Top 5 ways to improve attrition in your contact centre
Attrition is often seen as a health check for any business. If a high number of people are leaving then something is wrong. The question is what, and what can be done to improve it. Here Steve Woosey of the Professional Planning Forum shares his thoughts with us.
Contact centres are no different and with the negative images portrayed by the media, it is perhaps more important that any issues around attrition are dealt with.
At the Professional Planning Forum, we believe that a contact centre can be a great place to work and our research into attrition shows some of the key areas for improvement. Research conducted over a number of years, and illustrated in the chart below, demonstrates how successful organisations are reducing their attrition.
What are the top reasons for any improvement in attrition?
So research suggests that the top five ways to improve attrition are:
1. Skills Development
2. Communication
3. Promotion/Progress
4. Management Style
5. Work-Life Balance
But what can you do differently?
Skills Development
When we look at attrition and how to improve it we are asking “how can I keep my staff motivated?” If you refer to any motivational theory, personal development is always a high motivator. So why would a contact centre be any different? Looking for ways to enhance the skills of your employees is good for the business, the customer and the employee.
Many centres use multi-skilling as a way to be more efficient; used correctly, this can also be seen as a development tool. Employees would be trained in new skills after certain periods of time and/or reaching a certain performance level. If communicated correctly, this gives employees a sense of achievement and creates variety in a job. This can be achieved without the need for financial reward, therefore providing motivated staff, who will stay with the business longer as they move along the skill path, whilst meeting the business need for efficiency.
Communication
Communication is key to any successful business! In contact centres there is a need for everyone to understand the goals of the business. It is important that employees feel part of the brand, and understand what the business is striving for and the part that they have to play in making it happen. Attrition rates are high in centres when employees feel disengaged, “nobody listens to me”. There have been a number of good communication examples where employee focus groups are used to make change happen, employee champions are used to drive change forward and give the employees a voice.
Targets need to be aligned and communicated effectively. Results need to be reported and discussed. Many centres now have web-based technology to display performance stats and working patterns. The use of intranet sites to display information can also be very effective. We must use all the communication media we have available, and remember that what may not seem important to a manager may be crucial to an agent.
Promotion/Progression
Many now view contact centre work as a career, and with the varying roles available, from the traditional path of Agent, Coach, Team Leader or a support role in HR, Resource Planning, or Finance, there are many opportunities. It is important, therefore, that at least some of these vacancies are filled with internal candidates. This gives employees the knowledge that if they work hard and do well they have a chance to progress.
It can also be useful to give people opportunities to try out new roles; “try before you buy”, if you like. This can be done through secondments, day-in-the-life or development programmes. Many centres have development opportunities designed at finding the next team leader from the agent population; these schemes could be extended to include the many other support roles available in today’s contact centres.
Management Style
This area is closely linked to communication. Does an employee feel valued? do they want to come to work? There is an old adage: “you don’t leave the business you leave your manager”. How many times have you heard someone say “the job’s ok but the people are great”? This shows how important management style is to employees. The contact centre should be a great place to work, with an element of fun and hard work. The management approach will go a long way to achieving these goals.
Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance is not easy to achieve. Employees have to understand that the business must meet its customers’ demands, while the business must understand that employees have external pressures as well and do all it can to help them.
The introduction of family-friendly legislation has forced many contact centres to look at how they schedule staff. Contact centres have then taken this more flexible approach and developed it for all employees, creating a number of lifestyle schedule options that give employees more choice, whilst still meeting the business needs. These schedule choices are often created by the employees through focus groups, always bearing in mind that the business needs must be met. All employees are different and it would be wrong to assume we know what everyone wants or needs, so providing options is a great way of providing a suitable solution for all.
Summary
If you understand what motivates employees and what de-motivates them, you then know which areas to focus on to improve attrition. Many believe that pay and benefits have a significant impact on their attrition rate. However, providing these are at an acceptable level, increasing them will not have the desired effect. There is a disconnect between what we see on the exit questionnaires and the real reasons for employee turnover, so it is important that we dig down and find the real reasons for leaving. Only then can you tackle them.
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Steve Woosey is Membership Director of The Professional Planning Forum. Steve.woosey@planningforum.co.uk.
The Professional Planning Forum (www.planningforum.co.uk) is the independent industry body for effective resourcing and planning in the contact centre industry, working across all industry sectors to provide specialist support for contact centre professionals. Championing the importance of these critical skills, the Planning Forum is widely recognised for its best practice research and case studies, as well as the results-focused nature of its professional development training and in-company workshops. The Planning Forum runs the Contact Centre Innovation of the Year Award and the Contact Centre Planning 2008 conference.
Good thoughts. I also think that companies need to spend more time upfront in the recruitment process ensuring the tests are done to help get the right calibre of staff who will enjoy working in a contact centre.
