Profile: David Grant, Global Tele Sales Pty Ltd.
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David Grant Number of years in role: 8 months (10 years in the contact centre industry) Number of staff: 60 Industry: Airline Contact Centre |
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What do you do?
As Operations Manager the critical functions of my role are Work Force Management (WFM), Call Centre Reporting and Telephony & IT management. I am also gaining experience in some aspects of Call Centre Management.
WFM – I manage an Operations Analyst and two part time coordinators who produce schedules and reports. I complete forecasts in conjunction with my colleagues situated in Germany, the Czech Republic, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and Turkey.
Call Centre Reporting – This is a sub function of WFM and includes contact centre performance reporting down to individual agent level. Company performance and forecast performance involves analysis and recommendations based on findings and trends.
Telephony – Administer, maintain and monitor global call routing through Avaya PBX and Genesys Skills based routing.
IT management – All IT related tasks fall under my position. This includes purchasing, administering and maintaining all hard and software. We utilise the services of two experienced technicians from a local outsourced business for on site support.
What results are expected in your position?
Contact Centre performance is the ultimate goal with high productivity, low costs and client Service Level Agreements achieved.
Forecast accuracy is critical and feeds into staffing levels. Reporting accuracy and system availability are the major metrics in achieving our commitments to our client. We are expected to have appropriate staffing levels and accurate schedules in line with AWA agreements to meet our service level targets.
Targets include a Grade of Service such as 80% of calls answered within 20 seconds, very low abandonment rates and forecast accuracy within +/- 5% on an intraday level. Our systems must be up-to-date so as to have minimal downtime due to faults and outages. If we can get all of that right then we can achieve our budget and reach our targets.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Prior to commencing with GTS/Lufthansa I was an invitational speaker at the TotalView user conference in Dallas, Texas. However, most recently my experience with GTS and travelling across the globe frequently to meet with my colleagues would have to be the biggest highlight.
What is the best and worst thing about your job?
The best are the benefits! I get to travel around the world: on work for free, and on personal travel, at a significant discount!
I have held roles in all facets of call centres; agent, team leader, quality assurance, roles in scheduling and forecasting, WFM analyst then Manager, and now Ops Manager. I have discovered that the people you work with are always the highlight and, unfortunately at times, the lowlight of any role.
The very worst thing – Time zones! Considering the critical nature of my role I am available on call 24/7. The 10 hours time difference with Germany means I tend to work very long days. I’m typically in the Melbourne office from 9 – 5:30pm (11pm to 7:30am German time) and then once home I have conference calls and remote meetings from 7pm onwards throughout the evening. That being said I can honestly say I look forward to going to work each day and happily take the bad with the great.
Any tips on how to get and stay ahead?
Ambition and a desire to achieve it! The most important lessons I’ve learned are quite simple:
- Know your weaknesses as well as your strengths!
- Ask questions – there’s no such thing as a stupid question!
- Listen don’t just hear!
- Learn to communicate and invite feedback.
- Never stop learning…
How do you encourage loyalty with your staff and clients?
I have an open door policy and don’t make obvious distinctions between employment status (that is, senior manager versus agents). I am as transparent as is possible and ensure that any message being communicated is understood clearly. I promote fun in the workplace (obviously within reason) and I am friendly and honest. I actively listen and always deliver upon promises – these simple things are all that are needed!
What do you think employees want from their employer?
Most employee wants are quite simple. They want appropriate training and the tools to do a role they are comfortable doing. Rostered staff need to know when they are working and how much they will get paid. They want someone to listen to their suggestions for improving the workplace and they want their working lives to be as simple and stress free as possible! There are, however, other employees who want to be challenged and developed and welcome stress. Ultimately all employees want to feel valued!
What does your company do for its staff that you feel is different from what other companies provide?
Aside from listening and acting upon recommendations, we offer all employees flight benefits which are approximately 90% discount on airfares. Career development globally is also a significant feature of life here. Once you’re in the door of the company and have put in some minimum time and good performance you can apply for roles internally anywhere in the world!
What are the biggest human capital issues your industry is dealing with? …and what should be done about them?
Finding candidates to do any function within Australia’s burgeoning contact centre industry has become an extraordinarily difficult task. Often we need to provide incentives beyond those which we would have a mere four years ago.
I believe there are generational differences in today’s contact centre workforce. That is, Generation X versus Y. As a Gen X, when I began my contact centre career we had just been through a recession. Jobs were scarce and we went to interviews nearly begging to be employed. When we got the job we felt a sense of appreciation to our employers and worked for them with gratitude and respect, “what can I do for the company to ensure they retain me?” The Gen Y workforce has not experienced the queue for employment. The shoe is on the other foot. This lends itself to an entirely different attitude to employers, the sense of gratitude has nearly vanished and it is now more about “what can the company do for me to retain me?”
At GTS we have an additional factor at play being language skills. Half of our contact centre needs to be bilingual in English and Japanese and the other half bilingual in English and German. This limits an already short list of willing candidates even further. So we have a focus on training our existing workforce, up skilling agents and internal recruiting. Trying to achieve higher productivity within our existing workforce is always the first thing we look at. For the time being this appears to have been an effective strategy coupled with the flight benefits that we have to incentivise new recruits.