OpEd: What Does Salesforce's Connected Student Report Mean?

The long-anticipated third edition of Salesforce ’s ( Salesforce.org ) Connected Student Report is here!?We’ve gotten some sneak peeks at the early findings with “3 Ways to Take Student Wellbeing to the Next Level ”, as well as “These Are the 3 Values at the Heart of Institutional Transformation” , but now we have the full report !

The report breaks down the survey results of 2,668 respondents from 11 countries, collected between April and June 2022.?Additionally, 12 in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with highly experienced senior leaders in 8 of these countries.

The report is broken down into four key themes that emerged:

1.??????Belonging is the Foundation for Success

2.??????Students Need Holistic Support from Application to Graduation

3.??????Students Want to Be Prepared for the Future of Work

4.??????Expectations for Flexibility and Diversity Have Changed

Additionally, co-author, Navneet Johal , moderated a wonderful panel conversation about the report and its findings yesterday with Laurence Evans , Micah Griffin, PhD , and Caroline Dowd-Higgins .?If you didn’t catch it in real-time, you can watch the replay .

There’s a lot of great info and facts in the report, but I’m going to spend some time offering my own opinions based on my 15 years of experience working in higher education (plus my four years as a college student).

Let’s peel back the layers of the onion a bit:

1.??????Belonging does not equal Connection.?(In IT speak: Belonging != Connection)

Both of these words have technical definitions, but when it comes down to it, each respondent had their own subjective opinion of what “belonging” and “connection” mean when they responded to the survey.?

Connection: “A relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else”

Belonging: “An affinity for a place or situation”

A connection can be positive or negative, whereas belonging is positive.?I think it’s important for us to dive deeper into what “belonging” and “connection” mean to the students and take into consideration that each student may have a different definition of what a “great onboarding experience” entails.

What does this mean??It means we really need to invest in our orientation and new student programs.?These groups are the bridge between enrollment management and student services, and it’s critical that the student see no seams in this hand-off.?It’s also important for the orientation and new student programs to work together alongside the enrollment management unit to understand the makeup of the incoming class so that they can tailor the onboarding experience to meet their needs and expectations.

2.??????Quality and Accessibility Over Quantity

Incoming students want the opportunity to get to know each other and their university.?The Connected Student Report reported six categories students feeling disconnected believed would better connect them to the student community at the university: student clubs and similar interest groups; transparency, listening, and open-mindedness from institution; social events and networking opportunities; face-to-face interactions and getting together in person; opportunities to talk to industry reps, alumni, and PhD students; student and wellbeing support.

Every university I’ve interacted with throughout my career offers some level of each of these, so why are the students asking for more??This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think they’re asking for more.?I think they’re asking for higher quality events and opportunities and assistance in accessing these resources.?Students have information coming at them from all directions (that’s a whole other issue I won’t get started on), so they need a reliable, virtual location to be able to go to at any time to see relevant events and happenings for them. ?(I feel like there’s a CRM that could help with that?!)

We (higher education institutions) spend a lot of time, money, and resources hosting and facilitating these opportunities and lament when students don’t show up.?We need to shift our time, money, and resources to focus on quality and accessibility over quantity.

3.??????For traditional first-time freshmen:?The first few weeks are NOT when we should be focusing on communicating how their degree will pay off.

This may be another unpopular opinion, but incoming students are extraordinarily overwhelmed with everything coming at them in the first few weeks of college. ?I am just as big a fan as the next person hammering home the value of their education and starting to build affinity early on, but that is not going to happen by sending them emails about how their degree will pay off in 4-6 years.?You’re probably more likely to start building affinity and a sense of belonging (which leads to them valuing their degree) by giving them front row tickets to the first home football game.

1.??????Service < Strategy

I’ve been screaming this from the rooftops for 15 years (and Caroline Dowd-Higgins hit on it in the webinar yesterday):?We need to be spending our time, money, and resources developing a strategy to support the whole student instead of offering siloed service offerings during their time at the university.

