Worked in the equivalent of student services, which to be fair was like working in a call centre. The job was missold to me, by saying that it was something of a higher standard and of my background, but it really wasn't. When it came down to it, it was all about the targets, all about the numbers, all about the business. Unfortunately they try really hard to promote this fantastic atmosphere for all the employees, but it fails so badly because staff are genuinely unhappy. I've seen this unhappiness across the Enrolment, Student Success, ID and other teams quite openly. If so many people are unhappy, clearly something isn't working..
There is a lot of favouritism going on as well, within teams, quite openly. I feel that perhaps this isn't known to the higher management staff, because they're not aware of it. Or they are aware of it, and they support this behaviour?
The Melbourne office hasn't been doing well, I'll say that much. There's extremely high turnover constantly, with nothing they can offer to staff to stabilise it. I agree with some of the reviews here, that they need to spend more resources on the people who are there, and make the company work on a daily and tireless basis - as opposed to getting new and over qualified people who will eventually leave the role very quickly.
The atmosphere and interactions inter-teams is not genuine. I've seen on so many instances where Enrolment teams are treated so negatively by other team members from other teams. They're seen as the bottom of the organisation, which is really unfortunate. I've seen profanities used at them, behind their backs and also a lot of backbiting about how they're not clever about their roles and responsibilities. If you promote team work (which you try to do every day), you need to back it up with your staff's (low/high managerial) attitudes, because unfortunately on so many levels, they do not match.
Give people credit for the work they do and they'll be happy.. Genuine credit. Give those people higher tasks to do, so they feel challenged, and feel like they're going somewhere with their roles, even if you can't offer them a promotion, offer them better work which allows them to use their skills. Being a telephone operator isn't what's sold to a lot of these people, so utilise their best skills.
Be more honest and open at interviews about what the jobs are - be open about the fact that it is 100% on phones, making outbound calls or receiving inbound ones from students. It's not high level most of the time, so be honest about it and you will get the right people working for you.
