Have you ever heard the saying, “There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth”?
I work with many companies looking to decrease attrition, and the same set of three problems shows up again and again in the initial employee engagement surveys.
- Lack of empowerment
- Lack of information
- Lack of the basic knowledge needed to provide service
Your agents are the ones in the trenches every day, talking to your customers. They understand better than anyone what should be changed to provide a better experience for the customer. Do you listen to them?
I have seen it at my clients’ and in my own contact centers. Something new happens and the contact center must change to meet the new demand, product need, call type, issue, or situation that is now a priority. Leadership makes the change based on what they think is best from a big picture standpoint, sometimes forgetting that it affects how service can be provided by the agent population.
Employees are inherently resistant to change; it makes them feel like they’ve lost control, increases their uncertainty, makes them second guess their competence, and almost always increases the workload to some extent.
Get Your Employees Engaged and Turnover Decreases
By incorporating agents into the decision process, you will see greater involvement, more ideas, and a passion for the change that you don’t see when you simply “push out” the change. A recent Gallup poll on employee engagement showed that employees with the highest levels of engagement are more likely to remain employed and are the highest performers. To get high engagement from employees, Gallup recommended that employees be empowered to make decisions, given the knowledge needed to perform their duties, provided the information needed to produce results, and rewarded for achievement.
Ensure that all of these are included in your contact center and you are on your way to a more stable workplace, more engaged employees, and less stress for you and your executive team.
