Create a positive work culture to retain and motivate your call centre team

Call centres have a notoriously high annual employee turnover rate of 20%, compared with the UK average of 15% [1]. Call centre employees can feel like the role is emotionally demanding, stressful and that there is no clear career path. High employee turnover can have serious financial ramifications and cause strain on a business [2].

But this doesn’t have to be the case.

You can transform your business by looking at your employee demographic and learning how to keep your people happy. In this article, we share how you can turn tired and demotivated employees into a positive and driven team. Make it your goal to build excellent work culture in your call centre and improve aspects like customer satisfaction, response time, staff retention and more.

How Can Each Person Help?

Each Person is a unique recognition and rewards platform that benefits employees’ mental, physical and financial wellbeing, all in one place. It’s more important than ever to invest more time into your people and create a positive company culture; however, we understand the doubts that this can be both time-consuming and expensive. To help call centres that might be feeling financial pressure and on a budget, this year we have created a version of Each Person that could be free-of-charge to help give crucial benefits to their people without the cost.

Sitel Group is a leading global provider of customer experience solutions and products to help brands enhance and reimagine customer engagement. With 160,000 employees around the globe, Sitel works endlessly to connect well-known brands with customers, building deeper brand loyalty and driving value. Sitel has been partnering with us here at Each Person for two years, using our platform in their Edinburgh and Galashiels sites. Julia Doverholt, Communications and Engagement Lead, says, “Having a relatively large number of employees on our sites alone mean that incentives can be used to better retain employees, improve productivity and motivation. Employees are using the platform more and more even when there is no balance in their accounts, in order to purchase giftcards, products and as a way to save money. Overall we are very happy with the platform and the shop!”.

Why Happy People Are Your Priority

Defining the job role and expectations from the get-go is essential in hiring the best people for your call centre. Yet, the real issue with call centre teams is retaining people and keeping them in the business. For some, this kind of role is seen as an in-between job and others find the work difficult to sustain.

These attitudes can change if that person experiences fun, engagement and collaboration at work. Call centres must create a strategy to transform their turnover rates and utilise external platforms like Each Person to help. Each Person is a unique recognition and rewards platform that benefits employees’ mental, physical and financial wellbeing.

Nearly a third of call centre businesses in the UK have an annual employee turnover rate between 26% and 50%, costing them around £6,000 per role” [3]. So, how do you go about improving employee retention and why is it crucial for business success?

An engaged workforce increases profitability by 21% [4]. Meaning that if you aim to support and keep people happy, you can positively influence their wellbeing and improve your bottom line. People want to feel appreciated, and call centre managers don’t spend as much time nurturing their teams compared to other industries. Put in place some of the following initiatives and build a team of happy employees who want to stay working with you.

With these five key focuses, let’s look at the ways to cultivate a prosperous call centre. Wellbeing, development, recognition, culture and feedback.

Focus 1 – Wellbeing

Your employee’s mental, physical and emotional wellbeing is a high priority. Especially if you are trying to make them feel valued and keep them on your team. How do you go about this? Create open lines of communication, use external systems like Each Person and show gratitude often.

Having a team of happy and healthy employees helps cultivate a positive culture which reduces resignation, increases motivation and benefits the company. The Each Person Wellbeing Hub is an excellent tool to integrate, demonstrating compassion for your people. The Wellbeing hub provides useful information and helps them better their lives beyond work.

Focus 2 – Financial Wellness

Financial wellness is often overlooked, yet it is a huge factor that impacts people’s lives at work. With the current cost of living crisis, supporting your staff during these difficult times is curial. A recent study found that UK employees that earn between £10-30k per year have almost the same level of financial worries as those earning over £90k per year [5]. So, this doesn’t necessarily mean a pay rise. With Each Person, you can save £1300+ a year through exclusive deals, discounts and great cashback rewards (Up to 20% cashback, when shopping with Points and employee vouchers). Helping your people get more for less, on the things that actually matter, like supermarket vouchers and diesel.

Focus 3 – Development

Employee development also helps increase employee wellbeing. Businesses that consider their people’s personal and professional goals are more likely to see higher retention rates. People want to feel that their company supports them and wants to see them succeed. You can start by opening up the conversation and allowing them to share their aspirations.

Integrated training and development is a key focus for call centres. Agents often feel a lack of confidence and knowledge due to minimal training from the beginning, which doesn’t instil a sense of care or attention. You can also utilise tools such as; development plans, access to resources, and coaching to create a supportive work environment.

Focus 4 – Recognition

Employee recognition is also an essential factor in keeping your people happy and retaining the best agents at your call centre. Using Employee of the Month awards, vouchers, and communicating appraisals are important tools. Each Person is an

all-in-one hub that gives you all these tools in one platform. They give you everything you need to integrate recognition into your business. From saving money on fuel, Ecards, instant vouchers and much more, this platform will make employee recognition easy and simple to use. At the same time, this will help you retain your best agents and cultivate a positive work culture.

Focus 5 – Culture

By integrating employee wellbeing, recognition and development you will naturally generate great culture. These aspects help cultivate a happy team, and in turn, a great work environment. These factors showcase your gratitude and make employees feel more valued, but the element of fun should also be included.

Having fun and designing team-building activities are great for building culture as employee friendships can be integral. They help to improve overall staff wellbeing and job satisfaction. Gallup reports that 300 million people globally say they don’t have a single friend [5]. And whilst many employers ask staff to keep their personal life separate, it is crucial that people are building friendships at work [5], especially in call centre environments that can be emotionally draining and stressful.

Focus 6 – Feedback

Finally, listen to your staff and take on feedback as part of your employee wellbeing and retention strategy. Use feedback through exit interviews, catch-ups and team huddles to gain insight into how your people are feeling and what makes them happy at work. Each workplace and agent will be different. These strategies are great to implement but don’t overlook feedback from your people.

Communication is a key focus for building a happy team and keeping them on board.. ‘Effective workplace communication helps drive better results for individuals, teams, and organisations’, contributing to an optimistic and productive work culture [6].

These five focus areas all work well together. Install different tools and ensure to learn from staff feedback. Put your employees at the centre and experience a positive workplace with happy staff and better retention.

Want to learn more about the Each Person platform and our mission to transform the way businesses support their people? Contact us support@eachperson.com or visit www.eachperson.com/

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Sources:

1, 2. Chris Robinson, ‘8 Ways You Can Reduce Call Centre Staff Turnover’, Awaken – https://www.awaken.io/resources/blog/8-ways-you-can-reduce-call-centre-staff-turnove r/

3. ‘Call Centre Turnover: A Vicious Circle With No Easy Way Out’, Centralus Employee Engagement Consultancy –

http://corporate.centralus.co.uk/articles/call-centre-turnover/

4. Jim Harter, ‘Employee Engagement on the Rise in the U.S.‘, Gallup – https://news.gallup.com/poll/241649/employee-engagement-rise.aspx

5. ‘The Employer’s Guide to Financial Wellbeing 2020-21’, Health @work –

https://healthatworkcentre.org.uk/importance-of-financial-wellbeing-and-how-to-support-staff/

6. Jon Clifton, ‘The Power of Work Friends’, Harvard Business Review – https://hbr.org/2022/10/the-power-of-work-friends

7. Allaya Cook-Campbell, Communication is key in the Here’s how to improve, BetterUp –

https://www.betterup.com/blog/why-communication-is-key-to-workplace-and-how-to-i mprove-skills