Workforce Management Featured Article
Today's Workforce Optimization Enables More Personalized Coaching for Millennial Contact Center Employees
While everyone seems to have an opinion on today’s younger members of the workforce – the so-called “millennial” generation, what’s really important is that going forward, these workers will make up a significant portion of many companies’ employees. For this reason alone, it’s important that managers understand how to manage them properly.
While it’s true that “people are people,” it’s also true that young men and women have been shaped by growing up in the twenty-first century. In a recent blog post, Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo notes that there is no question that Millennial workers approach work and communication differently than older employees, and this is important for contact center managers to understand. In the contact center in particular, younger workers may already make up the majority of agents. One important element to note is that Millennials are less loyal to their jobs than their parents were. Since the contact center industry already has high turnover, it will be critical to try and slow the revolving door.
“Statistics show that Millennials often leave jobs in three years or less,” wrote Ciarlo. “In the contact center industry where high agent attrition is already an issue, three years might be seen as an improvement. Still, each new employee is an investment in training; so the longer you keep them around the better your bottom line will look.”
The longer you keep agents around, the more knowledgeable they become, and the better they can help keep the quality of customer support high. It’s also important to realize that Millennials have shorter attention spans than older generations (blame the Internet, channel flipping and mobile devices), so older methods of classroom-based training may not work so well. Ciarlo recommends shortening the initial ramp-up phase of preparation (lowering associated costs) and then relying on more context-sensitive refreshers in the days and weeks that follow.
“Millennials grew up with technology, and have a comfort level with instant communication and instant feedback shared by no previous generation,” wrote Ciarlo. “Every Facebook (News - Alert) post they make generates ‘likes’ and responses within seconds. Millennial contact center agents are more open to the same type of instant feedback. Monthly training sessions are fine, but with the real-time data generated by a workforce optimization solution, managers can offer ongoing coaching and assessments based on performance.”
The days of evaluating agent performance a few times a year probably won’t cut it for Millennials. Instead, they are more likely to respond to regular personalized performance feedback that can help them achieve their personal career goals. By integrating coaching and personalized training in to performance, companies can build better agents faster, and adjust to way Millennials want to work. Today’s workforce management solutions are actually ideal for younger workers: they can generate data on each call, allowing agents to review how each interaction fared while the details are still fresh, and make a determination whether something could have been handled more efficiently.
“Whether one is more likely to condemn Millennials or defend them, there is no question that they are likely to change the structure of the workplace more than any previous generation,” wrote Ciarlo.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi