Engage and motivate individuals
definitely represents one of the biggest, arguably the biggest, challenge employers
constantly need to face. HR Professionals are in fact relentlessly striving to
come up with new effective ideas to prepare employees to go the extra mile, exercise
discretionary behaviour and contribute to the attainment of their organization competitive
advantage. This clearly represents for HR everything but a straightforward feat
to perform in practice and firms differently strive to tackle the problem according
to the different peculiarities of their industry: a financial institution, for
instance, will clearly develop practices sorely different from that introduced
and executed by a car manufacturer.
The task is even
more daunting for the employers of the call centre industry, as often as not beset
with very high absenteeism rates. The main feature of the work typically offered
by these organizations is indeed repetitiveness, which makes it particularly difficult
for managers to motivate and engage individuals, never mind prepare these to go
the extra mile. Whether on the one hand it is very unlikely that the problem might
be effectively addressed adopting the one-size-fits-all approach, it is also
true on the other hand that it does not equally affect the employers of the different
regions and areas in which call centres are established. The reason why different
employers experience diverse degrees of difficulty is usually associated with the
disparate characteristics of the local labour market where call centres are set
and run.
So negative is the
perception of working in call centre environments as to many people in Western
countries, especially young people, as often as not preferring not to have any
job at all, rather than working in a call centre. In general, individuals dislike
taking this kind of job by reason of the repetitiveness it entails, the high
level of stress typical of these environments and, last but not least, in that for
many people working in a call centre can be tantamount to having a dead-end
job.
Whereas more often
than not in order for individuals to work in a call centre these do not need to
prove the achievement of particularly brilliant academic results, individuals
aiming at working in a call centre definitely need to meet very significant and
essential person specification. Outstanding communication abilities, confidence
when speaking on the phone and an inborn listening ability, for instance, definitely
represent mandatory preconditions to cover these roles. Yet, being able to promptly
understand the caller wants assumes a greater importance for an individual to
properly and effectively carry out the typical call centre tasks. To avert
customer disappointment and complaints, call centre agents need to promptly pinpoint
the reason why people call and rapidly identify the most suitable solution to
meet their expectations and address their problems. Doing that according to the
service level agreements reached by the employer with their direct customers
just contributes to add further difficulties and stress to call centre agents
job.
Despite CCAs’
education may play a marginal role on the quality of their performance, their personal
attitudes and qualities are sorely important. As discussed earlier, for CCAs to
effectively carry out their work these definitely need to have some specific
and important qualities, but before setting a call centre in any given area a
crucially significant investigation necessarily needs to be conducted.
Considering the growing
disaffection expressed by jobseekers at large with this industry, investors
planning to set a call centre should first and foremost conduct an in-depth
study of the local labour market enabling them to gain a thorough knowledge and
understanding of its features and avert future staff high turnover rates. This
activity, which is of pivotal importance and can be thus regarded as a “golden
rule” for any organization, irrespective of its specific industry, has to be invariably
regarded as a mandatory prerequisite before setting and running a call centre.
“Understanding the environment in which an organization operates” is one of the
most important activities, arguably the most important activity, HRM should be
concerned with (Torrington et al., 2008).
As a general rule, employers
should avert establishing a call centre in areas whose labour market:
- Is acknowledged
as “tight”;
- Is characterized by
the presence of highly educated people (especially young people);
- The average pay
rates are competitive.
It clearly sorely depends
on the different regional circumstances; in India, for example, a degree is
often regarded as a prerequisite to have access to a call centre position. It also
indeed depends on the type of activities and services offered by the platform; in
some western countries a higher education level may be required to work in particular
types of call centres (banking and finance), in some other cases a thorough and
wide technical knowledge could be considered more relevant (IT and automotive),
whereas in many other cases a good command of foreign languages represents the
most sought requirement (assistance and business services).
