INTERNATIONAL STUDENT RECRUITMENT SYSTEM AND PROCESSES
ORIGINAL SITUATION
The department was managing its international recruitment, sponsorship and enrolment campaigns with inefficient and basic systems that lacked integration, automation and reporting capability. The department had no ability to generate and analyse data on its clients and workforce that could be used to manage resources and recruitment campaigns more efficiently. A contact centre design (infrastructure, software and business processes) was identified to address these challenges by integrating the phone, email, text, CRM and overseas agent systems with new business processes, which required significant culture change, promotion, training and adoption, as well as technology integration and configuration.
DELIVERED SOLUTION
As-Is” analysis and impact assessment: Assessed current capabilities, existing processes, technology, stakeholders and requirements in the department.
This exercise created a functional map which helped formulate a proposed design of a scalable solution, and was the basis for the business case, project resource management and the change and communications plans.
Forming the project team and governance: Key required roles were brought together and a control board formed. Terms of reference were developed and agreed to ensure role clarity.
Choosing the right vendor: A robust validation and selection process took place – leveraging the institution’s comprehensive procurement process – to ensure the vendor satisfied all requirements and understood material constraints.
Leveraged Prince2 methodology: Managed stakeholder communications, requirements, reporting and relationships across the IT, International and Student Services departments and the Project Management Office. Managed all schedule, scope, risk, issue, decision, dependency, quality and financial elements of the project and completed all associated project artefacts, using standard PMO templates, governance and framework. Provided regular reports to the PMO, project control board and senior executive group.
Early planning of business change: Employed the ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) model to manage the change of transitioning impacted personnel to the new system. Ran an awareness campaign to affected staff and showcased comparable successful systems and processes.
Communicate x 3: Communicated to all affected staff by regular emails, hand-outs and briefing sessions and ran training/coaching sessions. Held weekly business readiness assessments to determine the confidence and capabilities of staff in the new processes and technology. Ran mock campaigns to identify knowledge gaps and address them through guides and coaching.
Go-live support: Ran reviews and feedback sessions to address issues, reinforce new business processes and aid continuous improvement
BENEFITS DELIVERED
Continuous improvement – resourcing and coaching: Detailed call data allowed department managers and directors to hire and deploy resources more efficiently and determine outbound campaign focus more effectively. Performance analysis can now be used to improve staff support and coaching methods.
Improved inbound calls management: Almost completely eradicated incorrect inbound calls to the International department. Reduced the number of handled inbound calls by 85%, by increasing call routing accuracy, introducing automation and improving issue resolution efficiency. Improved staff productivity: Recruitment, Admissions and Sponsorship specialists were freed up to spend significantly more time on core activities.