Top 3 Communications Breakdowns During Remote Learning

Staying connected with students, parents, and the community has never been more important. The new norm of remote and hybrid learning brought with it change and friction, but Mitel’s unified communications apps help to bridge communications gaps within the greater education population.    

Fifty focus groups consisting of more than 500 educators helped Mitel better understand the challenges of teaching remote and the impact COVID had on teachers, students, and parents. From those interactions, there were three themes identified as common communications breakdowns.

Top 3 Communications Breakdowns in Education 

Many of the educators said they needed a quick fix that would allow them to pivot from on campus to working from home; most started to call forward the main Department of Education number to an unknown voice services number, or even their own personal mobile number. While this seemed to alleviate the issue at first, it really caused a cascade of problems:

1. When call forwarding a number off-campus, the schools only received one call at a time, throttling back communications that were desperately needed to avoid further crisis.
2. Calls could not be scheduled, which created interruptions for the students and teachers. 
3. When the teachers attempted to return phone calls, the caller ID was not associated with the school and went unanswered by the parents. Many teachers told us they needed to send a pre-text to the parent asking them to answer the call from this unknown caller ID.   

In a time of high anxiety, having a holistic voice communications strategy can provide consistency throughout the district, provide partners with the confidence they need and the convenience that educators deserve. 

Mitel’s UC Applications are the Answer 

The Mitel unified communications applications are at the core of all Mitel solutions, offering voice, chat, and collaboration in a single application. Let’s narrow down the use case to align the solution with the challenges faced by educators.

1. Allowing parents and the community to continue to call the school’s published numbers offers consistency and familiarity. The community, meaning more than one person at a time, can reach the school to receive messages and further instructions. 
2. Individuals within the school can work as a “virtual” group, sharing the incoming and outbound workload which allows for more answered and connecting calls more often. 
3. Using the Mitel Softphone for calls will associate that user with the school by sending out the school’s campus caller ID, which provides the familiarity and confidence for the parent to answer the call.

A Holistic Communications Solution

Making Mitel’s unified communications app a part of a holistic communications solution will also mean that the next time society pivots to a virtual teaching environment, everyone will be prepared. Changing processes in the middle of an emergency, like COVID, only created more disorder.  

Staying connected keeps the lines of communication open, allowing educators to stay focused on their most important job: teaching and mentoring youth.