On Bank Call Centres - a reflection on our move to Advisor Conferences
One of the many things I loved about living in Denmark, was that our bank allocated us a 'manager'. Her name was Dorthe, she had lived in Australia for a few years, which is why they allocated her to us, and she was lovely. She stayed with us for our whole time in Denmark, and we never needed to speak to anyone else at the bank - insurance, mortgages, current accounts, children's accounts - she did it all. We could talk to others if we wanted, but we just never needed to. If we had a question, she always knew the answer, and would just immediately pull the threads together and address the issue at hand. I have her number to directly message her, and she always replies.
Comparing that to Bank to Scotland, who I have been with for decades - I have never known the name of an employee. I have never spoken to the same person twice. I know nothing about the people I do talk to. Getting things done is always just very hard and random because it normally involves multiple departments and I am expected to coordinate these, but I don't work at the bank, so it is impossible. I have lost count of the number of times I have been 'transferred' and then had to re-explain the issue for the nth time.
Just to prove Dorthe is real, here she is. I recommend her if you ever need to bank in Denmark.
What's my point?
Our move to advisor conferences is aligned to the desire above for a clear bridge between home and the organisation. A typical parent teacher conference in the outdated model might be 8 appointments in a row. Most of them repeat what was written on the report 4 weeks ago. At five of them the same thing is mentioned that your child doesn't settle well, especially when working with a particular child. Alarm bells start ringing. 'Do these teachers know they are saying the same thing? Haven't they talked to each other? Who should I speak to next? I need to coordinate this, but I don't even know the other child they are talking about or what the lessons look like.' You normally end the parent teacher conferences with a to-do list, which is seemingly impossible to do. You have already talked to 8 people, and now you need to talk to ... learning support? the assistant principal? the counsellor? the principal? the head of grade?... you are now up to 13 people. You might have three children at the school. It might be 39 people by now - you are wondering why you are the one who has to pull the threads together? You have a presentation at work tomorrow and no time to do that level of intervention. You are going to have to take a sick day off work just to try to start addressing this.
Instead what we would like is for you to have the equivalent of Dorthe. You speak to someone who already knows there is a small issue when Jack sits next to Ajay, and is already working on it with the teachers. They already know the big picture of your child, who is working on their organisational skills they tell you and the advisor had already talked to learning support. Rather then you as a parent ending up with a to-do list, the advisor mentions they'll use the systems we already have to mention a concern you have to the teachers, and it will get properly logged and followed up on. You have the recent subject reports, and an open grade book on powerschool and so do they. You end the conference with a sigh of relief and no to do list.
That's the aim.
Advisors in high school will stay with their advisees for four years from grade 9 to 12, and with the same head of grade. So the up coming conferences are just the first meeting point. We hope the relationship becomes as valuable and helpful to you, as I found Dorthe in Denmark.
In Middle School the advisors stay with learners for a year, but we also ensure they teach the same students. So as students change rapidly during puberty and adolescence they get rich relationships and security, but also a 'blank slate' each year.
We feel this offers the best possible experience for our learners to grow and thrive with the right amount of stability and change.
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