Organizational Clarity: Human Performance Improvement -Pre-Project Situation Description

For one assignment in Human Performance Improvement class I was given the assignment to adjust and improve the workplace for a fictional organization while improving the environment for all the stakeholders involved. This is a fictional account with the variables listed in an assignment and the parameters dealt with worse case scenario type issues in an organization so therefore with the idea of unlimited budgets and resources (I know when does that happens?) this assignment was crafted with those variables in mind. Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

Pre-Project Situation Description
Purpose
Omir University is a multimillion dollar organization that is a for-profit institution which provides an online education to a host of students. In fact, the University prides itself on accepting individuals from all demographics and all walks of life. Their objective is providing students with a quality online education to help them succeed in their future careers. To belay scrutiny of its for-profit status in the educational field, Omir University as an accredited institution focuses upon a positive student experience to prove their claims of providing students with a quality education. This is done not only through the academic side but also the administrative side. The student experience determines the overall reputation of the University. Therefore, ensuring students are highly satisfied with all interactions (staff and/or management) are imperative.

To determine how well the various departments of Admissions, Financial Aid, and Academics performs, the students are asked to complete a brief survey after every phone call, email, and chat; each interaction even the lack thereof is given a percentage score by students. This determines the foundation of how Omir University determines their performance goals, not only on a quarterly basis but monthly as well.

Even with a student body of 35,000 students and sites nationwide, Omir University does have the ability to zero in with a laser focus on how to improve their quality scores. Omir University divides each department up separately and then breaks down the scores by the teams assigned to each communication method or queue. The passing grade for all departments in these three various methods of communication (phone, email, and chat) is at 90%.

Statement of the Need or Opportunity
Every department and team have a 90% passing grade from the student reviews, except the Financial Aid email team. Their scores are significantly lower because student surveys state they have emailed Financial aid and after brief interactions, have not received any additional responses to resolve their issue.

In some cases, students stated they have not received responses to initial inquiries at all. In either instance, this results in a failing grade for the Financial Aid email team, bringing down their overall scores for the month and quarter to 63%. As a result, these students have also increased the communication “traffic” of the other three major departments I have aforementioned. This increase in traffic gives the students what they believe is the “runaround” and in turn decreases the customer service scores of these other teams and departments. The Financial Aid email team’s backlog is basically affecting the organization and is causing students (who are their customers) to seek educational opportunities elsewhere.

Work Environment
The Work Environment in regards to customer service (the focus of the intervention) is segmented into three departments (Admissions, Financial Aid, and Academics).  It is then divided further with the way information is communicated to the student (phone, online chat, and email).
The entire Financial Aid Email team is in Omir University’s Chicago downtown location; resources needed will be limited. All training sessions can be held in the sixth-floor conference room without additional set up.

The University rents three floors of the office building and the Financial Aid Email team is situated upon the fifth floor segmented from the rest of the Financial Aid team (which is on the sixth floor); this allows assignment of training sessions easier to accomplish.
The team is responsible for all the University’s communication with students regarding their Financial Aid inquiries there are presently no backup systems or procedures in place. The team seating arrangement has a basic six “block” cubical arraignment which physically adds to the “bubble” effect or segregation that the team has developed (from the rest of the department and organization).

The competition between departments and the teams that they are divided into, within the organization is very competitive. Therefore, getting support or creating additional avenues to “attack” the email backlog and improve customer service scores for the team and the organization is also a significant challenge. The result of these office politics has made the employees of the email team embroiled or committed to old procedures and policies and creates as a byproduct, the current 63% customer service approval rating. Additionally, any “outside” help or procedural mandates either from other parts of the Financial Aid department (onsite management) or outside of the organization is met with skepticism.

Target Audience
The target audience consists of:

• The Financial Aid email team,
• Financial Aid Managers,
• Financial Aid team leads,
• Associate Financial Aid (onsite) director, and the
• Financial Aid (onsite) director.

These individuals are the main and direct focus of the HPI intervention as the entire organization is affected by the scores (of the Financial Aid email team).

Resources required
Resources for this intervention are:

• One conference room that seats ten to thirteen individuals for two days,
• Thirteen laptops with online access,
• One overhead projector,
• One hundred active emails/files for training purposes,
• Paper (printed) handouts,
• Five boxes of pens, and
• Thirteen notepads.

The groups will be divided into shifts as the entire ten-person team cannot be scheduled for the training sessions all at one time. Therefore, only half of the team will be scheduled between 8 am to 12 pm (half day sessions). Limited supplies and space to conduct training sessions will be used to keep costs down and maximize ROI. The entire cost will be minimal as the materials needed are already onsite and available for usage by the entire team, management staff, and consultant.

