Grow Your Studio, part 3 — In Touch with Teachers
Grow your studio by building a team — keep in touch with your teachers! Teachers are the heart of your studio
; you want them engaged and happy. After all, they are the ones who bring their energy to the students.
You may be a teacher yourself, but in your role as studio manager, you are in a position of leadership, and set the tone for your studio. Keeping in touch with your teachers, and responsive to them, sets an example that makes them feel more engaged in the studio, and in turn, they will pass that positive feeling about your studio along to their students.
Let’s discuss ways to be involved with teachers without being intrusive. Each idea has its opportunities and challenges — staff meetings, studio-wide events, benefits, thank-yous, and other communications.
Staff Meetings
Theoretically, regular staff meetings are a good idea, allowing regular communication and follow-up, and giving teachers a chance to get better acquainted with other teachers and staff. In this way, everyone can feel more a part of the studio as a team.
Yet holding a meeting is easier said than done. Some teachers feel it’s all they can do to get to the studio and teach, so it’s important not to expect too much, and to make a meeting worth their while.
Here are a few ways to encourage attendance at staff meetings:
1. Provide lunch or snacks.
2. Schedule meetings at times when it’s easy for teachers to attend — a time most are at the studio anyway, or, even though it’s better to have everyone there at once, you could offer alternate times for convenience. Plan a meeting in conjunction with a studio-wide event, especially if it solicits teacher input on the event.
3. Schedule meetings at reasonable intervals — too often and they will feel like an imposition.
4. Every meeting needs an agenda, a purpose. There may be a need for some general discussion but make sure there’s at least one clear issue of practical value that needs teacher input. Take notes and follow up on what is discussed. Nothing turns people off meetings more than feeling nothing has come of them.
5. It’s fine to make announcements at meetings but that’s not a good reason to have a meeting unless there can be a discussion. Announcements without discussion are best done by email, or by distributing a flyer.
Studio-wide events
Any event that brings a studio together helps build your team. Events that feature student performances also help you get a sense of what your teachers are doing without imposing on them, although in some cases observing classes might be reasonable without being intrusive, depending on your relationship with the teachers.
Some studios schedule open houses with demonstrations and opportunities for students to register for classes and lessons. Engage your teachers in demonstrations and in leading sample workshops. One studio I know of has special programming days where teachers offer workshops for all comers, discussing and demonstrating aspects of learning music.
For more ideas on studio-wide events, please see the earlier blog post on this topic.
Benefits and Thank-yous
Some studios choose to treat teachers as employees, with paychecks, tax withholding, and benefits such as contributions to health insurance. These benefits tend in and of themselves to build a stronger connection to your teachers than having them as independent contractors. For more on the employee/contractor issue, see the earlier post on this topic.
Anything that gives teachers a benefit by being part of your studio can help build your team. Here are some examples:
1. Free admission to studio-sponsored events
2. Discounts you might negotiate with neighborhood businesses who would like to see your teachers do more business there
3. Local parking perks
4. Sales of CDs at studio office or desk
5. Gigs–some people looking for musicians for weddings or other functions will contact your studio for ideas. If you can devise a fair plan and wish to provide this service, you could parcel out such requests to your teachers. If you put something into it, such as advertising, or office work, you could take a cut as well.
6. Performances — the studio could host teacher performance nights to help exposure of both the teachers and the studio.
7. Website exposure — the studio could bring its teachers into its website offerings, including photos, bios, calendar of activities, and even sales of items. This says to everyone, “Here is our team — see what they’re doing.”
8. Annual gift cards at Christmastime, an annual cookout in the spring or fall. These activities bring people together, and foster appreciation for the studio and its managers/owners.
Other Communications
Basic communication is essential. There needs to be an easy way for you to get messages to teachers and vice versa. Studio Helper is of course a plus in this way, but you might also consider a newsletter to highlight changes, activities, keep teachers aware of upcoming events and meetings, feature different teachers, classes, and students.
Feedback is important, and responsiveness just as important. One studio I know has a teacher assigned as liaison with the management. If such a teacher is respected and friendly with the other teachers, this is a great way to provide easy access for teachers to communicate concerns, or for you to have help organizing participation in events or soliciting feedback.
The risk of falling short in providing accessible communications is a buildup of petty concerns and unnecessary resentments. Even a suggestions box can be helpful in this regard, especially if it’s well marked, with slips of paper or forms and a pen nearby. Some people seem made to complain, so sometimes you can’t escape, but it always pays to keep communications open and honest.
With a healthy team of teachers, your studio will become known as the place to come to!
Please feel free to add comments below and share with us how you like to work with teachers — what’s worked for you, and what hasn’t.
