Experts estimate that the annual staff turnover of Australian call centre workers is between 40 and 44 percent. To make sure your contact centre continues to work effectively, it's important to develop an internal leadership pipeline, where you have the tools and practices in place to hire and support talented new recruits who can go on to become future leaders. Why do so few Australian contact centres have an effective leadership pipeline? Find out here.
Limited ownership
One person cannot effectively run a leadership pipeline, but in a typical call centre, this role is often part of just one person's job description. If you employ a talent or people development manager, he or she should contribute greatly to the way you manage your leadership pipeline, but one person cannot make this succeed alone.
The entire senior management team must own the leadership pipeline. Different leadership styles, varying personalities and diverse opinions all contribute to a great leadership pipeline, so it's vital that multiple people support and add value to the process. As such, success measures that relate to the leadership pipeline should appear on every senior manager's scorecard.
Poor coaching and development skills
High-quality coaching is vital in an effective contact centre, but many managers lack the skills to properly develop and support their people. Inevitably, attention turns solely to the easy measures like call handling time, adherence to schedule and abandoned calls, which results in a workforce that can only really think in purely transactional terms.
Effective coaches help your employees think more creatively and strategically. These skills are critical to the leadership pipeline. For example, new recruits must show how they can transition from managing themselves to managing other people, but the people who coach them often don't have the skills to release their potential.
If necessary, bring in external support and experts. Time and money invested in a development program could enhance coaching skills right across the business. In turn, improved coaching and learning can help contact centre agents move through the different passages that exist in an effective leadership pipeline.
No competency model in place
Most businesses measure contact centre agent performance in the rear-view mirror. Appraisals and performance reviews focus on what agents did, without considering how they did it, or how they could do it better. To get around this problem, it's important to develop a competency model that forms part of the ongoing development process.
A competency model sets out the core competencies that you need to see in the people in your contact centre at each stage in the leadership pipeline. Then, by working through the competency model in performance reviews, you can quickly spot and support development potential by helping people understand where they meet or fall short of the required competencies.
Your competency model should match each passage within the leadership pipeline. For example, someone who moves from managing their own workload to managing other people will need to consider time management, decision-making and prioritisation competencies that are now increasingly important.
No process for self-nomination
Many leaders mistakenly believe that a leadership pipeline relies solely on a process of nomination by existing leaders. The assumption is that the current leadership team understands what the business needs and is in the best position to spot and nurture future leaders.
In fact, this only tells you one part of the story. Bias and personal beliefs can often limit what certain leaders will look for in future talent. As such, a consistent, transparent self-nomination process will help you tap into a pool of talent that you may otherwise overlook.
Complexity and bureaucracy
It shouldn't take a lot of time and effort to manage your leadership pipeline. If you have the right competency model in place, the right level of coaching and development skills, a good nomination process and the right focus across the leadership team, your leadership pipeline should become business as usual.
Bureaucracy can stifle and kill off your leadership pipeline. For example, if a leadership nomination needs multiple levels of approval, followed by various assessments by different people in the business, your pipeline will stall. Keep the way you set up and manage the pipeline as simple as possible, to free up your managers' time to spend developing future talent.
To make sure your contact centre continues to run effectively, you need to make sure you have a healthy pipeline of future talent. Talk to an experienced management consulting company for more advice about developing leadership talent in your contact centre.
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