In
early 2009 it was announced that ERAU was going to implement a new software
system (Campus Solutions) by late 2010 that would be more ‘student friendly’ where
students could go to find information they needed in just a few clicks of the
mouse. This new software system would
change how the students and employees viewed student accounts. The information would be easy to find,
understood by anyone who viewed the screens and would make life a bit easier on
everyone involved.
Students
would be able to ‘shop’ for classes and easily add or drop a class before it
started without having to go through their campus or academic advisor. It would give them more options to set up
payment plans, direct deposits and view their account history among other
things. A big selling point for this new
program would be that more than one person (employee) could be in a student’s account
at once. This would come in handy if you
needed to guide another employee on where to find financial aid status, clear
up confusion on what classes a student was taking as well as if they owed a
balance or had a hold on their account.
With
any new change there is going to be pessimists in the crowd. “We don’t need to
change anything”, “Things are great just the way they”, “It is not going to
make anything better”, “I don’t know how I will be able to handle these
changes, I already have this system memorized”, and my favorite, “We just need
to win the lottery”. These are all
comments I heard from people who didn’t want things to change. Change can be scary for sure especially when
you are used to things being the way they are (if it isn’t broke don’t fix it). My department (financial aid) works hand in
hand with the main campus of financial aid as we fall under the same
umbrella. The comments came from
managers, directors and fellow employees.
The
pessimists in this group felt that making a change to the system was not needed
and would only cause more issues. They felt
that it wasn’t going to make anything better but perhaps make them worse. This group didn’t see the advantages of this
new program (newer, faster, more reliable, student friendly, set up to catch
issues before disbursements went out) they only saw that it would involve more
work for them. Having to learn a new
system would take time and they didn’t want to do this because it wasn’t going
to change anything so why bother?
The
pragmatists in the group felt that change was definitely needed and if it would
make things better than why not go for it?
This group saw the advantage of being able to help students and as well
the campuses by being able to see what the student or fellow employee was seeing
on their screen. Everyone could access
certain areas of the account and see the same information. This group also saw the potential for fewer
mistakes being made that the old system would not be able to catch. The new system would have better rules in
place to prevent disbursements being made when they weren’t supposed to like
when students were at their aggregate limits for federal loans, the information
would be pulled directly from the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS)
instead of having to check multiple sites to confirm this.
The
visionaries in the group saw more streamline processes, more accountability within
the department, easier way to track changes made, and more automation! So many processes were handled manually
taking more time away from the student. This
group also saw the advantage of being able to see the actual information on the
Free Application for Federal Aid (FAFSA) that a student submitted. It would make working on verifications
easier, quicker and would give a more overall snap shot of the students’
situation. It would also give an
overview of the students account as far as what program of study they were in,
what classes they were enrolled in and what track for financial aid they were
on.
The
power players (upper management) saw this as a way to get more students in the
door and more funds paid to students in a more timely fashion. It also would bring ERAU up to speed with
other schools who were more student driven in how classes were chosen by giving
the student more control over how they handled their account. And lastly the crowd in this group just
wanted to know what they needed to do and where they needed to go. They were going to follow the group and would
do what they were told no questions asked.
To
bring these groups together so that changes would be as smooth as possible
several trainings were set up once all the systems were tested. My new director was part of the project to
start with and I was brought over toward the end to test various components of
the new software. I had to test the
verification process and write a manual for the Daytona, Prescott and Worldwide
campuses on how verifications would work in the new system. The core group performed several tests and
pre training trainings to ensure that we were going to be giving out the best
information that everyone would understand and be comfortable with. The first training was an overview and there
were lots of people who had a negative attitude because they didn’t want
change. Many people admitted to just
being afraid of messing something up.
Before
we began that first training session everyone was given a chance to get their
fears and frustrations out. What did
they think of the new system? What were
their concerns? The biggest one was why
were a lot of things being taken away from them as far as access went. This got the ball rolling with everyone being
able to ask questions and we got to see it from their point of view. Once everyone got to express their thoughts
and get the negative parts out we were able to answer all their questions. Did it alleviate all their concerns? Not all of them but it provided them with a
better understanding of why the new system was coming in and the advantages to what
it would do for them. After it was
explained that access was limited in the new system because levels of securities
were assigned by processes not screens most everyone was ok with that.
Several
trainings were held and we still have refresher training every few months as
new batches are added to the system.
These batches are put in place to improve the system so it is important
to share these changes. There was only
one person from the other campus who decided to leave because the new system
was too much for this person to handle. They
were not able to wrap themselves around the new concepts no matter how much
training was held. The biggest hurdle to
get over was that the change was happening whether they wanted it to or not so
they were going to need to embrace it and learn it if they wanted to be able to
make it. Training is always an option
and now that we are two years in (one full year in financial aid) everyone is
more comfortable with the new system and how it works.
Sometimes
being a pessimist can be a good thing because we can see why something may not
work and we can fix it before it becomes an issue. The flip side is that this group of people
can bring down a department with their negative attitudes and it does affect others. It is best to understand why they feel the
way they do and work through these issues and show them the way to the
pragmatic side of thinking.
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