Knowing well in advance what a particular area
or region actually offers in terms of workforce skills and what individuals are
expected to receive in terms of reward and career prospects is invariably of paramount
importance. The area’s unemployment rate is clearly an additional variable to
duly keep into consideration as well as its labour market past and likely
future trends are. In areas where the unemployment rate has traditionally been and
is likely to remain rather high, a job is still surely considered and
appreciated as such so that in these locations an employer may be put in a position
to relatively easily attract and retain talents. By contrast, in areas where
the unemployment rate is very low and people typically seek exciting, rewarding
and satisfying career opportunities, the establishment of a call centre may
prove to end in a dismal failure.
Despite it is clearly
up to the call centres management to show that these too can offer career and
growth prospects to their employees, it is also obvious that organizations do
not need hundreds of managers. The task cannot be indeed classified as
straightforward so that HR Professionals should constantly investigate bespoke
solutions adequate to the specific circumstances. To motivate, engage and
reward staff businesses might, for instance, develop internal mobility policies
enabling individuals, who have yielded valuable results for a pre-identified period
of time, to work in a different organizational office or function or to be
exempted from night shifts or the roster at large either permanently or for any
given period of time.
Despite the call
centre environment described so far may appear slightly grim, call centres are everything
but destined to disappear. In contrast, the number of industries and organizations
having recourse to this type of activity is increasingly growing. The
circumstance that call centres enable organizations to answer to their customer
queries around the clock has clearly played a significant role on the industry
development. These can in fact operate at global level with no problems as
regards the different time zones.
The booming of the call
centre industry has definitely been favoured by technological advances, which
have clearly played a significant role. Without the contribution of computers,
the internet, e-mails, GPS, satellites systems and so forth the call centre
industry could have not experienced a so rapid and unrelenting growth.
Inasmuch as call
centres are destined to increasingly gain value within modern organizations, it
can hardly be argued that call centres managers are prepared to effectually face
the more challenging problems these will be prompt to manage in the future. The
sickness absence rate recorded by the industry is self-explanatory. With an
average absence level of 12.4 days per employee per year (CIPD, 2009) call
centres show the highest absence rate amongst the different existing industries,
with stress being one of the main causes of this undesirable accomplishment.
Call centres should
indeed develop flexible working policies going well beyond legal requirements.
Since the type of job performed in call centres is objectively hard, employers
should strive to enable a better work/life balance to all of their employees irrespective
of what provided for by the local regulations. Everybody has his/her own wants
and personal interests and aims at living a pleasant life. This clearly means
that the employer will accept an additional burden in the management of its
day-to-day activities, but such efforts should in turn effectively contribute
to improve its employer branding image and genuinely encourage its staff
discretionary behaviour. After all, it is unlikely that people living exceedingly
hectic lives could be actually able to perform well at work. In order to attain
the best results, businesses should consider all of the three options available
in terms of flexible working, to wit: the number of hours, the timing and the
location where the work is carried out.
What employers
should rather in general avert is having recourse to an autocratic leadership style:
this is anachronistic, considered unbearable by Gen Y people and very unlikely
to produce positive results; albeit also in this case it depends on the
different circumstances.
Organizations which
have actively investigated suitable ways to motivate and engage their staff
with appropriate and bespoke actions and solutions have usually achieved very
good results (Generation Y, Call Centres, engagement and motivation) giving evidence
that the results yielded are well-worth the efforts. Nonetheless, despite many
call centres may have the same types of problem the one size does not fit all. The
challenges faced by the different organizations are and have thus to be
considered contingent upon the different context in which these operate. Employers
should investigate and identify individual expectations and the viable measures
they can take to meet their workforce needs and expectations, whilst achieving
the target and standard of service required.
The best way to
understand what individuals actually wish is clearly ask the question directly to
them. Internal surveys can definitely help, but employers should consider that the
data gathered by means of internal surveys must hence to be translated into
practical actions and activities. Employees need to have tangible evidence that
their suggestions and voices have been listed to. Surveys, focus groups, large
groups and whatever other method adopted to collect data will otherwise only have
the effect of creating pointless expectations, which whether not met may in turn
just produce undesirable counterproductive effects.
Inasmuch as the
call centre industry still has a bright future ahead of it, the challenge their
business leaders need to face is likely to be increasingly tricky to manage too.
Longo, R., (2011), Motivation: The present and
future challenge of call centres, HR Professionals, [online].
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