Tackling Common Training Communication Problems With Administrate
We’re back with our second instalment of all those nasty communications problems which can really have a negative effect on your business. Communications problems such as these can suddenly appear out of nowhere, so it’s important to take steps to combat them before they turn into something bigger.
Step up Administrate! We’re here to help solve all your training administration problems, and as an added bonus we can help you fight those pesky communication problems while we’re at it!
Read on to find out more, or check out part 1 of our series if you missed it last week!
Management Team Feeling Out Of The Loop
Something that can happen really easy in any business is your Management team feeling like they are out of the loop. Even something as simple as not sitting in the same office as other teams can mean they aren’t as up to date with everything that is happening in the business, and just have a ‘big picture’ view of everything that is going on.
This can mean when they try and get a more detailed version of what’s going on with the business, it can be quite challenging for them to do, as they may have to go through lots of people and documents to get the information they want, or they have to schedule time to speak to different department heads in order to get that further level of detail they need. This not only uses up other members of staff’s time, but it’s a huge time loss for the Management team, as they will have to have multiple meetings!
One way Administrate can really help you tackle this is with our reporting system. It may be a good idea to have an initial meeting with your Management team and ask them what sort of data they need to see, and how often they need to see it, in order to be kept in the loop and get the detail that they need. You can then use this information to create the reports which will show the data they need to see.
This could mean creating more than one report to fit their needs, and that’s okay! Your Management team are really busy, and the last thing they want to be doing is wading through a huge report to try and pick out the important parts. It will be much easier to look at five different reports, which all answer a question instantly, so make sure you split the data into as many reports as it needs to be to be worthwhile and useful.
It is also a good idea to split the reports up, as they may need to be updated on some aspects every week, but other things they may only need to know about every quarter, so you can ensure they are only sent the updated version of each report when they actually need it.
Once you have set up all your reports in Administrate, you can set them to automatically send to your Management team, and whoever else needs to see them, on the relevant dates. This means your management team will have all the reports they need just sitting in their inbox exactly when they need them, without having to trawl for the data or spend lots of time in meetings with other people.
It’s also a great time save for you, as once the reports have been created once, they will be updated with the latest information in real-time, meaning you don’t need to personally compile the report again every time you need updated information.
Tutors Not Completing The Required Admin Tasks
One communication breakdown which can happen quite easily is between your tutors and your Training Administration team, as they may not actually have a lot of direct contact, but obviously need to work together quite closely when it comes to dealing with training administration.
Tutors will need to deal with things like recording student attendance, contacting students about things like homework and assessments, and arranging details for certificates at the end of courses. All of this information will need to go through the Training Administration team so that they know everything that is going on with all the students who are currently on courses, and this is where things can be forgotten and communication can easily break down.
While your tutor may remember to take attendance in class, they may forget to pass the information on to the Training Administration team, meaning there would be no official record of attendance. Information like sign-in sheets could also be lost before the information is passed on.
It’s really this extra stage of passing the information between two separate departments that can cause a breakdown, and things like having to take the attendance themselves, and then fill it out again for the Training Administration team is duplicate data entry that is really just a waste of time.
Administrate can help you deal with this because any information that your tutors enter into Administrate can instantly be accessed by your Training Administration team or anyone else who needs to see it. Not only does this mean no duplicate data entry, it also means the data can be entered directly into Administrate, so there’s no need to worry about losing things like physical sign-in sheets.
Tutors can access the attendance record for any course on that course’s page in Administrate, and mark each student straight into the system. This can then be accessed every time they run a class, or if they need to make any edits directly.
Tutors can also use Administrate to contact their students when they need to, as each course page gives users the option to easily email any students which are currently signed up to a course. You also have the option to include any tutors or administration staff assigned to the course on any communications you send, meaning your tutors can easily keep your Training Administration staff in the loop on any contact they have with their students.
Administrate can help you break down any unnecessary barriers that may lead to a communication problem, and additional steps and duplicate data entry are just a couple of examples of these barriers that you can easily tackle.
Bridging The Gap Between Marketing And Sales
Marketing and Sales are two teams which should be working quite close together in any business, but sometimes it can be quite difficult to remember to keep those lines of communication open. Both departments deal with bringing new business to your company, but in slightly different ways. Marketing should be gathering potential leads and customers, which can then be passed to the Sales team to close the deal. However, if the communication in this relationship breaks down, it can have a negative effect on both the work that both departments do every day, as well as on the new business your training company is bringing in.
It’s important to make sure both these teams are working closely together, and towards to the same goal, and Administrate can help you do this.
First of all, Administrate can let you create lead capture forms which you can put on your website, and then collect the details of any potential leads which fill out the form. These details can then be automatically pulled through to your sales system, creating a new opportunity for each one. This means your Marketing team will still have the contact details so they can complete any marketing activities they need to with them, but your Sales team will also have access to them, as the details will be available instantly for them to follow-up on.
Both your Marketing and Sales team can also benefit from our new integration with marketing automation and lead management tool Lead Liaison. Lead Liaison also allows you to do a number of marketing activities such as lead capture forms, though in a slightly different way from the way you can do them in Administrate. It also enables you to set ‘lead scores’ for any activity a potential lead might carry out, such as watching a marketing video, clicking on a link in a marketing email, or visiting certain pages on your website. You can then choose exactly when you want these leads to be pushed across to your Sales team, as you can determine when they are qualified or not. You can do this by setting things like a ‘lead score’ threshold, meaning whenever anyone reaches that score, they are then pushed to Sales, as you feel they will be more likely to purchase from you at this stage.
Using Lead Liaison will also create a new opportunity for each lead, so all the information is stored in your sales system and ready to use.
Effectively Onboarding New Team Members
When it comes to introducing new staff into your team, it’s really important that you effectively communicate everything they need to know to do their job properly and feel at home in their new job role.
Administrate can help you get any new team members quickly up to speed on any internal training they need to complete, as well as training them on how to use Administrate.
First of all, you can use learning tracks to create training plans for any new members of staff you have coming on board. Not only will this allow you to properly plan out exactly what training you want people to complete, as well as when and in what order you need the training completed, but it also ensures you effectively communicate to your new staff members exactly what is expected of them, and what training needs to be completed before they can start their job properly. Joining a new company and not knowing what is expected of you can be overwhelming, so it’s important to make sure you communicate properly.
New Administrate users will also need training on Administrate itself, as we’re aware it can be quite a complex looking system if you aren’t trained on how to use it properly. Administrate University can help you provide excellent product training to your new staff members, which they can then work through at their own pace, and dip back into whenever they need a refresher on a particular topic. All Administrate users get access to Administrate University at no additional charge, and we’re always adding new videos to cover any new features we add to our software, so new users always receive the most up-to-date training possible
Originally published at www.getadministrate.com.
