This time of year, many admissions and retention personnel are sighing at the beautiful spring weather and beginning to think about what things they would like to do this summer. Then the reality hits—summer is ‘crunch’ time for enrollment! After a long winter of working to achieve enrollment goals, there is no time to rest before the fall push begins. For Enrollment Managers, the challenge is getting your staff ‘psyched up’ for this busy and critical enrollment time.

Have a Plan
By now you should have developed your fall enrollment plan. Share it with your staff and regularly review your strategies and tactics. Involving your staff in planning is a great way to create energy and enthusiasm.

For traditional school retention and financial service staff, the next two months are critical to a strong fall enrollment. By getting your current students taken care of prior to leaving for the summer will provide staff with time to do necessary follow-up and work with students who need extra attention.

Set interim Goals
Final goals are important. You should also set interim goals to measure your success at achieving your ultimate enrollment for fall. These goals can be developed by department so everyone understands their role in a successful fall.

For instance, you may want to set goals for financial aid on the number of returning student files that are complete by a certain date (check last year and then set an achievable goal). Advisors should have a goal related to students scheduled for fall by say, June 1. Monthly ‘lead indicator’ goals can be set for each department.

Interim goals allow you to review progress toward the final enrollment. They also provide you with adequate time to make adjustments if necessary. These interim benchmarks are indicators of what you should be able to expect for fall. If you don’t establish them now, you may be in for unpleasant surprises later on!

Establish Recognition Programs
Once you have the interim goals in place, you can develop fun opportunities to celebrate their achievement. These can be very playful and simple. It’s amazing how much people appreciate recognition of a job well done—providing pizza for the entire department, the ability to leave a couple hours early on a holiday weekend, a grab-bag of silly items from the Dollar store are just a few of the things you may want to consider. The actual items should be tailored to the personality of your staff. Some things work much better than others based on their preferences.

Recognition programs are also a good way to build teamwork among the departments; especially if you tie some goals together. For instance, you may want to do something for both the financial aid and advising offices if they get a certain percentage of current students to schedule for classes AND renew their financial aid by a particular date. This involves cooperation among multiple departments in achieving the goal and will pay huge returns next fall.

Make it Fun
Many schools build their enrollment management programs around a theme. This makes it more fun for staff. As an example, during an Olympic year we developed a “Go for the Gold” theme for enrollment. Every department chose an Olympic event and a medal board was developed in the staff lounge. Each time a particular department met or exceeded a benchmark, the board was updated to indicate their ‘award’ of a Gold medal. We even had an ‘awards ceremony’ luncheon where each staff person in a particular department was given a souvenir medal (from the Dollar store!) It sounds silly, but the whole campus was interested in seeing how we were doing on achieving our fall benchmarks and the departments had great fun teasing each other about who had the most Gold!

Whatever you do, make it fun and lighthearted. Regular review and recognition of interim ‘wins’ makes the summer crunch easier and keeps staff focused on key measures of success!