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By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.


As the economy begins to slow down due to higher interest rates that hinder job and wage growth, it is more important than ever for leaders to determine their organization's market potential and identify--via targetable lists-- its optimal prospects. Yet, this step is often overlooked, or underwhelmed in the process of developing enrollment management plans. The result is “hit or miss” enrollment management programs that aim relatively blindly.


I learned the value of bringing strategic and operational rigor to the “Know Thy Customer” process during my formative years as a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble “University,” and never forgot this critical lesson. Not knowing your school's actual market potential is akin to playing a sport without knowing how to win!


The “we want to pull out all the stops” enrollment management team will recognize that there are two pathways to data driven prospecting and that these pathways complement each other. That is because each pathway enables a different kind of marketing rigor to be brought to bear, yielding more certain gains. The two pathways are Market Segment Identification and Individual Prime Prospect Identification.


Market Segment Based Prospect Identification 

This prospecting approach involves creatively assessing your parent/student body and identifying underlying, targetable market segments based on discernible social networks. Once this is done it will be possible to assess the enrollment potential of each of those segments for your particular institution and to establish concrete market share targets for each segment. Knowledge of the market segments offering the best opportunities for growth enables a school to employ its most potent enrollment management weapon with great effect: Ambassadorship. Parent, Student and Faculty ambassador programs that generate word of mouth advocacy within market segments enable a school to have a veritable army working against key segments on its behalf.


Individual Family Prime Prospect Identification

This approach entails using Big Data to study the individual demographic characteristics of your families and then mine the universe of families for “more like them” targets. In essence this is what social media companies like Meta and Google attempt to do for millions of clients. But a school has the choice of relying of social media companies to do its prospecting for them or to work to master its own approach to this task. The value of a school working at this on its own is that it can actually own a prospect list, perform marketing experiments and become a learning organization that constantly improves its ability to manage its market. Leaving the job to the social media companies means only seeing the fringe of the market: those who have responded–and missing those who have not yet done so and not having the opportunity to learn why they did not respond.

 

In Summary

Thoughtfully choosing how it will go about prospecting for prime prospects is one of the most important strategic decisions a membership organization can make. Ensuring your organization's prospecting strategy decisions are made after a careful data-driven consideration of (a) all the options and (b) the costs versus benefits is key to success and should involve senior leadership at the highest levels of the organization.

 

To learn more about how your school and its network can maximize enrollment using this two pronged approach please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org

 

# market segmentation    #Big Data   #demographic analysis    #strategic planning

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Writer's picture: Harry BloomHarry Bloom

Updated: Aug 15, 2024

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good


After five years of conducting faculty climate surveys in day schools, two key themes have emerged for me. One, that compensation is not at the top of the list of important factors for the significant majority of teachers, but it is still very important to 2/3 of faculty. The second is that many faculty members are dissatisfied with how they are compensated—with the Covid pandemic having likely increased this dissatisfaction. And, given how salaries are set in many schools, the dissatisfaction is justified. So, while compensation is not at the top of teachers’ priority list, the sense of unfairness its implementation engenders in faculty members is a negative force that undermines enthusiasm, advocacy and employment continuity for the profession. Later in this article I will make some suggestions that I believe could help alleviate this undesirable situation.  


 Some Facts Drawn from the Research

Just over half of the more than a thousand faculty members I have surveyed over a five year period of time reported being satisfied (of these only 15% were very satisfied) with the competitiveness of their salaries. And written comments in the surveys provide a sense of why the other half are dissatisfied:


“As a teacher with multiple degrees and a passion for education, it seems unfair to struggle to afford necessities like food and housing. I love the school because of the fantastic students and colleagues; however, it is hard to obtain a healthy work/life balance or provide my students with a top-tier education when I can't afford to eat lunch and have to work extra shifts elsewhere.”


“Although the school may offer a competitive salary to some employees, there is a lack of equity in that each employee needs to “fend for themselves” and to push to make sure they earn what they are worth.”


“Years of employment in school do not lead to a higher salary, additional degrees  do not lead to a higher salary.  There is no scale and no transparency. Performance is not rewarded in compensation and it seems that the only possible way for there to be growth in salary is by procuring a higher salary at another institution and hoping it will be matched.”


“There has been a lot of talk about inexperienced/non-credentialed people coming on as teachers who make significantly more than teachers who already work for the school/have been here for years. It is very demoralizing, causes intense strife, and damages relationships with administration. Add to that the fact that yearly salary adjustments do not account for inflation, we make less money year over year.”


Board Members Bear Some of the Responsibility

While there is an intense and understandable focus by volunteer Board members on making schools affordable for parents, including the wealthy, this has been achieved through a reluctance to increase tuition in order to fund higher salaries and to faculty compensation systems at most schools which focus on minimizing raises. Salary increases are rationed and increases go disproportionately to faculty members who have the temerity to request them, and less so to faculty members who are uncomfortable with a negotiating process they are uncomfortable engaging in.


