Meeting Minutes
Date: March 11, 2016
Opening
The regular meeting of the SET
was held in RH 245 on Friday, March 11, 2016. The meeting was called to order
by Cara Hamilton at 10:00 a.m.
Present
Cara Hamilton, Sharetta
Bufford, Lauren Johnson, Scott Jaeschke, Richard Parker and Kathy Brand
Absent: Lisa Anderson, Lynn
Lewis, Gayle Arries
Celebrations:
·
Sharetta shared that Claudia Poore assisted a
Bridge student’s parents with simplified directions on returning to Charleston.
·
Cara re-shared her email from a student
regarding Mary Corley’s excellent student service, recovery and follow-up.
·
Scott praised Dr. Lynn Lewis and Ms. Rutledge for
physically traveling to the Easley campus to meet with and resolve issues with
nursing students.
·
Cara reiterated how the College culture is
changing by listing examples of the many team building activities that took
place in the afternoon of our last Professional Development day. Managers and
supervisors were empowered to be creative and innovative and to think outside
the box and have groups participate in team building activities such as
bowling, painting, games, etc.
·
Lauren shared how Linda Jameison, Mr. White and
Mr. Moritz assisted her passing out tickets on PD day. They saw a need and jumped in to help.
Review Decision & Action Tracking from
last meeting:
Action items
were reviewed and updated from the last meeting (see tracking chart below).
Update for Sub teams:
Communication- Gayle
Talent Management: Lauren reported that 230 Faculty and staff participated in the March1 Professional Development Day activities. The Communication and Safety sessions had the largest attendance. Sharetta made the suggestion to give employees a longer advance notice to register for sessions for the next time. Cara suggested that Service Excellence be added as a session to promote awareness and to show TCTC examples/case studies for the Fall PD day. Cara will reach out to guest speakers (Lisa or Jeff) and work on the content of the proposed session. Lauren stated LC101 has about one month left as teams work on projects. She also reported that training for supervisors is being planned and on track and an Adjunct PD day is being planned for Saturday, August 13. Scott requested time to speak at the Adjunct PD and Cara suggested Jonathan Finch should be asked to also speak to this group. Richard requested the CCE group be included in this group. Lauren stated she will take all of these suggestions back to Lisa and report back to the group.
Recognition: Sharetta reported her group is waiting on the recognition cards to be put into place and will be discussing starting Random acts of kindness using no budget at the next meeting.
Measurement: Scott reported that the secret shopper program has decided to use work-study students in real situations to gather data across campus. If needed they will also use student government and ambassador students. Plans are to meet with students in April to show them the purpose and how to complete the audit form. The goal to gather data and share information with supervisors for improving service excellence was reiterated. Richard reminded the group this feedback was subjective. The customer service improvement as a whole should be evaluated as a learning opportunity (not the processes). The questions should be carefully asked for specific data answers. Hopes are that managers will collectively talk to their teams and collaborative improvements will take place. Secondly, Scott reported the method for collecting more qualitative data in an informal way by identifying touch points from divisions across campus. This group has face time within all divisions and question development along with a coding process will be developed. Thirdly, Scott asked for help with the process and best way to assess overall service of communication. He asked if the college had a Standard Service Level Agreement or best practice in place for all divisions regarding customer service communication. He expressed concern on how to assess communication and asked for recommendations. It was suggested to have this included in supervisor training and to have a SLA facilitator guide be developed for each area after assessing students’ needs. This guide could be developed during area staff meetings (not to be turned in, but created to better provide better service). Having a student’s point of view should be included. The communication sessions during PD day covered this topic and may need to be needed repeated and be more specific to the needs of specific groups.
Service Obstacle System- Richard reported the LEAN classes have started and have been scheduled on Mondays and Fridays. He stated he had viewed Clemson’s LEAN program which was based on a tiered system of commitment. He may ask their lead to come to one of our SET meetings. He has not been able to get to Piedmont Tech to visit to date. He reminded the group of the LEAN’s goal and how using the learned tools can benefit the processes used in Higher Education.
Management Accountability: Cara reported that CCE has 4 three-hour service training courses: Reaching for Stellar Service, Caring for Customers, Healing Customer Relationships, and Dazzling Your Customers. These courses are taught by internal people and could be offered to TCTC employees. Cara asked the group’s opinion on the benefit/value of having persons from each division complete one or more of the courses giving a three hour commitment and how do we select those to participate. Discussion on cost, value and how to fill the cohort followed. It was suggested that each division could identify staff members that could represent and/or benefit from the training. Cara suggested a pilot group be selected and then assessed after participating. Support of class time for participants was discussed and the suggestion of a PD day or the workday when final grades were due in July/August was mentioned. Cara will take this before Executive Staff to determine their support. She will also discuss SET as a standing committee with Executive Staff. Cara mentioned she was looking at “Go to Knowledge” by Innovated Educators training webinar sessions as something beneficial to employees for the cost. The 2-4 hour sessions, covering 6 areas (Student Success, Teaching and Learning, Organizational Development, Campus Safety, At-risk populations, and Technology) include over 100 on-demand trainings, available 24/7 for $3600. Institutional-wide access would be available. Discussion on the content and value took place. Cara suggested we pilot this for a year to see if there is enough interest. Scott questioned how we would assess the impact/value. The idea of having a few experts from different areas review the content and format of some sessions was suggested. Cara stated she has had many requests for trainings and will further research this as an option before moving forward.
Academic – Member At Large:
Scott brought
to the group that our present service hours don’t match the needs of our
students. He suggested the idea of possibly offering evening or Saturday hours
for better customer service. Our service hours don’t match students’ needs. Discussion on justifying the cost benefit
took place. Cara mentioned she was
working with an organization called Greenwood Hall to be trained to answer
calls/questions and man phones after hours. This would be like our call center,
transparent to the student. Cara will be
doing more research on this project as a way to improve customer service after
hours.
Review Next Steps for each SET:
Confirm
Next meeting – Friday, April 8th at 10:00am in RH 245
