MAINTAINING SITE AND CORPORATE CULTURE

Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors determining how a company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions. Often, corporate culture is implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires.

Site culture is more important than people realize. Maintaining culture starts with the management team: How unified and organized are they regarding the company mission, vision, and plan execution? Too many chefs in the kitchen will ruin a good meal, and too many managers clamoring for all the power will destroy the management team. Get all the managers on board, which means getting every lieutenant and sergeant committed to the project. Without commitment, it will fail.

Most contact centers want to create a customer-focused culture. Setting the tone and determining the most important values is tricky. Getting it right from the start is critical; turning around a contact center with a poor culture can take a lifetime since many attitudes and behaviors never die.

Many people confuse company culture with the company mission statement. A mission statement states the company's mission regarding its quest in the marketplace. Culture is the day-to-day working environment created by the management team. It is the way we do things around here. How do we get work done?

When agents know and understand what the brand, owners, managers, and fellow staffers are working toward, it’s easier to share that message with the customer. Daily communication is key, constantly drilling in on company messages and allowing people to connect with them. Communicate company and site progress daily, be transparent, and share KPIs. Create fun yet informative dashboards that are visible and simple to understand.

The bottom line is that a contact center should have a culture where people are proud to come to work and want to work with customers. Employees are happy to walk through that door every day.

Growth can wreak havoc on the troops. Policy and procedure are challenged, attitudes are warped, employees get tired from overtime and stress, and overall behavior starts to change for the worse. How can you maintain the culture through rapid growth?

First, keep doing what you have been doing. Continue to recognize team members. When the contact center is small, it is easy to know everyone’s name, bump into them in the aisle, and congratulate them. When the army of new agents shows up, it becomes more challenging to know who is who. Don’t let that be the barrier to personally praising and recognizing employees. Make time to attend team meetings and hand out fun gifts, certificates, or just plain high fives. Agents will appreciate your taking the time to participate in their morning huddle. They will feel valued, recognized and visible. You will learn names by engaging regularly. Keep up the recognition.

Secondly, contact centers typically hire quickly and in large numbers, which can rapidly lower quality standards. Don’t sacrifice talent, fit, or skills to fill seats. Stick to your hiring best practices, such as personality assessments, skills tests, and the standard job interview. This is when you want to maintain high standards to prevent quality degradation.

Next, you want to maintain contact center traditions. Keep doing what you were doing when you were a small site. For example, when you only had 15 agents, you stopped at the month's end for pizza and team accomplishments presentations—no reason to stop the tradition now that you have 200 agents. Have the team managers make presentations to their teams over pizza. The bonding will continue, the energy it creates will spill over into the workday, and traditions create a uniqueness that separates your site from other contact centers within the same company or competitors. The strength of your traditions defines your success; it is imperative to maintain what makes you successful.

Finally, more than ever, in growth mode you want to encourage and value an open-door policy. As more agents and supervisors arrive, so do the layers between agents and the site manager. You want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly. Encourage the communication between agents and the management team. As a manager, you can’t fix a problem you don’t know about. Through communication is how you find out because you can’t be everywhere. Your job is to foster the environment that nurtures ideas to rise. This sends the message that we value your input and that we are listening. You must use one or more of those suggestions, or else employees will see through it. Agents spend most of their day working alone, so set up brainstorming meetings, focus groups or one-on-ones to hear insights from your team. The contact center culture will stagnate if you think you know everything and don’t need their help. Suggestions will stop and the word on the floor will be “don’t bother”, which is a morale and culture disillusionment. This will indeed impede growth and progress.

Culture doesn’t just happen and take care of itself. It is like an organism; it must be guided, nurtured, and fed the right stuff. Maintaining an effective, enjoyable, and productive culture takes a conscious effort. An inspiring contact center doesn’t mean expensive benefits, activities, or over-the-top surroundings. People want to feel valued at work, connect and build relationships, and desire a positive environment in which to do this.

