What Does It Take to Build a Truly Empowered Workforce?

Many contact centres talk about giving their leaders more autonomy and creating greater accountability. Yet in reality, empowerment often amounts to little more than a slogan, whilst teams remain heavily reliant on rigid procedures and approval processes.

But The DDC Group successfully bucked the trend! Thanks to the roll-out of their new operating standards across their global contact centres, they’ve ultimately established a better way of leading teams, developing leaders, and building confidence at every level.

So, what can other contact centres learn from this approach? We spoke to Gareth Brophy, Vice President of Customer Experience and Back Office Capabilities, to find out.

Create a Shared Framework That Gives Leaders the Confidence to Make Decisions

Empowerment initiatives often go wrong by focusing on the removal of rules and hoping that will give everyone the freedom they need to think more freely.

This approach typically fails because true empowerment is not about removing structure altogether – rather it’s about creating enough clarity that people can act confidently without constantly seeking permission.

Therefore, The DDC Group focused on creating a shared framework that gave leaders the confidence to make decisions – whilst still providing clear expectations and guidance.

Identify Local Strengths and Share Those Practices More Widely

Like many other large organizations, the drive behind this project was to tackle inconsistencies in performance across their global teams.

They’d identified that different regions had developed their own ways of working, creating variations in leadership styles, operational routines, and management practices.

And while some sites had developed highly effective approaches, success often depended on local expertise – rather than an agreed organizational standard.

So, this became the starting point! Rather than trying to eliminate local strengths, the focus became identifying what worked well and sharing those practices more broadly – bringing together the best ideas from across the business, whilst also challenging the habits and approaches that no longer served them.

For actionable strategies to help you create a dynamic and collaborative contact centre environment, read our article: Want to Foster Knowledge Sharing Between Your Agents?

Build Solutions With Employees – Not For Them

One of the most important factors behind the project’s success was the decision to involve employees from the beginning.

Gareth Brophy, Vice President of Customer Experience and Back Office Capabilities at The DDC Group — Gareth Brophy

“Rather than designing the framework centrally and rolling it out to the business, we created working groups involving multiple sites and client partners. This collaborative approach generated buy-in from the outset.

It also ensured the final framework reflected the realities of different teams, locations, and operational environments. As a result, leaders felt ownership over the changes rather than feeling they had been imposed upon them.

This proved particularly valuable when the new standards were introduced; because leaders had helped shape the framework, they were more willing to embrace it and apply it confidently.” – Gareth Brophy, Vice President of Customer Experience and Back Office Capabilities at The DDC Group.

And the results spoke for themselves! One of the most striking outcomes from the initiative was the impact on leadership confidence – as, following the introduction of the first standards, leadership confidence increased by 26%!

Give More Responsibility to Frontline Leaders Who Know Their Team Best

Another significant shift was in how day-to-day people issues were managed. Instead of relying heavily on formal HR processes, greater responsibility was placed with line managers who knew their teams best.

The philosophy was simple: the leaders closest to their team are often best positioned to understand their circumstances, identify problems early, and have meaningful conversations.

Importantly, HR support remained available. The difference was that managers were encouraged to take ownership rather than immediately handing issues over.

This approach also delivered tangible results. In one centre, absence levels were reduced by 50%, creating a significant reduction in overtime requirements and improving overall operational efficiency.

To help nurture resilient contact centre team leaders, read our article: How to Coach Resilient Contact Centre Team Leaders

Mistakes to Avoid When Trying to Boost Empowerment

Of course, nothing ever runs smoothly, so here are some of the key lessons The DDC Group learnt along the way:

Don’t Assume Empowerment Happens Automatically

Empowerment cannot simply be announced. Many organizations make the mistake of telling employees they are empowered without explaining what that actually means. The result can be uncertainty – rather than confidence.

“You can’t just publish something and expect change to happen. We learned really quickly that you can say to people, “Oh, you’re now empowered to do this”, but if you’re not giving them any kind of clarity, this can quickly create anxiety. So we had to invest really heavily in the “how”.

We ran about 60 training sessions globally with our team leaders upwards and we gave them the tools that they needed to succeed.

For example, we created a brand new SharePoint site, which not only had training and documentation but was also full of hints and tips.

We also set up a Teams channel so that people could chat amongst themselves and ask questions to support one another.” – Gareth Brophy, Vice President of Customer Experience and Back Office Capabilities at The DDC Group

After all, empowerment is not just a communication exercise. It is a capability-building exercise. People need training, support, examples, resources, and opportunities to practise new behaviours before they feel genuinely confident operating differently.

Make Sure Your Senior Leaders Visibly Support the Changes

Don’t overlook the influence of your senior leadership team either!

Although senior leaders supported the initiative, The DDC Group found there was initially a gap between endorsing the programme and fully understanding how to support teams through the changes.

To address this, dedicated sessions were delivered focusing on change management and helping senior leaders support their teams during the transition.

This proved critical in the roll-out out, as – without visible support from their senior leaders – employees were more likely to question whether the organization truly expected them to behave differently.

Successful empowerment therefore requires alignment at every level of leadership, as employees need to see that senior leaders are not only approving the change – but actively reinforcing it.

Prepare for Some Resistance

And finally, recognize that not everyone wants to be empowered! While many employees welcomed additional ownership and autonomy, The DDC Group found that others found the prospect either uncomfortable or intimidating – and even saw it as an additional pressure rather than an opportunity.

So be prepared for some resistance and give some thought to your communication and coaching strategy to provide some much-needed reassurance where necessary.

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Treat Empowerment as an Ongoing Process

Most importantly of all, make sure that your empowerment efforts are never just a one-off and rather become part of your organization’s operating model – with continuous improvement loops, induction programmes, site champions, and more – to help maintain momentum and stop old habits from reappearing.

After all, employee empowerment is not something that can be implemented and forgotten; it requires continual leadership attention to make it a reality.