Contact Center Lead

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is one of the largest school districts in the United States, serving over 320,000 students in 600+ schools and employing approximately 40,000 people, most of them teachers. CPS has set ambitious goals to ensure that every student, in every school and every neighborhood, has access to a world-class learning experience that prepares each for success in college, career, and civic life. In order to fulfill this mission, we make three commitments to our students, their families, and all Chicagoans: academic progress, financial stability, and integrity. Six core values are embedded within these commitments – student-centered, whole child, equity, academic excellence, community partnership, and continuous learning.

The HR4U Contact Center is an inbound call center that receives over 100,000 calls per year and responds to over 25,000 emails per year. The HR4U Contact Center is a CPS employee resource that completes the daily administration of the Talent Office which includes Health and Benefits, HR Business Partners, Leaves, Operations, and Talent Acquisition Departments.

Job Summary:

The HR4U Contact Center Team Lead supports and supervises the call center specialist with escalated calls and emails and trains the team on new and existing policies and procedures. Additionally, he/she will provide excellent customer service to employees and CPS colleagues and establish the “quality bar” for staff.

The Contact Center Team Lead will be held accountable for the following responsibilities:

• Maintain and review Contact Center scorecard and call center performance scorecard
• Responsible for the training, coaching, and development of direct reports.
• Serve as the backup for customer service phone support during high volume periods
• Monitor calls and emails for quality assurance and coaching purposes
• Supports training programs and develops performance metric goals for staff
• Create department incentives, coach, and motivate the team to reach performance goals
• Monitor inbound call traffic and ensure efficient distribution based on staff availability
• Maintain call scripting, and call routing flows in the telephony system
• Report systems problems that may affect departmental standards
• Communicate caller and performance trends to the department manager and analyst
• Develop and maintain a high level of knowledge as it relates to department and organization
• Identify opportunities to automate and streamline internal processes and procedures
• Assist department with email and chat inquiries daily
• Assist department with testing and implementation of ticketing and phone systems
• Assist Contact Center manager with the development of standard operating procedures
• Interact with multiple departments to resolve employee inquiries received via email or phone
• Investigate and resolve escalated customer service issues or complaints.
• Responsible for the content, maintenance, and updating of the internal HR4U web page
• Person of contact for all platform requests for the department

In order to be successful and achieve the above responsibilities, the Contact Center Team Lead must possess the following qualifications:

Education Required:

• High school diploma or GED equivalent
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, preferred

Experience Required:

• Four (4) or more years of customer service experience is required with increasing responsibilities preferred.
• Two (2) or more years of Human Resource experience is required with increasing responsibilities preferred.
• Ability to adhere to HIPAA and ADA regulations and laws, confidentiality, data privacy, and protection requirements on a daily basis.
• Self-motivated and possesses the ability to multi-task across multiple projects with varying deadlines
• Experience using PowerPoint, Excel required, and Google Solutions preferred
• Evaluate opportunities for down-staff /overtime and communicate recommendations accordingly
• Prior experience in coaching, supervision, and training required
• Excellent oral and written skills with a professional demeanor
• Experience explaining employee policies and procedures is required
• Experience conducting new hire orientation is preferred
• Working knowledge of all employment laws, including Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Affirmative Action, Americans with Disabilities Act, FMLA, Workers’ Compensation, and Harassment preferred

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Ability to articulate a vision, set high standards, and effectively guide schools and principals in the realization of expectations set
• Expertise in leadership development and instructional leadership. Ability to coach directors and managers toward excellence, build capacity of content area teams and develop meaningful and high impact professional communities for teachers and school leaders
• Strong communication skills (speaking - including presentations - listening, and writing)
• Demonstrate high levels of instructional expertise, integrity, honesty, credibility, and the courage to make difficult yet necessary decisions
• Effective strategic planning capabilities, including the ability to establish long-term vision and goals, and align/manage activities toward goal fulfillment
• Strong leadership and team building skills, e.g. ability to develop high-performing teams united around a clear vision for serving schools and achieving student success
• Knowledge of operations, budget/finance, management and organizational development
• Ability to build collaborative relationships with a variety of constituent groups, including external partners, to ensure the entire system operates in the most effective manner possible to support schools and principals
• Ability to define problems, analyze data, and outline valid conclusions and action steps

Conditions of Employment

As a condition of employment with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), employees are required to:

• Establish/Maintain Chicago Residency - Employees are required to live within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago within six months of their CPS hire date and maintain residency throughout their employment with the district. The Chicago residency requirement does not apply to temporary/part-time positions, however, all CPS employees must be residents of Illinois.
• Be Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19 - Unless approved for a medical or religious exemption, all employees are required to be up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccinations, including boosters, and to submit proof of vaccination to the district within 30 days of hire. “Up-to-date” on vaccination is defined as being at least two weeks past all primary vaccine doses and any applicable boosters.