Having been on the “hot seat” a few times over the lat 20-years of my career, I’m now in the position to interview candidates.  One of the key areas when running a call center is ensuring that you hire the right candidate otherwise they can become a toxic component in your team.

Here are several questions that I use to weed out who I bring in for a 2nd interview:

1. What is important for you in a job?  What are you expecting from us?
2. How do you handle a difficult colleague?
   1. Ideally if you’ve interviewed correctly, you should not have difficult employees – but some people are exceptional interviewees and you can only spot the toxic ones after you’ve hired them.
3. How will you add value to the team?
4. Talk to be about a time where…
   1. I like this question because if does prompt the candidate to think about what they’ve done in the scenario you present to them.  You can always tell who is honest in their response as well by using these types of questions.
5. Tell me about a mistake you made, and what you did to fix it

Though many companies use hiring agencies to fill certain posts, it is still important to meet with a potential candidate that may well be in your employee for 2, 3 or more years.  The interview is part of the process, and hopefully the agency you use also vets the good from the bad.

If you’ve got interview questions that work for you, please do share them.

As an Operations Director with primary responsibility over Customer Operations, I get asked a lot of questions from friends, family and colleagues I worked with when I was in IT.  I was asked to speak at my sons school to his class about what I do, but it’s always difficult to explain exactly what I do.  Lets face it, it’s not very exciting to say that I spend time planning, analyzing and executing.  When I say that line, the usual response is “Oh, ok… well, anyway…” not much of a response, is it?

The other thing I may say is that I manage a call center.  Well that’s even worse.  People imagine that I’m a slave driver and tied to my phone.  I wish it were that simple!

As a Senior Manager, while I can be hands-on when needed I’ve got a Manager and Supervisor that run the show.  I just get to sit back and watch.  And plan.  And review, analayze and execute plans that help us meet operational objectives.

Planning is central to the smooth operations of a call center, as is executing those plans at the right time.

There is a great post over at Goals & Achievements website brief, but to the point that does a great job on explaining the transition from a manager to a senior manager.

Enjoy!

Whether you are considering a continuous program or a one-shot course, the questions should stimulate your thinking. Many of them involve alternatives that you need to resolve in setting up the program.

Use this checklist as a guide. The experience of other companies in training can provide additional guides. However, in thinking about a training program for your company, consider each question and answer with a “yes” or “no” in light of the training needs of your particular situation.

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series of posts on Developing a Training Program.

What Is the Goal of Training?

The questions in this section are designed to help the owner-manager define the objective or goal to be achieved by a training program. Whether the objective is to conduct initial training, to provide for upgrading employees, or to retrain for changing job assignments, the goal should be spelled out before developing the plan for the training program.

• Do you want to improve the performance of your employees?
• Will you improve your employees by training them to perform their present tasks better?
• Do you need to prepare employees for newly developed or modified jobs?
• Is training needed to prepare employees for promotion?
• Is the goal to reduce accidents and increase safety practices?
• Should the goal be to improve employee attitudes especially about waste and spoilage practices?
• Do you need to improve the handling of materials in order to break production bottlenecks?
• Is the goal to orient new employees to their jobs?
• Will you need to teach new employees about overall operations?
• Do you need to train employees so they can help teach new workers in an expansion program?

What Does the Employee Need to Learn?

Once the objective or goal of the program is set, you will need to determine the subject matter. The following questions are designed to help you decide what the employee needs in terms of duties, responsibilities, and attitudes.

• Can the job be broken down into steps for training purposes?
• Are there standards of quality which trainees can be taught?
• Are there certain skills and techniques which trainees must learn?
• Are there hazards and safety practices which must be taught?
• Have you established the methods that employees must use to avoid or minimize waste and spoilage?
• Are there material handling techniques that must be taught?
• Have you determined the best way for the trainees to operate the equipment?
• Are there performance standards that employees must meet?
• Are there attitudes that need improvement or modifications?
• Will information on your products help employees to do a better job?
• Should the training include information about the location and use of tool cribs and so on?
• Will the employee need instruction about departments other than his or her own?