Enlightened School Administrators Are Recognizing the Lack of Sustainability in Current Practices

Enlightened Heads of School are increasingly recognizing the reality that any faculty compensation system that does not lead to their schools being a destination of choice for the best faculty members–particularly in a very competitive employment market– is ultimately dysfunctional. It is likely to result in decreased quality, lower perceived value, reduced enrollment and employee turnover.  In short, a race to the bottom. 


Some Key Questions to Ponder:

  • Do current compensation practices result in the “best and brightest” wanting to be educators in our school? 

  • Has the pendulum perhaps swung too far toward affordability concerns versus to concerns related to employee satisfaction and continuity? 

  • Should the value of having day schools becoming employers of choice receive more strategic and operational attention? 


Here are Some Suggestions to Help Ensure Our Schools are Magnets for the Best Educators

School leaders need to increase the transparency of salary setting by

  • Disclosing the share of the school budget that faculty salaries comprise and making sure it is a defensible percentage relative to its importance.

  • Enumerating those performance factors that are valued and will result in higher compensation. If years of experience is valued, say so and reflect that in compensation. If advanced degrees or certifications are valued, say so and reflect that in compensation. Etcetera. 

  • Taking necessary steps to ensure salaries at a minimum keep up with inflation.

  • Being honest about the need to pay more for teachers who possess scarce skills. 


In Conclusion: 

The Faculty compensation systems in many day schools are inequitable and inadequate and undermine trust and satisfaction. If school leaders truly “walk the walk” in pursuing equity and justice and a system that will attract the caliber of faculty our children deserve, faculty compensation systems should better reflect these values. Straight talk with parents about the need to balance faculty quality and morale is needed and will be understood by those with an open mind.


Day Schools can and should do better to avoid Faculty burnout and discouraging quality faculty members from joining our schools. 


We can and need to do better. 

To learn how to become more knowledgeable about making your school a destination of choice for faculty please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org



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Updated: May 7, 2024



A Benchmarking for Good survey of over 800 faculty members at fourteen geographically dispersed Jewish day schools provides important insights about what school leaders need to do to become employers of choice in a challenging labor market. 


One might automatically think that offering competitive salaries as the key factor, but salaries turn out to be an important, but middle tier importance factor. Ensuring faculty members feel respected is the top criterion for determining whether a school is an employer of choice. There was a fair amount of uniformity across the surveyed schools about the relative importance of the various factors.


In a subsequent report we will shed light on how well the surveyed faculty members felt their needs were being met relative to these factors. 

Tier 1 Importance Factors

The top 3 “employer of choice” factors are: 

  • Feeling Respected and Supported by Their Supervisor

  • Having a Positive and Collegial Work Environment

  • Working in An Environment Where Parents Treat Faculty with Respect


In the median surveyed school, eighty-four percent of faculty members indicated these factors were “Very Important” in defining a school as an employer of choice. 

Tier 2 Importance Factors

Two additional environmental factors represented the second tier of importance. They were 

  • Working in an Environment Where Students Treat Other Students with Respect and Caring, and 

  • Working in an Environment Where Students Treat Faculty with Respect. 


These two factors were indicated to be Very Important by 71% of faculty members in the median surveyed school. 


Tier 3 Importance Factors

Three factors represented the third tier of desired school characteristics. 

  • Being Able to Freely Communicate Ideas, Concerns and Suggestions

  • Receiving a Competitive Salary

  • Having Appropriate Tools (Space, Technology, Curriculum, etc.) 


These 3 factors were indicated to be Very Important by ~60% of responding faculty members. To be clear, this does not mean that schools can deprioritize salary considerations, it simply indicates that salary alone will not ensure they are employers of choice if the other highly important factors are not in place. Of note, the importance ratings were relatively constant among faculty members of varying years of employment at the surveyed schools. 


Tiers 4 and 5 Importance Factors

Factors that were Very Important to from 25-40% of survey respondents were: 

  • Receiving a Competitive Benefits Package

  • Having Access to Career Growth Opportunities

  • Having Access to Professional Development that Enhances Skills 

  • Having Access to Expert Mentoring 


In Summary

There are many factors that contribute to a school becoming an employer of choice to faculty members, but climate factors centered around making faculty members feel respected by key stakeholder groups–supervisors, parents, fellow faculty members and students– are very  important for a strong majority of faculty members. School leaders need to conduct periodic survey research in order to be knowledgeable about how well they are perceived to be performing on these factors. Additionally, when shortcomings in perceived performance are revealed, they need to conduct in depth qualitative research to learn about where they are falling short and need to make improvements. 


Benchmarking for Good is making a concerted effort to help elevate the field in this important arena by offering a second round of no cost grants to a number of qualified schools interested in perfecting their practice in this area. Interested school leaders should contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org to explore whether this grant program is a good fit for their schools. 



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