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Chapter 4: Enablers of Engagement – What has to happen to make engagement work
The results of this investment are clear: engagement scores of the teams
managed by attendees of the programme are significantly higher than teams
where the manager hasn’t been on the course. And this positive engagement
outcome translates into vital business indicators. Absenteeism in engaged
teams is around three-quarters that of the less engaged teams, and engaged
managers are responsible for half the number of signalling errors and incidents
compared with less engaged managers.
Case Study
Telefónica O2
At one of its largest contact centres, O2 found that some of its managers were
spending too long on administrative tasks – time that could have been spent
face-to-face with their teams.
Over two months, managers at Preston Brook were asked to track what they
were spending their time on, enabling O2 to build a picture of how they spent
their average working day. It found too much of their time was being taken up
with administration that it could train non-managers to do.
“We trained up our admin team so they could perform some of these activities –
things like auditing goodwill credits and reporting sickness absence stats,” says
Customer Service Operations Manager, Lorraine Connolly.
“That freed up our managers to spend more of their time where they should be – in
amongst their teams taking care of their people with one-to-ones, coaching and so on.”
Only by spending quality face-to-face time with their teams can O2’s
managers meet the company’s promise that your manager will be there for you.
Account Manager at Preston Brook, Nico Versluys, whose 11-year-old stepson
has cerebral palsy, said he was grateful his manager made time for him. “Ryan
needed a series of operations on his legs and it was a very stressful time,” said
Nico. “But my manager always made time for me to talk about it. He said if things
ever got too stressful then he’d give me the space I needed to get my head
around things and talk it through. I never really needed to in the end but it was
reassuring to know the offer was there if I needed it.
“Customer Service can be a very busy and stressful part of the business, so it’s
easy for managers to look at their team as a bunch of KPIs that need to be
monitored or improved. But the best managers are those who appreciate that
their team are human beings and will perform at their best when they feel
supported, listened to and involved. As the saying goes: ‘happy people equals
happy customers.’”
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