Detailed Voice Messages for Answering Machine
  2. Transfer Calls Only to a (Real) Person

The key? Focus on only one of these skills or policies to achieve results and create objective measures for the goal/outcome. Consider an article from Public Administration Review (Resh and Pitts, Jan/Feb 2013):

Theories of goal conflict suggest… organizations face a zero-sum trade-off among goals. [This portion of goal conflict theory was used/tested] to explain the implementation and interaction of multiple policy goals in the context of Georgia public high schools… The findings demonstrate the highly contingent nature of… trade-off. [That is,] more robust gains can be made toward a higher-order objective by focusing on one particular lower-order goal rather than an all-inclusive approach to goal attainment.

There is a greater likelihood of (positively) influencing behavior and change when an organization focuses on one goal or objective. Focus on one goal, institutionalize (hardwire) behavior to achieve it — make it your culture, and measure it. And, remember that service excellence begins with one’s leadership and commitment to purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference (Studer, 2008).

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Resh, William G., and Pitts, David W. (January/February 2013). No Solutions, Only Trade-Offs? Evidence about Goal Conflict in Street-Level Bureaucracies” Public Administration Review, 73(1): 132-142. PDF available online here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02623.x/pdf.

Studer, Q. 2008. Results that Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That will Take Your Company to the Top. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we work with school boards, leaders, and teachers to apply Evidence-Based continuous improvement processes and the principles from How to Lead Teachers to Become Great in their districts to get the best student learning results and create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Can Technology Help You Answer, “Is there anything else I may do to assist you?”

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Who's Engaged?

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A few months ago I was analyzing the results on a service excellence survey and found a number of responses for “suggested need for improvement” that were as simple as “answer the phone.” About that same time I was attending a conference where a speaker talked about the pushback she received from colleagues when she asked them to include the question, “Is there anything else I may do to assist you?” as they were leaving a customer.

I am attending the FETC conference in Orlando, Florida, this week and in the first session I was introduced to new technologies – apps, gadgets, URL/web-based items, all things technology – that help us connect better with one another or with some thing or with some content. The ideas and innovations move individuals to make connections, in essence broaden their worlds, which is seemingly opposite of the behavior described in the initial paragraph.

The “Tech Smackdown” presentation today got me thinking about how we use technology to improve and/or develop ourselves professionally specifically by connecting ourselves with other individuals. One might argue this means using technology to answer the question “Is there anything else I may do to (better) assist you?” Below are two examples, one showing how teachers provide coaches at their school feedback (so that the coaches may better assist their colleagues); and one showing how teachers provide instant feedback as well as receive instant feedback to and from a community of learners (to better engage students and increase student learning opportunities).

http://www.SurveyMonkey.com is used to create a questionnaire where teachers could anonymously provide feedback to the reading, math/science, and writing coaches at their school. The survey results are usually rolled out to the teachers by the coaches in grade-level meetings; given many of the other data meetings at this particular school, the coaches instead provided an email to their colleagues. Below is a portion of the email:

We appreciate your survey feedback and have pinpointed four areas needing most improvement as a coaching team. These are:

Modeling for teachers
Rewarding and recognizing good work
Planning for productive and efficiently run meetings
Being more transparent in communicating the whys behind decisions made that affect your teaching

We have worked diligently this year to accomplish these goals, but have reflected on our practices and made changes based on your survey feedback. When you have a chance, please take a look at the survey results. We welcome any and all further input, because we want to serve you the best we possibly can and we value your opinions!

@LeslieFisher presented the following website as part of the FETC pre-keynote session http://www.InfuseLearning.com and highlighted some of its features for classroom use. Simply the site offers the opportunity to “engage every student on any device.” It offers anonymous quick-response technology (similar to clickers) so students can respond to a question to the class – maybe even an impromptu question that comes up during discussion and which the teacher may type immediately to include – using their iPad, Macbook, iPhone, Android, or laptop… any device and it’s web-based. Below is an example of how a math educator could use the site:

Draw an angle measuring more than 90 degrees.

Students respond by drawing with their device. The teacher can tell when everyone has responded. A PDF document can be created with all of the drawings and shared with the class (or not). The result? Students are engaged and both the teacher and the student receive instant feedback.

As a blogger I want to connect with readers and always attempt to answer the question “Is there any content I may provide that would better assist you?” These two web-based products might just be the content – free content – that does just that. Take a few minutes and check them out and see if it helps you connect better with your colleagues or students; and please share with me what you find

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FETC 2013. (January 29, 2013). Pre-Keynote Session presentation by Leslie Fisher who is the chief geek at lesliefisher.com.