Leading in Your Role: Improve Recruitment Administration for HR Administrative Staff
December 8, 9, 15, 16, 2022 | 8:00 am - 11:00 am
English and Mandarin Chinese | Virtual
This is a Certificate Program – 16 Hours of Professional Development will be Awarded.
Schools that had leaders recently complete this course:
“A lot of processes that take place were brought to the forefront. This helped me develop an improved understanding of why certain things happen and why people may react in the ways that they do to different situations. The group conversations and the facilitation were incredibly useful.”
Our Goal
We will be using case studies from the past 2 years to understand how to overcome challenges caused by disruptions to recruitment processes and practices.
Participants will leave with the tools and confidence to communicate more effectively, as well as to coordinate multiple priorities and problem-solve collaboratively.
Our Ideal Audience
This workshop is for any staff member with an administrative responsibility related to overseas teacher recruitment. This can include but is not limited to: job advertisements, candidate filtering, interview administration, application/credentials processing, contracting, benefits, housing and visa processing.
The Pandemic has impacted every staff member. This workshop will help the staff that gets the least amount of training but has the greatest amount of interaction with our foreign teacher candidates.
School leadership and their respective teams rely extensively on Human Resource (HR) staff to communicate effectively on behalf of the school and be the first point of contact for foreign teacher candidates and new hires. International Schools present a challenging work environment for our HR staff, many of whom have never attended such a school nor have had to manage several competing priorities and stakeholder expectations.
This program will give your HR Staff the opportunity to be exposed to communication, problem-solving, and time management skills to empower them to work more efficiently.
Participants will engage in practical activities and be given tools and templates to help them:
Overcome barriers to being understood and understanding others.
Communicate effectively in a multi-cultural work environment.
Use questioning techniques to ensure mutual understanding.
Define, communicate and act to resolve problems.
Identify, communicate and coordinate multiple priorities.
PDAC Method of Writing Emails and Proof Reading.
What will I learn?
Module 1
Key Communication Skills & Intercultural Communication
Participants will develop an awareness of the communication preferences and styles of other cultures and then be introduced to essential questioning skills to help them confirm understanding when stakeholders have problems.
Small groups will be given cases of common requests foreign teacher candidates and new hires made during the pandemic. Each group will be required to identify relevant clarifying and probing questions for each case. These groups will then reflect on how they might adapt their questions based on the different cultural attributes of the requestor and then submit their questions for peer review.
The facilitator will provide feedback based on his observations from the group submissions, as well as introduce how to develop an Inquiry Funnel. Mixed Groups will choose one of the cases for requests teachers or administrators made during school closures. Groups must develop an Inquiry Funnel to confirm the teacher or administrator’s understanding of the situation, their expectation and confirm an agreed course of action.
Module 2
Collaboratively Communicating to Solve Problems
In order to communicate effectively and influence foreign teacher candidates and new hires, we need to understand our priorities and how those priorities affect others. Participants will learn how to become more interpersonally aware and identify strategies for working effectively with foreign teacher candidates and new hires that have different priorities to their own.
Problem Solving is a process of defining a problem, determining the reason for the problem, identifying, selecting, implementing the best solution for resolving the issues efficiently and effectively in an organization. The problems that HR staff often face are related to people, and in particular, the problems of candidates and new hires.
This module introduces to participants a consultative communication model to ensure they use inquiry and empathy to involve those they seek to help in developing a solution. Not all problems can be solved by frontline staff, but they can at a minimum help people to be heard and feel understood.
Module 3
Communicating Clearly in Email
Participants will learn and demonstrate how to write correspondence to foreign teacher candidates and new hires using PDAC (Purpose – Details – Action – Close). To effectively execute this strategy, participants will have to complete several writing exercises that will improve their ability to write: Build Rapport, Keep Sentences Simple and to the Point, Ensure a Positive Tone, and Know When to Use Benefits and Consequences.
Small groups will review their respective member’s writing assignments and submit them for the facilitator to review.
The facilitator will review samples from the group submissions and provide examples of how to respond to requests for information and complaints. Participants will be separated into mixed groups and expected to draft a communique to foreign teacher candidates and new hires based on one of 3 common cases HR staff had to address during the pandemic.
Module 4
Managing Multiple Priorities
Learn to reduce distractions and prioritize tasks based on strategies popularized by Stephen Covey. Participants will role play communicating their priorities to influence the expectations of others and mitigate potential conflict.
Small groups will identify common challenges they faced in their role during the pandemic, in particular unexpected tasks and new responsibilities. Reflecting on the readings and recorded lectures each group must then brainstorm possible solutions to one challenge and prepare to present it to the class.
Groups will present their challenge and proposed solutions. The facilitator will introduce how to ‘Manage Yourself’ and why this is the most effective Time Management tool. By understanding and being able to clearly communicate your priorities you can much more effectively manage the expectations of others.
Facilitator
Henry Wong
Henry, in addition to being an accomplished editor on interpersonal relationships, he is one of the few administrators who have served in both academic and non-academic roles in a school. He has more than sixteen years of work experience in international schools based in Singapore, China, and the US. His administrative positions have included Senior Admissions and Marketing Manager, Business Administration Director and, Co-head.
Henry worked in three international schools and two bilingual schools with student populations ranging from 220 to 1400. His international schools’ responsibility was to oversee and provide leadership for non-academic functions, including the Admissions & Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Public Relations, IT Help Desk, Facilities Management, Auxiliary Services, Procurement, and Inventory departments. These schools had very culturally diverse teaching and family populations. All the schools are accredited by schools and colleges associations (US), and IBO authorizes the three international schools. He published a booklet titled "Preparing Host Country Support Staff for their Roles in International Schools."
At Suzhou Singapore International School, Henry raised his support staff’s service standards to a level that equals to best practices of great international schools in less than two years. The majority of his departments and offices received more than 90% of customer satisfaction from parents and teachers. Three offices obtained 100% customer satisfaction over three consecutive years.
Henry obtained his bachelor’s degree at Biola University, California, majoring in Organizational Leadership. After acquiring his master’s degrees in Education at Pepperdine University, and Intercultural Studies with an emphasis in International Business at Biola University, he took up an instructor position at Tianjin University of Technology in China. He taught two subjects – Intercultural Communication and International Trade. Besides, he taught Mathematics to middle school students for two years. He also received a multiple subject teaching credential with a supplementary authorization in Business Studies from California.
What people have said about this course…
Individual Registrations
USD 400.00
Per Registration
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Bulk Registrations
USD 300.00
Per Person for 4 or more people
Please use the promo code J0PP5VL7 in checkout. Please then email erren@pdacademia.com the full participant list with each participant’s name, job title, and email address along with the receipt of your payment.
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Registration Fee Refund Policy
If notice of cancellation re the registered participant is received:
30+ days pre-event: 80% of fee is refundable
15-29 days pre-event: 40% of fee is refundable
Less than 15 days pre-event: no refund
"Event" means the first session in the program.
Participants who commence but do not complete the full annual program (withdrawing part way through) will not be granted any fee refund.
You may request substitution of a participant(s) and this will be processed at no cost.
Any free places purchased will be cancelled first. Free places cancelled are not refundable.