Contact Centre Team Leaders –“Are yours rubbish?”

I’ve met quite a lot of team leaders in my time and on more than a few occasions I have been told that whole teams of them were “Rubbish” but then again as I have worked for 5 major International Financial Institutions, in over 30 different countries; perhaps that’s not surprising? Whilst I have Headed Regions and been a Global exco member in Collections in more than one bank, once upon a time I was a Team Leader; hence my interest in this subject and if you spare the time to read to the bottom of this blog, you will find out if I too was “rubbish”!

Ask any organisation that I have worked for and they will tell you that the primary role of a Team Leader is coaching. Most have targets for the percentage of time that should be spent on Coaching, they differ but anything from 65% to 80% is pretty standard. To support this aim, some organisations will provide regular training to their Team Leaders on coaching, however many do not. Regardless of whether Coaching Training is provided, in all of the organisations I have worked for, I have found the expectation is the same, namely that Team Leaders Coach.

To ensure that our TL’s are Coaching, many a senior executive has walked into an organisation and asked the Head of department or the Manager, whether coaching requirements are met. In return, the majority will, of course, have received a positive answer. However, this is an area that really must be challenged for the sake of our Customers and our Staff.

Now most sensible organisations do challenge whether coaching standards are being met and typically they will do this by speaking to the Head of Department or the Managers, and in such instances, the responses received are normally pretty standard.

The Head of Department when challenged about whether coaching standards are met, will typically say some or all of the following:

Answer = “We probably don’t coach as well as we can today in all cases but”

* I need more staff

* Many of our TL population have been around too long, we need to shake things up.

* We have some on-going development areas that we are working on with certain individuals.

* We have newly promoted staff that we are developing.

The Manager when challenged about whether coaching standards are meet will typically say virtually all of the following:

Answer = “Well, no, coaching standards are not always meet but”

* I need more staff

* X is no good

* X is new but they will be okay in time, they just need to settle into our organisation

* X is newly promoted they need to find their feet

* X has been here too long and no longer pulls their weight

* X has got a bad attitude

* We have too much work

In summary, I have found that when challenged about whether coaching standards are being meet in nearly all instances the answer will be no, regardless of how it is dressed up. Further to this, the reasons that will be given for this failure are nearly always a shortage of staff and the quality of the Team Leader population, although the conversation you will have is more likely to look like this:

Challenger – “So are you saying that your people are at fault, that you don’t have enough of them and that the ones that you do have are mostly not that great?”

Answer: “Well I’m not sure I would say that….X is really good……I couldn’t do without them…..but yes, in a nutshell, some of my TL’s are rubbish.”

I have seen these conversations happen many times and in nearly all instances the Challenger ends up providing “desperately needed” training for the team leader population and in some cases, they even add more staff. The problem is however that the Challenger has actually failed to spot the real problem because they have not asked the right people, the right question.

The right population to speak to is the TL population and the question to ask is not, what is your job description, but what do you do in a month. In response to this question, the Challenger will get an almost identical list to the one I have written below.

* Call Listening – X agents multiplied by X calls each, multiplied by X minutes a call

* Call listening write ups

* Call feedback

* 121’s

* 121 documentation

* Real-time Adherence monitoring, whose talking, typing, available etc and for how long

* Organising breaks and lunches

* Dealing with HR on disciplinary issues

* Speaking to X because they are upset

* Dealing with complaints

* Taking escalated calls

* Writing to a customer

* Meeting with my boss

* Working on a project

* Doing some user acceptance testing

* Phoning help desk because X is broken

* Investigating what went wrong on this complicated account that the senior management is angry about

* Attending training

* Doing mandatory online training

* MI, my manager wants a report on X they don’t like the standard one

* Admin, tracking sickness and holidays

* Monthly Team Meeting

* Monthly status meeting for my Manager

* Break-out sessions for my team

* Production Management?!?

* Personal Development? Probably not

Of course, some Challengers do ask the right question of the right people and will have created a list very much like the above, they might have even put together a capacity plan based on the tasks assigned to the Team Leader population, what I have found comes next however is typically a request for increased headcount.

Perhaps there is a need for additional staff in the scenario I have described however a more fundamental problem is the lack of organisational management and the lack of support that has been provided to the TL population. In short, it is unlikely that your Team Leaders are rubbish, and you probably do not need more of them, it is more probable that they are

1. Drowning in conflicting messages.

2. Fighting against a lack of organisational management.

3. Lacking clear and achievable goals.

4. Demotivated?

5. Unable to succeed?

Change

The interesting thing here is organisational management means Change and the vast majority of people believe that they don’t like Change, however in the instance described the TL’s are desperate for Change, so provided Change is implemented correctly the people will be fully behind you.

Another interesting point is that this change does not have to cost you money, most of the solutions that are required can be achieved through existing technology.

Example: If your TL’s are doing any sort of real-time adherence they are doing it badly, simply because they are not doing it full time. Improvements in this area will free up staffing, and in this example, re-organisation pays for itself many times over in several different ways.

The benefits to organisational management are enormous but are summed up in just three points; improved staff engagement, improved customer experience and potential cost reductions.

So next time someone tells you the Team Leader population is “rubbish”, please spend the time finding out why because you might just save yourself some money, whilst improving staff and customer engagement!

Personal Statement

In case you are wondering; yes – I was a “rubbish” Team Leader, for all of the reasons I have listed above but one, I didn’t lose engagement and I was promoted. I may have been promoted many times, however, I have never lost sight of my TL experience. In my opinion, this role is one of the most difficult in any organisation and every TL has my ultimate respect, including the ones that have had enough!

Melanie Cumming is Chief Executive Officer at Sterling & Cumming

Stirling & Cumming Global is a Consultancy Company that specialises in making organisations more Efficient & Effective whilst reducing Costs & Losses.