How To Maximize Your Call Center Productivity – Call Center Incentive Program Ideas

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | How To Maximize Your Call Center Productivity – Call Center Incentive Program IdeasIt is important to recognize that every job position and every employee needs a bit of a boost from time to time. This is why incentive programs are critical to driving performance. This is especially true in call centers, where a highly stressful working environment can make it difficult for the employees to remain in their position for a longer time.

Due to this, most of the large organizations have a formal reward and recognition program in place. Out of those organizations, more than 70% have different call center incentive programs, ranging from 3 to 6. They are based on different incentives and aimed at individual workers. Studies show that the companies with the call center incentive program in place have increased the performance of their workers by 27%.

In a stressful working environment, your employees might feel like their efforts were not appreciate. It is likely that individual employees would work harder if they were more appreciated. This is why it is a good idea to set up formal recognition programs for your employees. These programs make employees feel appreciated and encouraged to work harder.

A good call center incentive will lead to a boost in performance and overall improvement in your company culture.

Call Center Incentive Ideas

In every call center, employees have the opportunity to work with customers to create pleasant experiences. While the work can be complex, the effects of delivering an exceptional experience to customers are worth it. However, if your employees are unhappy, they are not likely to provide a pleasant experience to your customers.

Your employee mental health, and their feeling of appreciation, are closely connected with your customer experience. In order to improve the service and the customer experience, it is critical to provide incentives that will motivate your employees to do better. And the best way to keep your employees motivated is by providing incentives that will boost productivity and maintain morale.

Here are some ideas on building a successful call center incentive strategy.

1. Awarding the Employee of the Month

It has been proved that recognition is one of the most significant call center incentives. It’s essential to recognize people for a job well done regularly. A lot of companies have an employee of the month award to recognize the efforts of their employees. You can also split your call center into teams and set up a friendly competition.

When you break up your call center into more teams, you can have more awards given. These awards can be by votes and can encourage co-workers to be supportive of their peers. Most of the employees believe that rewarding employees who perform well is important. This emphasizes to your employees that you value their efforts and notice their hard work.

A side benefit is that when their manager appreciates them, it improves their relationships. Employees end up trusting their managers, and it leads to a more positive experience for everyone. It is an essential step to recognize your best employers in order to keep them motivated. Have a variety of ways to showcase your appreciation towards your workers.

2. Set Goals for Your Team

In order to know what habits to praise and which employees to award recognition to, it is important to have set goals as an individual. The first step to this would be finding out how you can help your employees reach their goals. You can locate the people that want to advance in your company and have a talk with them. Figure out what would work the best for them as individuals and for your company as a whole.

By helping your employees achieve these career goals, you can have them working for you more productively. Get your employees to clarify their goals; you can encourage them to pursue the next stage of their life.

This might be hard to do with remote teams. You would need to rely on video calls and online conferences to connect with your team. Try using HR videos to communicate ideas more creatively across the team.

It won’t always be the case that your employees want to remain working in a call center. Some employees will have goals to move to another position. Instead of having them disengage with the work, encourage them in the work they are doing, and help them get to the next stage of their career.

There is no better way to motivate your employees, but by helping your best employees have a fantastic future for themselves. Find your workers who have ambitions toward advancement and encourage them. Help them improve their position and be better workers. Consider how to get people to the next level and develop your employees in your company.

By helping your employees become better at their job and helping them prepare for future careers, you showcase a great culture and a team mindset. Having people collaborate fosters camaraderie. It brings people together. When combined with fun events and programs, it helps people stay motivated and think about being a part of a more excellent ideal.

Combine personal goals, a fun time, collaboration, and managers that care. It makes a powerful combination and encourages people to try more for their companies.

3. Reward the Employees Who Care

Your employees will feel more appreciated if they know that the rewards are personal. They don’t have to be expensive outings or trips. Even a personalized thank you note can make a huge difference to your employees.

Having a formal recognition plan can boost employee morale. Personalized rewards are even better.

To make a personalized reward means that you need to understand what interests your employees. For example, make sure you have asked beforehand what is essential for them. This can be done by conducting focus group interviews, or by online forms and surveys. After this, formulate a plan on considering how to reward them for their work beyond better pay.