Additional topics which will be covered in subsequent posts will be:

What Type of Training?

What Method of Instruction?

What Audio Visual Aids Will You Use?

What Physical Facilities Will You Need?

What About Timing?

Who Will Be Selected as Instructor?

Who Should Be Selected?

What Will the Program Cost?

What Checks or Controls Will You Use?

How Should the Program Be Publicized?

In addition to providing a simple checklist that you can follow, we will drill into each of the topics to provide more valuable information.

Over time, each of these topics will be linked and we will feature the primary post on the right sidebar menu for easy access to this valuable information.

You are welcome to share your experiences on this topic by leaving a comment or if you wish, we would happily accept you as a guest poster to the blog – either way, just leave us a comment and we will be in touch!

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It may sound like you are duplicating the work of your Human Resources department – if you have one – but in fact, you are not.  Normally you would not want to give HR everything on an employee, some information may be of use only to you.  Of course any major policy or procedural violations would need to be documented especially if you are working in a union environment.

So why keep files on your team?

Several reasons.

Coaching

Perhaps one individual is constantly having trouble with one or a few aspects of the job.  What better way to identify this that by retaining this type of information in their own file and then coaching them.  They may make an error once or twice – but unless you’ve got a superb memory and can remember what your entire team does right (or wrong) you will not remember the small errors. 

By documenting this for yourself you can then review on whatever basis you choose and speak with the individual.

Review Time

Lets face it, as a manager you will remember ALL the negative and probably very little positive that your team or the individual has contributed.  You’re thinking right now “No, I don’t do that”.  Uhhh, yes – you do.

Every manager that I’ve worked under has always remembered what’s happened in the last few months and normally all the negative.  The new entrant into the workforce, who hasn’t been blinded (or perhaps is blinded) by all that goes on around them will happily keep going without realizing what’s happening.  Once they’ve been “burned” once – they will not forget.  Why do you think office politics exists?  To make oneself look good in front of their supervisor.

Honestly – do you really think that your team is being super nice to you because they like you?  You’re enforcing the rules, saying “NO” when perhaps they hoped you would say “YES”.  So anyway… Some of your direct reportees will not toot their own horn – so you need to do it for them.

In addition to being a manager, and supervisor you are also a leader and if your team does well – so do you, the department and the company.

By documenting what they’ve done right and wrong you are also showing your team that you do care about what happens in the department that you have  a vested interest. 

If you look at it from the point of view of your team, they will realize that you are watching — which limits the risk of negative behaviour.  You don’t want to be a cop (or mom/dad at work) but in some cases you will be.

How To Maintain Files

This isn’t rocket science.  It is easy.

Plain folder.  The employees name on it.  Done.

When you witness good/bad behavior – document it.

You sit down with someone for coaching, or one-on-one in your office the next step should be to document the conversation and e-mail the individual and put a copy in YOUR employee file.

Someone comes in late?  Document that.

Too long in the washroom… well, use your judgement.  In some industries, particularly very busy call centers EVERYTHING is documented and yes – they will even document how long you are away from your phone (so not necesarily how long your bio-break has been).

HR Employee Files

The files that HR keep are different from yours, they will be tracking information related to employment and legal issues.  For instance significant performance issues, salary and wage increases (or decreases), medical notes etc.,  The HR employee file may have some of the same information as you maintain but for the most part they will be different.

Now that said just because your file doesn’t contain the same information don’t keep it laying around or consider it not important.  If you’ve documented sufficient information related to performance, for example and use that to terminate someone KEEP THE INFORMATION!  If that employee decides to sue or file a grievance with the union or any other number of reasons that file might be the only information you have to back-up your actions.  IT IS IMPORTANT!

