Beyond Faculty Development

How investing and upskilling faculty benefits your school’s enrollment, operations, and reputation.

Having spent a large part of my adult life managing and directing vocational schools, I’ve seen ebbs and flows in the for-profit school industry.  Over the last few years, we’ve seen an uptick, specifically by Gen Z, in enrolling in trade and vocational schools.  A 2023 article from NPR says, “...the Education Data Initiative says the average cost of college in the United States has more than doubled in the 21st century.”  They say, “With that price tag increasing, many Gen Zers say they've been left with no choice but to leave the college path.”  Where are they going?  They’re opting into trade and vocational schools like yours.  

You’ve probably, hopefully, seen an uptick in your enrollments (and if not, keep reading), so the question is, are you and your team putting your best foot forward?  Have you taken the time to develop your staff to be a leader in your industry?

Challenges Facing Vocational Schools’ Faculty and Staff

Much like K-12 and most universities, vocational schools also deal with:

1. Retaining the right people for the right roles.  

2. Shrinking or almost non-existent budgets

3. A lack of resources to compensate your faculty and staff

4. The lack of highly qualified admissions and office staff

Remember, vocational or for-profit schools are businesses at the end of the day.  Your product is education and promises a better future for your students.  So, the question is:

“How do you deliver on that promise if your team is struggling or (as in most cases) doing the job but not as well as they could be?”

Employers must now focus on delivering the benefits and opportunities that matter more than ever. Luckily, many have realized that comprehensive faculty advancement initiatives improve job satisfaction, reduce stress, and dramatically minimize turnover.  Some schools have Faculty Development departments, and some don’t.  Some existing departments may be underfunded or an afterthought to simply check a box.  Let’s look at ways to maximize your team, grow enrollments, and be the standout leader in your industry.

Sales Training to Grow (and Retain) Enrollments

Sales training is about focusing on solution-based selling techniques to enroll your students. You can also utilize these techniques in the classroom. If done correctly (as we teach here at HTLD), selling and teaching aren’t that much different. 

Admissions: Your admissions department is the lifeblood of your institution.  They are your sales team.  Period. They need to be trained like salespeople on maximizing a solution selling process.  You’re working with students and families from all different economic backgrounds, races, religions, and worldviews.  Learning how to solution sell is paramount to your admissions department’s success.

Teaching Staff: Your instructors can also benefit from sales training. It may sound strange, but bear with me. As Director of my last school, I routinely invited my teaching staff to my sales workshops. They are interfacing with your customers (the students) and are the ones who will leave a lasting impression on them. Having the skills to listen, empathize, negotiate, and present information will help them greatly in the classroom.

Negotiation Training

Negotiation training is valuable in sales, the classroom, and life. Therefore, immersive negotiation training can benefit many departments within your institution.

Admissions: Your admissions team must constantly work on and develop their negotiating skills. These skills are used when discussing the right program for your students, dealing with financials, and any other extraneous details students may need to enroll.

Office Staff and Administrators: Your office staff interacts with almost everyone within your organization. Upskilling your team to learn how to utilize fundamental and intermediate negotiation skills will help them further their careers.

Critical Listening & Empathy Training

Critical listening and empathy are the staples of good sales, teaching, and negotiation skills. You can’t execute these skills at a high level unless you know how to listen to your students and put yourself in their shoes. This helps build better relationships and reach people more effectively.

Admissions: When I managed my admissions departments, I routinely ran exercises on listening and building empathy with them. We’d constantly work on building these muscles through role-play, storytelling, and Socratic questioning.

Education Department: They are the backbone of your products and services.  You’ve trusted these people due to their excellence within a specific field, and providing regular listening and empathy training will allow them to connect with their teaching staff to ensure the curriculum is taught effectively to your students.

Teacher Training to Develop the Best Instructors in the Industry

Regular teacher training goes beyond just your teaching staff. Sure, they are the most likely candidates, but have you considered offering this to others in your organization? So many of these processes are built by having more than one department trained on the same thing. This may seem redundant, but it really puts those team members in each other’s shoes and allows for better communication and follow-through.

Teaching Staff: This includes classroom management, learning how to implement adult learning theory, and utilizing different techniques to get the most out of their students. This can all be done through in-person training and eLearning modules.

Education Department: You may have current and former teachers in your department.  You might even have some people who haven’t taught a day in their life, but they know the subject matter forward and backward.  No matter who is on your education team, they must stay current on the latest technology, adult learning theories, and teaching techniques.  This, combined with their expert knowledge of the subject matter, will allow them to work more closely with your teachers and will allow them to grow as professionals as well.

Conflict Resolution Training

This training is paramount to reducing tensions after they’ve started, but as you’ll see in a second, you can also use it proactively to prevent a situation from arising before it starts.  

Upper Management: Many new managers lack this skill. I had to bootstrap and learn this area by myself. Having difficult conversations with your team or managers is always tough. If you know how to deal with conflict and practice it regularly, your relationships and communication at your institution will blossom. 

Teaching Staff: This skill can pay off in the classroom.  Ask any teacher, and they’ll likely be able to share a story of a problem student or a conflict they had during a class. By training your teaching staff on conflict resolution skills, they can use them offensively to mitigate any situation that has the potential of getting out of hand.

Industry Focus Training

Most vocational or trade schools specialize in a specific trade or industry.  You could also be one of those schools offering various skills-based programs across multiple industries.  Whichever you are, the need for constant training on current best practices is key to being the leader in your specific trade.  While your accreditation may take time to update, it doesn’t mean you can’t still invest in your team to offer the best education on the market.

Teaching Staff: Suppose you’re an institution focusing on a specific industry. In that case, providing your teaching staff training on the most up-to-date techniques, technology, and trends will be paramount to your success.  Remember, you hired them because of their expertise; if you help them learn more about the subject/s they teach, you’ll enrich their professional lives and your school’s reputation for having the most cutting-edge teaching staff.

Education Department: This department is tasked with assessing, training, and writing new curricula. It should also be at the forefront of learning any new technology, techniques, rules, and regulations associated with your industry.

Upper Management: Again, if your school or department focuses on a specific subject or industry, investing in your employees' personal development within that field will pay dividends. Most people want to know that their leadership has been or can be in the trenches with them. Respect is earned through knowledge of the material, and having your leadership understand what is taught will trickle down through the company culture in a positive way.

Leadership/Management Training

Upper Management: This should come as no surprise, but it must be said. Often, managers and leaders are flooded with tasks, performance reviews, and project oversight, leaving little time to improve their interactions with their teams and with the students.  

Office Staff and Administrators: Where do most managers come from?  They typically come from within.  That said, it’s never too early to open the door of possibilities to your office staff and administrators.  They are your organization's future leaders, and with the proper care and attention, you’ll ensure a better future with people who know how to lead.

Throughout my years of directing and improving the schools I’ve been a part of, I’ve found that everyone in every department is there for the same reason: to help the students become the people who will change the world.  That’s the beauty of working in education.  We are all a bit romantic in our belief in helping others become their best selves.  These are great goals to have, and they are achievable.  I always tell my clients that my goal is to get everyone in your organization to face the same direction.  If you can do that and hone in on developing your staff and faculty, there is no reason you can’t flourish as an institution and help the next generation of students take on the world!

Are you thinking of investing in training for your school?  Did you know that while you have more than qualified curriculum writers on your staff, you’ll usually be better off having a dedicated instructional design department or consultant do the heavy lifting?  Click the link below, and we’d be happy to discuss how this is possible and how to grow your market share in your industry this year.