Sponsor(s)
The sponsors are:

• Financial Aid director,
• Vice President of Financial Aid, and
• HPI4TC consultant Martin Prosser.

Having the management team involved as well as the onsite directors will ensure a better understanding (and the seriousness) of these changes and the training sessions. This will also help in fostering an inclusive team atmosphere between these once-divided groups. By including onsite management will also help these individuals properly understand daily operations and the step by step methodology of daily task completion from the email team’s point of view. This way any future changes to performance-based procedures and policies will be based upon realistic expectations of processes that can be truly achieved.  This will also reassure the team that management is fully committed and involved in their processes and professional development.

Performance Improvement Goal
As previously stated the Performance goal that the Financial Aid email team must reach is a 90% approval rating on the surveys given to students after every interaction with the team.
The email backlog is tallied to be at least 5,000 emails. It is unrealistic to complete and respond to these emails within a months’ time. Figuring in that each team member will need to complete only 25 of these emails daily for a month to catch up, there are still an influx of email communications coming in daily (at least 75 emails per day). Plus, there are about 1,000 emails that are simply lost or not responded to bringing down the team’s performance scores even more.

As the team is inconsistent the goals are to have each team member complete at least 30 email responses per day, (completing most of the backlog before the end of the month by at least 75%). The training sessions will be covering new procedures and new email templates to maximize the time spent on each email response and cover the amount of detail needed to satisfy each student.
Management will assist the email team with “weeding out” additional or multiple responses (i.e.: email chains) from the same student regarding the same issue that was previously responded to beforehand (an “additional email elimination” process). For example, if a student has previously contacted a Financial email representative regarding the date of their stipend and this question has been answered, only to have the student respond with a “thanks” the lack of response by the representative was usually counted as a “missing” response and counted against the team.

Now, with the new procedures after the initial conclusion of that interaction that “missing” response will not be factored into the representative and team’s overall customer service score as a “non-response”. By weeding out emails that do not need additional responses we believe we will reduce the backlog by at least 178-200 emails increasing the possibility of successful implementation of this program. With this Performance improvement goal in place, it is projected to bring the scores above the 90% requirement.

Measures of Success

• We are projecting that the Financial Aid email team will reach a customer service approval percentage score of the 90% or better by the next month and by the next quarterly report. This will alleviate the issues that affect the organization and improve relations within the Financial Aid department and organization with the immediate turnaround.
• The introduction of new streamlined processes and new email templates will cut down on the time and resources expended by each team member per response. But, increase productivity to meet the required daily email completion quota, that will reduce the email backlog which presently challenges the team.
• With the introduction of new email templates, streamlined processes (including “additional email elimination”), additional structure fixated on the daily goals instead of monthly goals, increased involvement and partnerships with onsite management there will be an increase of accountability. This will help the Financial Aid email team to forge better relationships with their management staff and the rest of their department. The result of this action will be a more integrated team which can effectively communicate (with internal/external customers), be able to adopt new methods to increase its problem-solving skills, and understand how achieving its goals benefits them and the rest of the organization.
• The impact of improving this team’s customer service skills, will alleviate the students (the customers) concerns about their interactions with this specific part of the University and attending a for-profit University overall. Increasing the status of Omir University’s reputation on the administrative side amongst its student population will decrease the possibility of negative public scrutiny in various media outlets.
• An increase of employee morale (non-tangible) and a decrease of employee turnover for this small team in the Financial Aid department are also expected to occur over time as organizational goals are met.

Anticipated Roadblocks or Difficulties

• Segregating the team has a profound effect mentally as it does not realize the impact of its collective negative performance upon the rest of the department and organization overall. Getting the team to realize the impact of their performance upon the organization collectively and the individual is one challenge.
• Another challenge is getting the cooperation of the entire Financial Aid department to assist with email responses (since half of the team will be in training sessions). This resistance to help the email team is a direct response to the office politics created by the competitive organizational culture. Assistance may also be needed even after the initial training sessions of the Financial Aid email team; therefore, it may be required to cross-train members of the Financial Aid call and chat teams. However, due to conflicting responsibilities and organizational culture assigning training times to properly train assigned individuals from these teams will be another (possibly major) issue entirely.
• Having the Financial Aid email team onboard with new policies and procedures that will maximize their overall team productivity. The team is very resistant to operational changes, structure and “interference” from their management and even from the onsite directors (onsite management team).