What does student success mean??The bottom line is that it means something different to every student.?Fundamentally, we can break it down to keeping the students healthy, retained (i.e. happy), and graduating (on-time, preferably) with a job that pays well and they enjoy.?But there’s so much more to student success than these components, not to mention that success means something different to each student based on their needs and wants.?We need to shift our focus from services to strategy to provide each student with what they need to be successful.

A couple of examples of this that were discussed during the panel include:

·??????Being more agile to provide services when the student is available in order to be inclusive of all the different types of learners we have.?This means we need to be able to provide services outside of the traditional Monday – Friday, 8:00 – 5:00

·??????Integrating career services, the future of work, and what that means for each student into their curriculum.?This may look like self-discovery, emotional intelligence, and soft skills in their first year, interview and internship prep as sophomores, and then fine-tuning their experiences and resume and getting ready to dive into the job market as juniors and seniors.?This also means we need to steer away from the traditional non-paid summer internship model.?That is not an option for so many students, but we can work experiential learning and other opportunities into their curriculum as well as partner with our advancement and corporate relations groups to produce more paid and part-time internships.?(I could do an entire post on my passion for career service strategy and how CRM can support it, but I’ll leave it at this for now!)

2.??????Communication is Key

I’ve hit on it a few times, but personalized communication delivered at the students’ fingertips is key to a great experience.?Students have their phones always glued to them with likely hundreds of apps dinging them and pinging them constantly.?Universities must rise above the noise, but how??Only 50% of respondents reported feeling their university personalizes their experience to their needs.?

It's not surprising that most students prefer communications to take place in events and face-to-face; however, what I think may surprise folks is that students still prefer email for electronic communications over social, text, or other avenues.

In a prior role, we were doing research to prepare to roll out a student portal, and we didn’t want it to be just another student portal, or just another place students would have to log in to get information.?We had project-based work built into the curriculum to help support this initiative (See: Service < Strategy) where students led the research, and our findings were similar.?Students prefer to keep their personal lives separate from their school lives.?They want their friends to text them, and they want to browse social media, but they want the university to email them.

That doesn’t mean there’s not an opportunity for SMS and social to be a partner and to supplement the messaging the students receive via email.?For example, our student body said they like getting transactional texts (i.e. appointment reminders).

This is just more proof of how important messaging and communication is – it has gone so far beyond a way to push information out.?It needs to be a collaborative, bidirectional, personalized experience for the student where we meet them where they are on their journey – serving up the content they want the way they want it.?

And speaking of career services and the future of work, that brings us to the 3rd theme of the report!

1.??????Lifelong Learner

Half of the surveyed students plan to continue learning through a higher education institution after graduating!?This validates the lifelong learner journey that a lot of us are shifting to in our strategies for offering higher education.?Building affinity – belonging – while the students are here and keeping them engaged once they graduate via mentoring opportunities, peer-to-peer advising, on-campus recruiting, and other methods will be key.?Furthermore, flexibility and accessibility will be priorities for this generation of students for them to be able to achieve their lifelong learning journey which provides the university with an opportunity to maintain a lifelong, mutually beneficial relationship with its alumni.

2.??????“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I have always HATED this question.?Or, a similar question as a professional: “Where do you see yourself in X years?”?The bottom line is that our job market and career opportunities are evolving constantly.?There’s a statistic that’s been floating around for a few years: Up to 85% of jobs that today’s college students will have in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.

Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic has permanently shifted how we will do work moving forward with work-from-home, flexible workspaces, less required travel, and more focus on health and well-being.?This means that our concept of work/life balance is shifting as we know it.?I personally believe we, as a society, are moving away from work/life balance and more to work/life integration .?

But what does this mean for today’s youth?

It means, we need to stop asking kids what they want to be when they grow up and start asking what values they’ll look for in their future job.?Flexibility??Less hierarchy??Smaller organizations??Emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion??Emphasis on health and wellness?

3.??????Social Capital

In the accompanying webinar yesterday, Caroline Dowd-Higgins brought up a really important point that I think about often: social capital.?Unfortunately, and for a variety of reasons, many students don’t have social capital when they enter college to be able to leverage existing networks of relationships in order to obtain valuable experiences like internships or jobs.?Many students don’t have role models to look up to and say “I want to be like them” or “I want to do what they do when I grow up”.