Sometimes you should consider using incentives that aren’t cash payments. It can be travel or merchandise awards. Make something personal to your employees. It can be a dream vacation or a personalized cup with a picture of their family. There are a lot of these subtle touches that can impact your relationships with your employees and boost everyone’s morale. Whenever possible, consider how to personalize your rewards and recognitions.

A way to find out what your employees care about and what interests them is to survey your employees. Try forming a pre-formatted questionnaire about different prizes, a dream vacation, and career goals. When you set up a survey it should express that you want to help them achieve their goals and get things they want in life. Even if it doesn’t match your specific goals, encouraging them will lead to increased morale and trust in your company. Employees will work harder for you and it will ultimately lead to more productivity.

4. Shake up the Routine

Agent churn can be a big issue in call centers. This is mostly due to having little room for growth and nothing is done to relieve the monotonous nature of the job at regular intervals. Not to mention that the stress in call center calls is a real thing. Your employees are front line in dealing with your customers and the customers are not always pleasant.

Then it is no wonder that call center agents rank as one of the highest turnover jobs in the world, This turnover rate can get up to 45% in certain cases.

One way to reduce turnover and poor performance is to invest in gamification to motivate employees to engage and achieve. Try setting up a few games to be played in your call center in Fridays, to make the day-to-day slightly more interesting.

5. Allow Time-Off or Working From Home

Sometimes the best reward can be some time to yourself. If you would like to set up a wonderful call center incentive program, consider making impromptu time away from the office a spot prize optional for on-the-fly recognition. According to researches, instant recognition has been linked to increased productivity, greater employee satisfaction in the workplace, enhanced teamwork, and more.

Of course, this may require some work in the resource management, but when executed correctly, it can become a fantastic incentive to perform at optimal levels throughout the day.  Having a day off, or a chance to work a few days from the comfort of their home could be a great morale boost for your loyal employees.<

6. Let Your Employees Pick Their Shifts

Because many call centers operate 24/7, employees will always have a preference for certain work shifts. This may also differ from one person to the next. Some of your employees will prefer working the nights, while some better function in the early mornings.

This is why, if possible, you should have a talk with your employees and set up the shifts in your call center according to their preference. This won’t always be possible, however, with a bit of compromise it can be a great call center incentive.

Workplace Improvements for Your Office

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Workplace Improvements|Workplace Improvements for Your OfficeWhen you run a business, you have all sorts of areas to focus on. You’re going to have to accept helping hands at some point or another. Sure, outsourcing can work for one off and occasional tasks, but when it comes to the day to day running of things, you’re going to need to build a team to keep up with your consumers’ demand. If you’re going to have a team, you’re going to have to provide them with a workplace. Now, over the course of the past couple of years, many people have been working from home wherever possible, slowing and reducing the spread of coronavirus around the world. However, now that hospitalisations are reducing, many people are preparing for a return to the office. You may be wondering how you can make the office as positive and productive an environment as possible for your staff. Here are a few options that you might want to take into consideration.

Make the Space Covid Secure

Some people will still be nervous about returning to the office. You should make sure that the space is Covid secure to make people feel as comfortable as possible heading back. There are a number of measures you can take to make the space better. Hire a professional cleaner to carry out in-depth cleaning and you may even want to consider anti-viral fogging. Implement social distancing measures by separating desks or installing perspex barriers between each workspace. You may also want to implement a one way system and limits to numbers of people in smaller spaces.

Provide Lockers

People may want to be able to leave their personal belongings in a secure and safe space, as opposed to just shoving their bags and other items under their desks, where they can get in the way and even cause a trip hazard. Consider investing in lockers, each with a locker door, for your team, so they each have a locked, private space to store personal belongings during the work day.

Make Sure There’s Plenty of Natural Light

Believe it or not, natural light does so much more than making an office space look better. It can also help to maximise staff members’ productivity. Our body’s circadian rhythms control our sleep wake cycle and this cycle determines when we’re feeling productive and when we’re not. If your workspace is flooded with natural light, your team’s bodies will recognise that it’s daytime and they will perk up.

Consider Hybrid Working

Sure, fully remote working isn’t ideal for every company. But many staff members have found themselves enjoying working from home. So, you may want to reach a compromise by providing hybrid working contracts. This will require staff to work in office on set days and will allow them to work from home some days. This can help with staff retention rates.

