Education Support Staff Need Training
Brookside College, Caroline Springs Victoria
By Cate Schreck - Service Excellence Coach
Every business has difficult customers and every employee at every level will have to have what they consider to be, difficult conversations. This applies to School staff too. Since 2012, LTS has been delivering training that assists Education Staff across Victoria deal with difficult people and have those difficult conversations.
Recently I designed and delivered a 3 hour session for Brookside College, Caroline Springs – Education Support Staff. Education Support (ES) staff are the employees who provide the non-teaching services for a school i.e. Business Managers, Finance & Administration, Student Support Services, Maintenance, Librarians, Health services etc. They may or may not have a teaching background but they have considerable interaction with the customers of the school - parents, guardians, family and anyone who has a stake in the success of the school. So you could say that everyone is their customer. And those customers can at times be very challenging.
Brookside College’s Business Manager - Samantha McDonald, gave me an insight into some of the challenges facing their ES team and from there I designed and delivered this 3 hour session:
Surviving Difficult Conversations
- Why and How People Complain – Understanding what fuels the fire
- Handling Complaints – What to do in the moment
- Difficult Conversations - What they are and how to prepare
- Looking after YOU– Surviving the “aftershock” of difficult interactions
The school provided a venue with Power Point Resources and a Whiteboard (that's all we need) and the attendees worked in small groups to share their concerns, ask questions and practise new skills.
As you can tell by the photo above, everyone left feeling positive and motivated and that’s what our training is all about. We value the existing knowledge, skills and experience of the attendees and we use our expertise to help them refresh those skills as well as give them practical and achievable techniques to increase their confidence when handling the "tough stuff".
LTS highly recommend ongoing training to keep a customer service team motivated but 3 hours is absolutely better than nothing. ES Staff are essential to the success of a school and they find it difficult to source suitable professional development options that are specific to the needs of their team. LTS are the answer.
Contact us today to give your team the professional development options they need to lower stress and increase smiles – theirs and their customers.