Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Simple Solutions Can Help Eliminate the Root Causes of Employee Disengagement
Today, the benefits of an engaged workforce are not in question. Study after study has found that workers who are engaged with their jobs produce more high quality work, please customers and help their organization achieve its goals. Specifically, organizations with engaged employees outperform those organizations with disengaged employees in categories like customer ratings, profitability, and productivity. In addition, they reap the benefits of lower workforce turnover and absenteeism, which cost the average business a great deal of money each year.
There are many factors behind employee engagement (or lack of it). Autocratic bosses, hostile coworkers, a lack of appreciation for a job well done, too little training or coaching, inflexibility in day-to-day work demands and more can make workers feel like they’re in prison. One of the most critical elements that contribute to disengaged employees, however, is a lack of work-life balance, according to a recent white paper by ICMI.
“When it comes to stress and work-life balance, the organization can affect an employee’s level of engagement more than they may initially perceive,” wrote the paper’s authors. “There are enough things to stress about in a contact center, don’t allow something that you can change be a cause of their stress.”
Another critical element is improper training. When employees don’t feel properly equipped to do their jobs, they are ineffective, and this drives down morale rapidly. In a contact center setting, it also lowers the quality of the customer experience. Training is absolutely critical for success in the contact center. It must, however, be fit in carefully so as not to disrupt ordinary operations, according to ICMI.
“When done properly, training, coupled with meaningful coaching, is exactly what it takes to improve performance, drive customer satisfaction, enhance employee engagement, and drive revenue,” wrote the white paper’s authors. “Since time in training equals time away from working with customers, quantifying to what extent it fulfills contact center objectives is one of the primary reasons that training is under constant scrutiny.”
For both root causes of disengagement – a lack of work-life balance and improper training – a robust workforce scheduling solution can help. Workforce management and scheduling software can help ensure employees have the right amount of flexibility coupled with the right amount of predictability to keep employees satisfied with their jobs. A good scheduling solution can also help find ways to build time for regular training into the day without negatively affecting operations. The end result is more relaxed employees with better control over their jobs. And this is precisely the right recipe for an engaged workforce.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi