Is the Cross Training of Customer Service Effective? the Case at the Nyc Dept of EducationIs the Cross Training of Customer Service Effective? the Case at the Nyc Dept of EducationIs Cross-Training of Customer Service Staff Effective?The Case of Integrated Service Center at the NYC Department of Education.ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUNDCurrently the organization I am employed with is the New York City Department of Education. The New York City Department of Education is made up of 1,200 schools and is increasing steadily as new public schools as well as charter schools are added each school year.
The school system is now organized into ten regions across the city, each consisting of approximately 120 schools. Each of the ten regions is organized into either three or four community school districts including the high schools geographically included within the boundaries of the region.
Each region houses a Learning Support Center which houses the instructional leadership team for the Region as well as a full service Parent Support Office. There are also six Regional Operational Centers, which provide operational support to schools. In July of 2007 the Department of Education will undergo reorganization in an effort to streamline management and move more money into the classroom. The Regional Operational Centers will still provide operational support to schools but will be called Integrated Service Centers. These centers will be five borough-based centers, supporting six to seven community districts.
The mission statement of the Integrated Service Centers is “to be the source of operational support for schools and programs in the New York City Department of Education. Our goal is to provide comprehensive business and administrative services in a systematic and efficient manner to principals; facilitate effective, smooth management of daily school operations; and build capacity for sustained high performance. Our continual focus is to align services and resources with instructional priorities and school based needs leading to high student achievement.” (
The Integrated Service Centers will provide mandated and operational services to every public school. They will provide core supports that might otherwise divert principals energy and focus away from instruction and student achievement. Personnel at the Integrated Service Centers also provide assistance to the Community and High School Superintendents in carrying out their responsibilities.
The services at the Integrated Service Centers will include support in human resources, for example hiring teachers in the correct licensing areas, proper procedures for hiring non pedagogical staff, payroll, budget and procurement, transportation, food services, facilities such as construction of school buildings, maintaining building safety codes, grant management, technology, for instance using smart boards, creating school websites, teaching principals and teachers the new and innovative methods of teaching in the classroom, health and safety, student suspensions when a student must be suspended outside of their home school, youth development and some elements of Special Education.
The Integrated Service Centers will provide all the service and information services needed to provide a serviceable, efficient and efficient curriculum in the classroom and that provides a curriculum of a quality and appropriate level.
The Services will be a combination of public and private facilities at a fixed address located near the university. In order to ensure that our Service Centers deliver the content recommended for inclusion at the end of our curriculum, the services will not be held in the same facility but will, for security reasons, use a separate, separate room from all our Services (e.g., if a Center is a student center, but is not a school, its students will not be at the center).
The Services will also become part of our campus home. The Centre will be located on a single floor that is accessible from the university via one of its student lounges.
The service and information services at the Integrated Service Centers will include the following:
• Support in human resources and related work functions including, but not limited to, communications and facilities management;
• Education;
• Staffing, research and development of curriculum and to improve the knowledge and instructional work;
• Instruction and staff training for students in the Education and Technology Systems of Special Education programs;
• Instructional programming, technical equipment and other related technical assistance, both academic and instructional;
• The preparation of students as a human resource and information resource provider;
• Training and assessment by independent faculty advisors and other experts including the teaching of the curriculum and the curriculum materials of the Special Education programs, and the selection of special education staff to assist them with their technical and instructional work in the classroom.
Each Service Center and the services at Integrated Service Centers are located in a single building on the National Mall along the intersection of the University of Michigan campus and the University of Notre Dame campus.
To be eligible for our program, only students, staff and faculty who are part of the public school curriculum are required to enroll in a part-time placement program at the Integrated Services Center. In order not to exceed the required number of hours and expenses for the new and improved curriculum at an integrated center, students with a special education degree and a special education diploma must be enrolled each quarter in the center. Students graduating with an education degree and diploma who are enrolled in a part-time placement program at the Integrated Service Centers will be considered for the program and enrolled for its time period, and students with the special education or non-special education degrees whose applications were reviewed in the course of the course of the placement program, must graduate
The Integrated Service Centers will provide all the service and information services needed to provide a serviceable, efficient and efficient curriculum in the classroom and that provides a curriculum of a quality and appropriate level.
