Profile: Bianca Jenkinson, Australia Post
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Bianca Jenkinson Number of years in role: 1.5 years |
What do you do?
I manage the customer contact centre for Australia Post in Victoria, which encompasses a number of the company’s service and sales channels within the state. I am responsible for providing strong leadership and promoting a high level of performance and a customer oriented culture. I also have to ensure that the contact centre contributes to Australia Post’s profitability and good reputation.
What results are expected in your position?
The contact centre environment has a wide range of metrics and performance measurements. Service level, call abandonment, staff occupancy, absenteeism, LTI (lost time from injury rates), and staff attrition – all of these are regular measurements of the success of our operations. But what is fundamental, is ensuring that my staff members are happy and our customers are happy. Everything else follows from that.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
My most recent career highlight was increasing our service level performance by 30 per cent within two months. Staff attrition and attendance levels also significantly improved over this time. This was achieved through a process of aligning the contact centre objectives to a specific purpose. The results showed how powerful a common purpose can be in transforming a team’s performance.
What is the best and worst thing about your job?
The contact centre is a very rewarding environment. It has an energetic and dynamic culture, which allows ongoing opportunities and initiatives to take place. The greatest thing about my role is being able to bring the best out of everyone and helping them to make a difference within the workplace.
The worst thing about my job is never having enough time in the day to achieve everything I would like to. Time management and prioritising is crucial in my role, but there are never enough hours in the day!
Any tips on how to get and stay ahead?
As I experienced recently, the way for a team to stay ahead is to determine and work towards a common purpose or “vision”. The team’s vision should incorporate the organisation’s vision and core values. Most importantly it must relate to and be clearly understood by all staff. Staff should refer to the vision when making any decision to ensure the end results are in line with business goals.
How do you encourage loyalty with your staff and clients?
Loyalty follows from staff and client satisfaction. We are committed to staff learning and development, and this is a big factor that contributes to staff loyalty. We are currently in the process of creating a robust development program that will not only help staff to learn and develop in their current roles, but also offer opportunities for further career progression within Australia Post as a whole.
Customer loyalty comes from delivering a high level of service, meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
What do you think employees want from their employer?
It depends on the individual employee, but most people want competitive remuneration, effective work tools and support, potential for development and career progression, as well as rewards and recognition. Employees also like to have a clear understanding of how their role contributes to the success of the organisation.
What does your company do for its staff that you feel is different from what other companies provide?
One element of the call centre's success is the empowerment of frontline staff to make a difference to their surroundings and to their role. We make use of a team based system to allow staff to raise any issues on a daily basis. We encourage and empower all staff to contribute to helping make their environment a satisfying one.
What are the biggest human capital issues your industry is dealing with? …and what should be done about it?
One of the greatest human capital challenges within the contact centre industry is a high level of staff attrition. This is exacerbated in Australia Post as the contact centre acts as a gateway into the rest of the organisation. Because the job allows staff to learn so much about the business, we find that contact centre staff members are very attractive when other departments within Australia Post are recruiting.
We have found that attrition can be linked back to loyalty. All the factors listed previously; ownership, empowerment and engagement, are essential to address staff attrition.