When I think about my own children, they don’t really have a clue what I do, but they know my job supports my values (See: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”), and they know I like it.?So, they say cute things like “I want to work for Salesforce when I grow up” (even though I have repeatedly told them I don’t work for Salesforce).?They also collect Salesforce plushies as a hobby (Blaze is their favorite), and they make cute Salesforce-related crafts (See: Exhibit A)

I have social capital in the Salesforce ecosystem that will be passed on to my children.?Not everyone has this when they enter college.

There’s so much to unpack in this theme!?I have two major takeaways:

1.??????The Definition of Diversity is Evolving

Diversity is another term (like the student success example used above) that means something different to everyone.?The sense of diversity, equity, and inclusion is evolving, rightfully so.?Diversity shapes how students show up in the classroom and how they will show up in the workplace.?Higher education institutions must evolve, too, so that we can make sure we are providing our students a safe environment to learn, grow, and belong, so that they can become successful professionals upon graduation.

::Insert Shameless Plug::

I am personally very passionate about inclusive thinking around neurodivergence, specifically ADHD and dyslexia because my children face these behavioral and learning differences.?(Fun fact: October is Dyslexia Awareness Month!)

Unfortunately, historically, folks with ADHD or dyslexia are wildly misunderstood in school and the workplace, and that has put them at a disadvantage.?At the same time, neurodivergent people weren’t necessarily included in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

A wonderful nonprofit I support, Made By Dyslexia , is on a mission to teach the world dyslexia; to understand it, to value it and to support it.?A few of the great things that have recently happened thanks to their efforts include:

·??????#DyslexicThinking is now a skill you can add to your LinkedIn profile

·??????Last week, New York City became the first city to train EVERY teacher to spot, support and empower dyslexia with Made by Dyslexia’s FREE training

·??????And, with 1 in 5 people being dyslexic (albeit not all diagnosed), they have launched The School Report to explain why education MUST try harder to support every dyslexic learner

Similarly, ADHD is wildly underdiagnosed, undiagnosed, and misunderstood.?Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) is another great nonprofit on a mission to improve the lives of people with ADHD through evidence-based information, support, and advocacy.

2.??????IT is Evolving

Twenty-seven percent of respondents reported they felt their university was using outdated technology.?Frankly, I’m surprised it wasn’t higher because the fact is most universities are using at least some outdated technology to support students.

This generation of students is more tech-savvy than any other generation.?That doesn’t mean they don’t need IT support, though; what it means is that the support they need (expect?) has evolved.?Technology should “enable institutions to deliver the inclusive and flexible learning experience students expect”, but that’s unfortunately not always the case.?Forty-four percent of respondents reported frustration in having to sign into more than one app to find the info they need.

IT resources need to be focused on providing a personalized experience for university students that delivers everything they need at their fingertips with a top-notch user experience front and center.?Students expect an ‘Amazon-like’ experience out of their institution.?They want to be shown what they need before they know they need it.?Unfortunately, institutions cannot do this without CRM as the technological backbone, and unfortunately, too many institutions still view CRM as ‘nice to have’ instead of a ‘must-have’.?CRMs need to be prioritized and funded like any other ERP.

Summary

I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but the Enrollment Cliff is coming.?The significant decline in college enrollment that’s been anticipated due to the lower number of Generation Z children being born since 2008 has been exacerbated by Covid-19 with another steep drop in recent births.

Additionally, more students are opting for non-traditional post-secondary journeys like community college, technical degrees, and jumping into the job market and skilling up along the way via credentials, badges, and certifications.?It has become abundantly clear that higher education needs to move quicker than it has historically moved when it comes to its game plan in offering great experiences for all its students.?I think this report is a great start to give us the data we need to act on a strategy to do just that.

#studentsuccess #studentlifecycle #digitaltransformation #thoughtleadership #CRM #highereducation #highered #neurodivergence #ADHD #dyslexia #strategyvsservice #enrollmentcliff #worklifebalance #worklifeintegration #dei #diversity #womenintech #socialcapital #lifelonglearner #k20