European Journal of Scientific Research (ISSN: 1450 ... - EuroJournals

58
© European Journal of Scientific Research, Vol 7, No 5, 2005
II. THE ROLE OF TQM IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM
TQM IN STUDENT SERVICES
Recruitment, admissions, registration, advising and retention are among the most
important student service functions of any institution. These areas depend on quick,
efficient responses to students and their parents. Often, the quality of interaction
determines where a student will apply, where he or she will enroll and whether the
student will graduate. A large part of success in this area is dependent on service
providers or staff. Improvement efforts, however, cannot be implemented without a shift
in the way administrative managers approach the processes of identifying, attracting and
enrolling students. Managers need to ask these questions:
How do you motivate staff to participate in finding new and more efficient ways to
identify and serve potential applicants? Staff buy-in is essential to success.
How do you redesign work to support an efficient application process? Processes must be
analyzed and inhibitors removed.
How do you identify those students with the highest potential for success and retain those
who are experiencing academic difficulties? Data are used to target specific groups and to
track success.
Most people work better when they understand how what they do affect desired
outcomes. Unfortunately, workers who have a narrow focus often perform tasks.
Compartmentalization of job performance inhibits the creation of a cooperative work
culture. If the process and reasons for adopting new recruitment strategies are not well
understood, for example, resistance to change can be expected to remain high.
Acceptance of change requires management to match the appropriate skill sets with the
job at hand.
PROCESS OF RECRUITMENT AT WORK
At a large public institution, the process of purchasing, sorting labels and compiling
direct mail packages has the staff in a continuous state of crisis and over work. Mailings
increase phone traffic with the result that staffs develop elaborate systems to avoid
dealing with these prospects or their parents. Over-time expenses keep increasing. The
team could decide to conduct an analysis of how effective the use of these lists has been
over the past one to three years. A survey of prospective applicants asking them to rate
the impact that their interaction with staff had on their decision-making process during
the recruitment and admissions process could change staff perspective. The results may
very well tell staff how their behavior contributes or detracts from the success of these
efforts. Now, the team can manage the process of developing heightened awareness and
paradigm shifts when interacting with students. The result will be an increase in
conversion rates from purchased prospect lists, increased inquiry rates, and improved
prospect pool profiles and application rates.
ADMISSIONS AND TQM