The call center industry has one of the highest employee turnovers in the world. Call centers in the U.S. turnover 30-50% more than any other industry, and this figure is considered well above the current average turnover rates.
The environment itself often seems cold and calculative with low employee retention policies and no real effort to make workplace culture better.
How does it affect their involvement as a team?
The answer is simple. If you see many colleagues come and go in a minimal duration, you will not trust the company, and as a result, you will keep your distance and remain cautious about every move you make or any statement you say.
Not only does it affect workplace culture, but it also yields additional costs in terms of employee onboarding and training.
In this article, we will look at some ways to improve the employee’s engagement at the workplace that can positively impact the workplace.
Now, let’s look at ways to make the life of call center employees a lot better and help them get involved as an active member of the team.
Favorable Retention Policies:
According to a survey conducted by Mercer’s U.S. Contact Center, many large-scale call centers tend to lose a significant number of new employees within the first six months.
But are there any concrete methods or statistics that show that the companies are making efforts to optimize retention rates? Not really. So what can be done to turn the situation around?
You can start early and make an impact by streamlining the onboarding process, regular communications, and training programs followed by a strong mentorship culture in the organization.
You can also improve the work processes by introducing daily team huddles, acknowledging successful milestones achieved within the team, and award the efforts with both monetary and nonmonetary benefits using an automated system.
Once the employees are comfortable within the organizational structure, they will be happy to work with you and give you new grounds to retain them effectively.
We will discuss more on automated reward systems towards the end of this article.
Employee Engagement is the Key:
Call center employees associate with the core values displayed by the organization. The decisions taken by the management help build a perception about your company’s culture, and you are often recognized for the top values at the display.
Automate your employee engagement activities that promote your core values. Organize in-person events, lighten up the mood with workspace initiatives, and have a monthly training schedule for your team’s growth and development.
When employees see opportunities to grow, they are likely to stick around for more extended periods.
How to take it one step ahead? Gamify the whole process. Let the employees know that you share their progress with everyone and those who hit their targets first get rewards.
The healthy competition will be the driving force behind their efforts, and more rewards will increase their loyalty towards the brand.
Create both individual and team-based milestones to improve productivity, increase engagement, and promote a happier work environment to immerse employees in the company culture.
Encourage Team Building:
Employees that work as a team deliver better results. Maybe you have ergonomically designed workstations, a room for recreational activities, a state-of-the-art conference room, and regular training programs. Still, it can all be for nothing if the people don’t work together.
What makes a work culture? The people in it! So, the general practices in the organization contribute to the overall synergy between different departments.
Weave in team-building activities in your employee engagement programs and motivate the staff with exciting incentives. Add team-based rewards to encourage teamwork.
If you wish to implement this into action, then getting an engagement platform is a good idea.
Create a Flexible and Creative Work Environment:
Call center employees often feel claustrophobic as they work in a room filled with tens or in some cases, hundreds of people with little to no interaction with their colleagues.
Top it off with rigid shift timings, lack of decision-making authority, and monotonous calling all day long, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster.
Encourage your call center employees to be more creative with their daily tasks. Please give them the freedom to address people in a more humane tone and don’t force them to stick to the script.
Even the customers appreciate when someone talks to them like a normal person, and thus creativity and flexibility can be a win-win situation for everyone involved.
A personal touch and a quality-focused approach will improve their working environment, enable customers to listen to your representatives, and ultimately positively impact your bottom line.
Being it Full Circle with an Engagement Software:
As previously mentioned, it is time to address the elephant in the room. Employee engagement software can make your life a lot easier.
How? It starts working from the day an employee comes on board and uses its AI-based programming to analyze their working style and subsequently suggest appropriate rewards to keep the employees motivated.
Not only that, it seamlessly integrates with your existing technology stack and collates the data to create ideal engagement activities that are transparent.
This tool can further help at the time of appraisals and evaluate a candidate’s efforts on multiple metrics like consistency, regularity, repeat sales, problems resolved, time consumed, and more.
Wrapping Up
Meaningful feedback is what helps your employees grow for the better. Share it with your team regularly in a constructive way, and make sure you do not demean anyone.
Call center employees already have it rough with their routine, and giving them some much-deserved recognition will reflect positively in your bottom line.
Keep your employees engaged, and they will take care of the customers for you.
To build a thriving work culture at your call center, get in touch with our team today. We offer free consultation and guide you through the critical elements of NextBee’s employee engagement platform.
