Leadership Development in Call Centres

Successful leadership programs are not a case of good luck.  They come about from intelligent design and good management. 

As a general statement, many call centre managers have not had much focus on leadership development.

As call centre managers, we live and die by the Key Performance Indicators of our staff.  We scrutinise call handling statistics, sales ratios and productivity figures.  Maximise the output, minimise the cost.

It is not surprising that we go into free fall when a crisis occurs and a key member of the team leaves.  How did we not see it coming?  They didn’t show any signs of poor performance or stress.  We scramble for the recruitment firm for a speedy replacement.

One of the major reasons employees leave an organisation is due to lack of challenge.  The human brain is uniquely designed and requires constant stimulation.  We need to feel we are constantly improving our expertise and value to our employer.

We also need to know where we are going.  A customer service agent feels buoyed by the fact their team leader started out just like them.  They are allowed to aspire to other roles because their organisation demonstrates its commitment to developing staff from the grass roots up.

Herein lies the challenge for management.  We need to recognise true leadership potential and foster it.  But we don’t want to create unrealistic expectations for the individual, or indeed the entire workforce.

Leadership development requires an astute eye and a progressive HR resource.  Line managers and team leaders are the ones who will initially recognise talented individuals, but the HR manager is the one holding the canvas of the big picture.

The HR manager must structure the program and communication. 

It is HR that looks at the complete human capital offering in relation to the tasks required.  The specific design elements of a development program might typically involve gradual steps of multi-skilling and rotational relief roles. 

Formal management skills training by an accredited provider should be incorporated.  Integrating leadership aspirants with some of the back office functions will also round out their knowledge and skills.

The value of effective leadership development reaps ongoing rewards.  After all, the rate of attrition is directly affected by an organisation’s training and development opportunities. 

Recruitment costs also reduce as there is less of a need for external recruitment of senior or managerial staff.  Training costs decrease as train-the-trainer possibilities open up.  Staff satisfaction and morale improves which has a further positive impact on attrition.

Apart from the pure economic sense of developing staff there are also intangible benefits. 

As the average length of tenure increases, corporate memory is retained and corporate culture becomes enriched.  Any improvement to corporate culture has positive repercussions for dealings with clients and for role-modelling behaviour for new staff.  Quality improves as our staff has a greater understanding and belief in our service commitments.

Well structured and administered leadership development programs create healthy workplaces.  The cog in the machine mentality diminishes and the potential of staff is nurtured so they can shine.