Each of these steps can make all the difference when it comes to making your workplace a more pleasant and productive for your staff to spend time in. Implement a few to see improvements!

4 Ways to Effectively Manage Your Business and Team

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Effectively manage your business|4 Ways to Effectively Manage Your Business and TeamBeing able to help a team and business grow is demanding as you need to balance the best of both worlds. A team leader’s role in the modern business environment sounds gratifying, but it is equally challenging. You need a constant source of motivation that helps keep all the business activities in alignment.

Effective business and team management help you prepare your business for the worst-case scenarios in a fast-paced environment. You may not get enough time to check in with employees and make sure they’re feeling positive, creative, and on track. On the other hand, if you are too invested in people management, you lose out on the aspects of business management.

Many of your business plans would rely on the people and how they can accept them. This means, having an effective business strategy alone cannot overcome challenges. Instead, you need to consider your business and team together. They go hand in hand to ensure optimal resource utilization and achieve maximum output.

In this post, we will discuss four effective team management strategies that can help your business perform better.

1. Encourage and facilitate collaboration

Employees who get along well are more productive and enjoy their work environments. There will likely be a whole bunch of diverse skills that your team possesses. Ensure these different skill sets are utilized synergistically by encouraging members to collaborate on projects.

Enabling quick collaboration with tools like Slack and Zoom allows everyone in the team to drive the desired result as everyone chips in their share of talent. You can also build a knowledge base and encourage employees from different departments to chip in their expertise by adding content to the base.

2. Communicate with your team

Most businesses would recruit new staff and then fail to communicate with them for five weeks. Getting yourself some time to spend with other employees is crucial to forming a sense of camaraderie and connection. You need to know employees’ interests and personality quirks to learn about their strengths and weaknesses.

Successful business management lies in identifying the right individuals for the right task and seeing them achieve results. Try getting acquainted with and understanding each individual you hire to learn about their areas of competence that help you tailor tasks to their expertise.

3. Promote transparency

Transparency helps build trust and mutual respect among team members, and this is why it gets crucial to promote transparency throughout the organization.

The first step towards greater transparency is to let everyone know about their responsibility. When assigning tasks for any project, ensure that their duties are clearly defined to help team members understand their contribution to the bigger picture.

And once you assign responsibility, the next step is to ensure that everyone in the team knows about other members’ responsibilities. For this, promote using tools like Slack, Trello, or similar project management platforms that keep democratizing task lists for everyone to see.

4. Balance authority and responsibility

A larger part of your business success relies on how well you assign authority and responsibility to team members. Authoritarianism and personal accountability go hand in hand, so finding a middle ground is essential to manage your business and team.

For instance, you should give authority to a person while assigning task responsibility as they go hand in hand. This allows them to make the required choices rather than circling the office seeking approval. Furthermore, it offers them the freedom and self-confidence to make their own choices, which helps them become better workers and accomplish tasks faster.
In doing so, you open ways for everyone in the team to provide suggestions and expert guidance whenever needed.

The bottom line

Great leaders devote much time and energy to training their employees to help manage the business effectively. Ensuring that everyone has the right tools and resources to succeed should be your primary concern. You need to devote time and attention to each person in the team to teach them how to accomplish business goals.

If you fail to take care of your employees, they won’t do the best they can for your business. Empowering them to fulfill their professional objectives will ultimately help your business in a better way. When it comes to effectively managing your business and team, following the tips mentioned above can help you take a proactive approach and unlock greater growth.

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Get the most out of your employees|How To Get The Most Out Of Your EmployeesThe whole purpose of employing personnel is to lower your personal burden and guarantee that jobs are done by those who have the necessary expertise and experience. Nobody can be brilliant at everything, and recognizing this and then recruiting individuals who are strong at certain aspects of your organization is critical if you want to drive things forward and be as successful as possible. So, after you’ve made your choice and hired someone (or many people), how do you know you’re getting the most out of them? Here are some suggestions.

Proper Scheduling

Scheduling your staff in the right way is one of the most useful methods to ensure you are getting the most out of them and operating the company as efficiently as possible. By utilizing scheduling software, you can keep track of who has to work when and who needs time off, ensuring that there are no misunderstandings and that someone is always booked for every day or shift. In this way, every job will be done, and you’ll have overall control of the entire business.