Make time to connect. Daily team huddles give people time to connect. Agents work individually, much of the day with little interaction with their teammates. Have a “stand-up” meeting. This sends the message that this meeting will be short and helps you keep the energy up. People loathe sitting down. The morning huddle is time for the team manager to take a pulse check of the team and each team member. Check in with each team member; who feels stressed, overwhelmed, excited, or challenged? Who needs extra motivation? When you identify how people think, you can find ways to help them manage those feelings. Why are folks stressed or overwhelmed? Is there something you as a manager can do to help that agent? Do they need help with an account but are afraid to ask? What obstacle is in their way? Who is excited and why? Positive energy will spread, and there’s no better way to do so in a team huddle. It is far more difficult to spread one person’s positive energy when working alone all day. Make team huddles fun, informative, high energy, and you will set the tone for daily success.

Team huddles are also a great time to review team results, acknowledge and recognize team members, reiterate company values and messages, and give a heads-up on anything that is happening that day. Make time to connect. The beginning of a shift is the perfect time to set the tone for the day. Over time, your team will begin to enjoy the connection time, and you will enjoy the team's productivity.

You are the example. Too many management teams send the messages “It’s okay for me but not for you” and create this “us against them” mentality. We are all on the same team. Heck-say it to your team: “We are all on the same team.” “As the team manager, I have a different role, but I am on the same team. I want the same things you do; your numbers are my numbers. What can I do to help you?” When was the last time you took some calls? Show your team you still got it and are not afraid to work in the trenches with them. You will earn their trust and respect.

Leading by example is just that. It’s not “We have a smile policy”. An agent thinks “When I see you in the hall I expect you to be smiling, too. Because guess what? If you are smiling when I see you, I will mirror you!” Lead by example not by your words!

Ask the people – when you take the time to ask the agents how to improve a process, procedure, or policy, they have first-hand suggestions. Ask the people it impacts the most; ask the people with the most interaction and activity around it. Ask them “what can WE do” not “what can YOU do?” They will overwhelm you with suggestions, understanding that not all are feasible, but you listen and can submit practical tips to the management team.

Raise expectations—it’s okay to have high standards. Many managers are afraid to hold their teams accountable and never meet performance expectations. Employees want to be on the winning team, and high standards do that.

Achieving those high standards creates pride. Expect to win every time, and don’t expect less; your team will run to the finish line every time.

Scaling up can be an exciting time in a contact center’s life cycle. Continue to invest in your core values, and don’t lose sight of them in the chaos of growth and busyness. This will protect your greatest asset: your people.

A great culture results from a high performing workforce and lower turnover. What contact center wouldn’t like lower turnover? How much can your contact center team produce if they love coming to work every day? Companies on the Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For list outperform the market by three times. A great place to work is lovely not just for shareholders but also for employees.

Appreciation is free all day long. Appreciation is a human need. Your kids, as do your spouse, your Mom/Dad, and your friends, need appreciation. Everyone needs to be appreciated for who they are and what they do. Don’t be afraid to show it. Too many managers are fearful of being too vulnerable. Be looking – catch people in the act of doing something good. Reward them with a “high five, " say, “I appreciate the extra effort,” or write a handwritten note expressing your appreciation. Those notes will be valued so much they end up posted on the cubicle panel – they become trophies. Have fun with it. Hand out “Awesome Bars” from Sees Candies when you see a team member doing something extraordinary! Catch agents in the act and recognize them immediately. This is the best motivational medicine out there.

Rewards, Recognition and Incentives also feed people’s need for belonging. Agents who show up, put in a good day’s work and want to be recognized when they do something great – something that is above expectations, perhaps a bit better than others. Taking the time to acknowledge agents is like putting free gas in their tank. This fuel will motivate them better than any incentive you put in front of them because it is pure. Agents see behind the incentives and many will ignore them, when you recognize agents and reward them, they will continue to perform.

Rewards don’t have to be expensive, but they must be appropriate and genuine. Get creative in your ideas for rewards. Discover what gets your team excited. What does each person on the team appreciate as a reward? Handing out rewards that don’t mean much will not give you the results you hope to achieve. The owner of an insurance broker shop once awarded top performers with t-shirts from a Sturgis Motorcycle rally he attended that summer. While the owner was excited about those shirts, the agents saw it as a thoughtless reward. They had no interest in motorcycles, so the t-shirts went in the trash. It wasn’t a bit motivating to be a top performer.