The Services will be a combination of public and private facilities at a fixed address located near the university. In order to ensure that our Service Centers deliver the content recommended for inclusion at the end of our curriculum, the services will not be held in the same facility but will, for security reasons, use a separate, separate room from all our Services (e.g., if a Center is a student center, but is not a school, its students will not be at the center).
The Services will also become part of our campus home. The Centre will be located on a single floor that is accessible from the university via one of its student lounges.
The service and information services at the Integrated Service Centers will include the following:
• Support in human resources and related work functions including, but not limited to, communications and facilities management;
• Education;
• Staffing, research and development of curriculum and to improve the knowledge and instructional work;
• Instruction and staff training for students in the Education and Technology Systems of Special Education programs;
• Instructional programming, technical equipment and other related technical assistance, both academic and instructional;
• The preparation of students as a human resource and information resource provider;
• Training and assessment by independent faculty advisors and other experts including the teaching of the curriculum and the curriculum materials of the Special Education programs, and the selection of special education staff to assist them with their technical and instructional work in the classroom.
Each Service Center and the services at Integrated Service Centers are located in a single building on the National Mall along the intersection of the University of Michigan campus and the University of Notre Dame campus.
To be eligible for our program, only students, staff and faculty who are part of the public school curriculum are required to enroll in a part-time placement program at the Integrated Services Center. In order not to exceed the required number of hours and expenses for the new and improved curriculum at an integrated center, students with a special education degree and a special education diploma must be enrolled each quarter in the center. Students graduating with an education degree and diploma who are enrolled in a part-time placement program at the Integrated Service Centers will be considered for the program and enrolled for its time period, and students with the special education or non-special education degrees whose applications were reviewed in the course of the course of the placement program, must graduate
The service innovation I will be implementing will be at the Integrated Service Center (ISC) in Staten Island, New York. It will support Community School Districts 17, 18,20,21,22 and 31, which consists of 273 schools. The ISC will support 273 principals with their daily operational needs. The Integrated Service Centers will have as a senior management team, an Executive Director, Deputy Executive Director, Director of Operations, Director of Facilities, and the Director of Fiscal Management.
Under the Director of Operations, there will be three Lead Customer Service Representatives, and seven customer service teams made up of four people that will support the principals. The service innovation I will implement will be with one of the seven customer service teams. They are the front line people who answer the phones to support the principals.
By cross training the staff, I hope to decrease the amount of time principals spend on the phone when they call the ISC. I would like to survey the principals and ISC staff to find out the most common reasons principals call the ISC. Currently, phone calls to the ISC center last an average of eleven minutes, three of which are usually spent on hold. The ISC staff is currently made up of the previously listed departments; I would like to implement a customer service team of four people that will be crossed trained in the various service areas the ISC provides. The trainings will provide the staff with basic information in all the areas but the concentration will be in the high need areas once I survey the principals. From my own experience, I expect budgetary concerns will be a high need area. I will train the team that answers the phone in
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What’s Next?[/p]
The number of the students that will make or break this project is quite low so I have plans to raise it a little higher with an additional $1,500 raised from the existing $1,500. The goal of this project is to use some of the cash that has already started with that amount to get to that goal. If not, the project will become completely a 501c3 event. This will allow other donors to join us for the actual work they are doing and contribute to a well-functioning community where students can play and share on campus. They can also keep going and stay on campus at different times, but at a reasonable cost. I plan to give this project a number of scholarships, depending on the type of project, as well as grants and other benefits related to the event.
The students would benefit the project by sharing their own video clips with a community of their choosing so that more students are able to view them and learn more about their experiences with the project. Although you can contribute video clips as they are, these videos are not as good as the ones students share on Facebook. In my video tutorials they take to heart the unique aspects of running a student organization. Their videos will also show their students how well they are doing with their work, and how they understand the community. In addition, I believe students will be able watch their peers in the school community make the most of every resource they get to get the most out of the experience. I hope to create a space on the Facebook page for these students where they can join together and post and talk about their experiences. If possible, I will make use of this video format to give students their own videos. They can see their videos and share them with friends on Facebook and share in order to increase the exposure they receive.
Originally I wanted to have some video tutorials this time of course, but now I’d like other donations to create videos and support the project.
If I can get funding to build a digital library, one of the many things I’ll be working on this time are videos to share with my students to help them navigate the school environment and understand my project. These videos will also get students the information they need to make a final call or write a short bio on their behalf, so I’d love to see that sort of data spread to other groups of individuals, not just the ISC.
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