Comment by Nuresh — 15 May 2008 @ 11:06 am
Employees need to feel a peronal value to the business. When this is not established and consistent the business loses them. Again on the personal value – remember to compliment and encourage the target acheivers in a poor team as always addressing the teams downside de-motivates and causes unrest leading to attrition.
Comment by Sherie Beazley — 18 May 2008 @ 1:18 pm
The vast majority of attrition is (in my humble experience) during the honeymoon period during, or not long after the training period. This is when advisor’s are suddenly hit buy the realization that this isn’t quite what they were expecting. If roles have to be ’sold’ to prospective employees then the work generally high volume, stressful and generally unpleasant. We mustn’t forget that the lions share of recruitment is due to ……attrition. If you are in an area as I am, with a finite labour resource you’ll find that most prospective employees have already churned from at least a couple of other contact centres. These people are hardly likely to make ‘model’ employees, but you have to work with what you can get. Overall I think the solution presented in the main article is a bit simplistic
Comment by spoilt child — 20 May 2008 @ 11:51 am
apologies for the couple of spelling mistakes
Comment by spoilt child — 20 May 2008 @ 11:53 am
Re: comment from spoilt child It would be interesting to know what role you have in a call centre. My bet is Business Manager. Tendancies to pass the buck for attrition are the reason attrition does not get addressed and improved. Ownership is an asset.
Comment by Sherie Beazley — 20 May 2008 @ 5:47 pm
“Ownership is an Asset”
Agreed, In implementing a QMS in a call centre – Attrition is everyone’s challenge.
I would think you need to develop a Career Development programme within the constraints of the call centre industry.
Comment by Frank — 27 Jun 2008 @ 2:36 am
Fantastic article and very relevant for contact centres such RBS Insurance where turnover in some sites was knocking on the door of 50%.
What this article doesn’t mention is the need for churn.
I recently worked for Hoseasons Holidays in Lowestoft running their 100 seat call centre. All of their call centre team had a minimum of one year’s service with most in excess of five and some in excess of 20 years. The only leavers were those that had hit their retirement age; no one was leaving to pursue a high powered career in Norwich or London or similar.
The point I’m getting at is that after a period of time, people become stagnant and will do the bare minimum to get by; they can avoid action plans and will remain in employment by the skin of their teeth.
Many of you will say that you would look at incentives, forums, meetings, training programmes and so on but if the rot has set in, with the employment laws that are in place today, it is difficult to do anything quickly. Over a lengthy period it would be no problem, but what businesses do you know that have a long time to change a culture and make money?
Churn enables new people to come through the doors and gives the talent spotters the opportunity to grow people into different roles, including management. I find new people spur those on that are still with you and increases the competitiveness, enhances efficiencies and ultimately improves profitability.
So whilst reducing attrition is good, please don’t eradicate it.
Comment by Darren Degiorgio — 7 Aug 2008 @ 3:52 pm
i read the notes on the five ways to improve attrition. i believe they are very true and practical. more power to your elbow, but i’ll be very glad if you will send me regularly some practical tips on effective management of a business. good day.
Comment by emmanuel — 30 Oct 2008 @ 9:55 am
I aggred that main problem of attrition is pay or not good working automesphere so first of all we should understand what is the real reason of attrition and why people want to leave organization, according to me i am also working in call center and having 4 year experience in this industry such we do not have a time to spend with our family and friends so we should be do creative things in and keep smile on the face of employes and when they will happy when they have to time to spent a time with friends and family so dont everytime think about the profit of company some times think about the employe they are assets for company and without employs company doest do anything so make a proper shift then they can spent a time with family or friends .
inderjeetsingh bisht
Comment by inderjeetsinghbisht — 1 Nov 2008 @ 12:43 pm
Hmm, very interesting. What was interesting for me that I am a new CC manager of my company and without even reading this points I start to work intensively with skills development, communication and on management style. In our company we pay a lot of attention in the fact that the agents should work 8 hours per day, and not more because callcenter work is really very hard and stressfull and me personally do my best to keep the employee happy so that he can pass this to our clients, but beleive me depending on human type, sometimes it happened that I met such agents who wee blaing me that they are doing this job, but at the same time do not do anything for future career promotions. please advice me how to be with such agents?
Comment by Gayane — 15 Feb 2009 @ 12:53 pm
Topic : Top 5 ways to improve attrition in your contact centre? Should have been to reduce attrition…..
Comment by Kizhakot — 23 Apr 2009 @ 11:12 am
Agents in most callcenters are generally treated as doormats. I feel a good working environment, career enhancement training, management style and communication will bring in a more positive perspective towards management. This will definitely help to retain employees. Even if there is a much better package outside the employee will stick to the company due to career prospects and management communication. Employees those who are happy with their work & the management will themselves work towards the work-life balance. Mr Steve Woosey has made an indept analysis of the work style of the call centers and these indeed are the 5 best ways to reduce attrition. This article has been very helpful to me. Thank you.
Comment by Rashmi Lulla — 21 Aug 2009 @ 10:28 pm