Do you have a different way you’re approaching this?  I would love to get more insight as I’m sure others would as well.  Feel free to comment on this post, or any other.

by Kate Tammemagi

An effective Supervisor understands that People Management is the central core of this role.

To get an understanding of this term ‘People Management’, it is useful to separate the two elements – the ‘People’ element and the ‘Management’ element.  On the ‘people’ side, the role requires a keen understanding of different types of people, and effective use of people skills to work productively with each one.  The ‘management’ side involves structuring the activities of the Team and of the Supervisor so that the Team will work effectively together to achieve maximum performance.

Think in terms of People and Management

Effective Supervisors have their focus on both elements of People Management and are actively working on both sides at all times. The ineffective Supervisor is often overly concerned with one element and might be blind – or even dismissive of the other side.  They may emphasis the ‘people’ side, wanting to become a ‘buddy’ to their Team members rather than a Leader, or simply have no structure or systems to manage performance at all. The other extreme is the Supervisor who introduces processes and systems with no appreciation of how these may impact on their Team members – resulting in a low performing, de-motivated Team.

The first step to successful Leadership is to think in terms of both people and management – putting in the right systems and processes so that these people can perform at a high level.

Manage your Understanding of Your People

An effective Supervisor keeps a file on each of their reports, and they use this to plan and manage day to day actions with each person. The first step is to get to know each of your Team members. The best way of doing this initially is to observe them from a distance as they work or interact with others. Develop this understanding by ‘bonding’ with each. Bonding is spending short periods of time talking socially with each – about sport or family or other interests.

A good People Manager uses this time to build mutual respect and trust, but also to gain an insight in to the personality of this person. Structure and record your thoughts. What will motivate this person, what are their strengths, what are the sensitive areas?

Ensure you have these bonding sessions with each one of your reports regularly – and spend equal time with each. Promoting fair play and avoiding any form of favouritism is vital to this role.

The next step is to get an appreciation of this person in their Task role, their performance, their strengths and their areas for development. Write down a profile of the Team Member, the more information you have the better. Each person has many qualities, if you stop at the surface level, you will fail to get an understanding real potential of this person.

Benchmark the ‘Ideal Team Member’

The next area to focus on is – what are you building?

You know what your Team Members are like now, but if they were much, much better, what would they look like then?

The first rule in Management is to – ‘Focus on the Goal’.  Effective Management figures out the objectives and targets, and then they put in plans and Management systems to achieve these goals. This is also true of People Management. The effective Supervisor works out what this Team Member will be like in 6 months time or a year, and then puts in goals, plans and actions to get there.

To help you do this, visualise the ‘ideal’ Team Member – one who has all the best qualities of the best Team Members. Make a long list of the qualities of this ‘ideal’ Team Member, and keep working at this list to clarify your thinking.

It may be helpful to use the following categories to help you do this: Knowledge, Skills, Attitude, and Team Contribution.

Create a matrix with this list, to help you identify the Strengths of your Team and each Team Member, and to plan your next areas to work on.

Indentify Clear Goals for each Team Member

Use your ‘Ideal’ Benchmark Matrix to assess each of one of your Team Members in turn. First identify the top 3 or 4 strengths of each, their best qualities or performance factors. Then identify their areas for development, what to work on next.

Write down clear goals for each Team Member for the next 2 – 3 months.  In one of your early performance discussions with each Team Member, discuss these goals. Gain their input, and agree definite goals for the immediate future.

Hold Regular Performance Management Meetings

The effective People Manager begins as they mean to go on. At an early stage with each new report, begin regular, planned performance discussions. These may take only 15 to 20 minutes every week or two weeks. The goal is to help the Team Member to review their performance over the last week, identify strengths and learning points for the future. It is the time to give positive or corrective feedback and to set short term goals for the immediate future.

Build the habit of these discussions, encouraging and developing the Team Member to become engaged in their own self development.

Kate Tammemagi specializes in designing and running fully customized Leadership Training Courses. She has extensive experience in Supervisor Training and People and Performance Management.