For this to operate well, you will need to know what hours your team can work and who is best positioned in which area, therefore you will need to have a solid policy of asking your staff what they need and working with them as best you can. Once you have this information, you can make a plan that the scheduling software will make it easy to stick to, ensuring everyone is doing what they do best.

Give Rewards

People from all walks of life, ages, and occupations will react positively to incentives and rewards at work. If they are rewarded with something, they will be aware that they have been seen to be doing a good job, and if that work is rewarded, they will be more inclined to continue working hard; they won’t want to disappoint after their efforts have been recognized. Rewarding employees has an additional benefit: others around them who see that hard effort is rewarded will begin to work harder as well, and the whole workforce will be more productive, efficient, and loyal in the end.

Rewards don’t have to be fancy or expensive (unless you want them to be); symbolism is frequently more important than anything else. Possible incentives include:

  • An additional vacation day
  • Gift certificates for a meal or a store they like
  • A position as ’employee of the month’ or a mention in the business newsletter.

The goal is to guarantee that outstanding work is recognized, and the ‘prize,’ although significant, is a secondary issue, so don’t be concerned if your company can’t afford to go all out; it doesn’t have to.

Make The Rules Clear

In this world, there are two categories of people: leaders and followers. Leaders create the rules, and followers, as the term implies, obey them. Because you will have more followers than leaders working for you, and you are the leader yourself, you will be responsible for establishing and enforcing workplace standards.

Rules can be difficult to obey, particularly if they don’t make sense and people resent having to observe them. To get the best out of your staff, any regulations you implement must be totally explicit so that there are no ambiguities, and they must make sense (or you need to explain why they are in place so people are happier to follow them).

4 Top Office Design Trends for 2022

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Office Design Trends|4 Top Office Design Trends for 2022Since the pandemic outbreak in 2022, office trends have shifted significantly as efficiency, comfort, and functionality have become a focal point of office designs. At the same time, many people continue to work from home, although a recent study suggests that 90% of Americans are willing to return to the office. From design aesthetics to focus on safety and an interactive working environment, here are four top office design trends you should consider for 2022.

Merge home comfort to the office

With many people growing accustomed to working from home, you should consider comfort as a top priority in the office.

There are several ways you can make your office more comfortable, including ergonomic seating, warm lighting, outdoor seating, and so on. You may also want to consider your habits, especially after working from home. Did you move from one room to another or stay behind your desk all day? Although installing mattresses in your workspace is not recommended, a remote working study suggests that most people worked from the couch while others did so from their beds. This means adding a plush couch to your office space can benefit your team when they need a break from the traditional desk.

Prioritize sustainability

Living or green walls are now a common feature in today’s modern office. Real gardens and plant displays are mounted in many modern office structures as businesses incorporate green options in the workspaces. Since some rooms lack adequate lighting or windows, introducing some green life into your workspaces can offer a touch of nature and bring some outside into your office. Additionally, you can use the greenery to compliment your natural designing such as LVT and engineered hardwood flooring. Having plants and green life in your workplace can make your space feel more relaxing and homey while offering several health benefits.

Flexible, pod-style designs

Many businesses in recent times have embraced open office concepts. This has made pod-style or flexible office layouts more crucial than ever. It is normal to see employees seeking enclosed areas or private spots. Therefore, it is vital for open office plans to make room for features such as private areas and an office phone booth with enough space and seating for employees to make calls, research, and video conferencing with minimal interruption. These spaces can also be ideal for workers spending only a few days in the office as they work from home.

Safe and protected workspaces

In addition to CDC and OSHA guidelines on workplace safety, businesses and organizations are reconsidering interior and office designs that provide safe and protected spaces. Many are choosing hard surfaces and design components that are easy to clean, disinfect and maintain. The office space also features signs for social distancing, hand sanitizing stations, the number of people allowed to occupy a room at a time. These efforts are directed towards making your working teams feel safer.

If you are preparing to return to the office, you may want to consider redesigning your office space to inspire and promote collaboration and productivity. These four office design trends can help create a unique office space to get the most from your working teams.