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Strategies for Admissions to Reduce Staff Turnover and Burnout
- Will Patch
- Oct 24
- 5 min read
Staff turnover has been on my mind a lot. Counselors are getting burned out, leaders are fleeing for greener pastures, and student workers are ghosting campus jobs. It culminated for me at NACAC when there was a question on the stage about how counselors can deal with toxic bosses, and there was way too much agreement from the audience. Ouch. What are we to do?
It’s a problem with a lot of causes and just as many possible solutions. Finding the root causes of the turnover problem is important. You can’t add new programs or tactics without understanding if they address the problems you’re facing. I’m going to lay out a number of ways to address these issues, but don’t try implementing everything at once. Test, measure, and optimize; just the way you should with anything else.
Strategies for retaining admissions staff
Leaders, at the top and middle managers, have retention strategies squarely on their plates. There are four areas to address that can help support staff: engagement, support, training, and growth.
Engagement is the feeling that a person has agency in their work. They own some part of the process and aren’t just being treated like a tool or following a script. Help them have ownership of something in the office. Let them try things and make mistakes. This is a great place to play to an individual’s passions that extend beyond just the role of recruiting.
Support is important in any job, but especially one as stressful as admissions. Your staff needs to know that you have their back. They’re dealing with making sure students, parents, counselors, and the rest of the team are happy. They also may need support to learn how to manage stress and juggle priorities to keep themselves healthy and avoid burnout.
Training is easy to define, but there are far too many counselors who claim that they don’t receive enough, or any, training. There’s training that supports their ability to promote the institution, navigate internal systems, and effectively recruit students. Still, there’s also the important professional development that helps prepare them for the next layers of their career or to find new opportunities in the institution.
Growth goes hand-in-hand with everything else. Admissions offices are often pyramids with a very wide base. Growth doesn’t necessarily have to mean a new title, but it does have to mean that there’s progress in their career rather than stagnation.
Ideas to improve staff engagement in admissions
Cross-Functional Projects: Involve staff in diverse projects across campus that expose them to different aspects of the institution and allow them to develop new skills. The added connections and communication with other offices is also a benefit.
Open Communication Channels: Create an environment where staff feel comfortable sharing ideas, concerns, and feedback with leadership.
Affinity recruitment: Make staff the point of contact and strategic lead for recruiting different affinity groups that are important to them. The leadership experience and ownership are important for engagement and growth.
Promote a culture of experimentation: Problem-solving is important, and problems abound in admissions. If there is a culture where staff feel able to research and try new things without fear of failure, there will be much more engagement with the work.
Ideas to support admissions staff
Mentorship Programs: Pair staff members (especially new professionals) with experienced mentors, both within and outside the admissions office, who can provide guidance, support, and professional development.
Regular Feedback and Recognition: Provide consistent, constructive feedback and acknowledge their contributions to foster a sense of value and progress. Recognize their struggles and work together to find opportunities to grow, and remember that everyone needs improvement in something.
Work-Life Balance Initiatives: Implement flexible scheduling, occasional remote work options, and emphasize the importance of time off and disconnecting to prevent burnout.
Inclusive Culture: Foster a workplace that values diversity, equity, and inclusion, ensuring all staff feel respected and heard. This includes diversity in personality types and ways of working.
Ideas for admissions staff training
Skill Development Workshops: Offer training in areas identified as valuable by staff, such as new technologies, project management, communication styles, or leadership skills.
Conference attendance: Attending conferences to learn from and network with their peers is a valuable opportunity for staff at any level. Provide guidance for how to get the most out of the experience and how to bring back ideas effectively.
Third-party support: Bringing in a consultant or leader from another institution who can help provide guidance and support can bring a fresh perspective and a needed jolt of energy for staff.
“Day in the life” training: Having regular walk-throughs of what a day is like for peers in financial aid, student support, career services, coaching, as a student, and other areas builds empathy and connections that are important throughout the recruitment cycle.
Ideas to help promote admissions staff growth
Competitive Compensation and Benefits: Regularly review salaries and benefits to ensure they are competitive. Keeping salaries low until staff reach one of the few coveted leadership levels makes it difficult for seasoned professionals to stay as they grow.
Clear Career Pathways: Outline opportunities for advancement and growth within the institution, showing young staff a future with the college and what skills are expected of them.
Accountability: Accountability is a critical skill for anyone, and modeling accountability is just as important as ensuring that it’s an expectation for all staff. Good staff are more likely to leave when bad behaviors are allowed to go uncorrected.
Support conference speaking opportunities: Sharing what you’ve learned with others is an important part of a professional career, so helping counselors speak at conferences and share their learning helps position them as experts and a resource to the profession.
How admission counselors can manage up
An admission counselor’s engagement, support, training, and growth should not only be their manager’s responsibility. It falls on each of us to take a role in our own career development. Managing up and asking the right questions are ways to show readiness for more responsibilities and trust.
Proactive Communication: Regularly update your manager on progress, challenges, and upcoming tasks.
Offer Solutions, Not Just Problems: When encountering issues, come prepared with potential solutions or suggestions.
Understand Manager's Priorities: Align your work with your manager's goals and the team's objectives.
Seek Feedback and Clarification: Don't hesitate to ask for clarification on tasks or seek feedback on your performance.
Take Initiative: Look for opportunities to take on new responsibilities or contribute beyond your immediate duties.
Final thoughts
Yes, compensation is one of the most important things to students. It’s been noted by researchers that there are a lot of factors in a job that can be satisfiers or dissatisfiers, except money — it can only be a dissatisfier. The good news is that there are many other things that can make differences, great and small, in job satisfaction and engagement. Beyond that, do they see the work as a job, a career, or ultimately a calling?
