The Current Experience of Banco Call Centre - Essay Example

page Report on HR issues faced at Banco Call Centre Prepared for: Prepared by: presentation: Contents 3 Context and Problem 4Key characteristics 4 Factors influencing recommendations 4 KEY ISSUES 6 HRM Roles and Activities 6 Centralized organisation 6 Absence of relevant experience 6 Recruitment 6 Channels of recruitment 6 Basis of recruitment decision 6 Shift and overtime 6 multi-skill and phone time 6 Training and development 7 Training organisation and drawbacks 7 Compensation and incentives 7 compensation and incentives 7 Career progression 7 Employee relations 7 Turnover and absenteeism 7 Team building 7 Communication and labour representation 8 RECOMMENDATIONS AND LITERATURE REVIEW 9 HRM Role and Activities 9 Recruitment 9 Training 10 Reward Management 10 Employee relations 10 Turnover and absenteeism 10 Team building 11 Communication and labour representation 11 Conclusion 11 BIBLIOGRAPHY 11 Abstract The report considers the current experience of Banco call centre and examines the outcomes of the current practices. a brief introduction provides an overall view on the business model that Banco has adopted. The discussion then goes on to focus on the Human Resource Management processes adopted and their relevance to the business context. The current role of a centralised HR operation is examined and suggestions are provided to alter it and increase its suitability to the need of the business. The major issues relate to the direct application of the HR organisation, policies and procedures as used in the banking sector without considering the distinct features of call centre management. In conclusion it is pointed out that the bank has used a ‘one size fits all’ approach when the need was to understand the very distinct demands of call centre operations. It is recommended that the bank review the organisation of HR services for the call centre to facilitate its value-addition to the business. Context and Problem Key characteristics The call centre sector has been growing at a fast rate as an increasing number of companies seek to gain a competitive advantage of outsourcing task-based jobs. Call centres utilize sophisticated technology to provide better service to an increasingly demanding client base. The sector allows companies to provide 24-hour service to a global market. Call centre sector may be set up as a shared service to offer specialized routine services to a larger corporate or to the customer base. The sector is an outcome of organizations to provide superior service to compete effectively. Banco, a mid-sized retail bank has set up a call centre to counter competitive offerings by providing 24-hour service to and improve service levels at reduced cost. The bank has faced the challenge of coming up to speed on the technological demands of this business. Banco has chosen to manage the call centre centrally and opted to use resources that have no experience with that aspect of the business. Banco Call Centre is located in a high employment and economically developed area with a booming service economy. Strong HR practices are required to retain the employees because of presence of external job options. The call centre has employed 35% of its staff on a part-time basis. The focus on service is demonstrated in the structure and standards set by the call centre. The call centre has a local team to decide policy issues comprising section heads and a centre manager with no experience in call centre operations. HR policy and procedures are centrally determined by Banco and are considered inappropriate to call centre requirements. The environment in which Banco is competing involves the presence of an increasingly technology-savvy customer who is aware of the competitive offerings in the banking sector and will quickly switch to the offer of better quality, speed of service and accuracy. Service quality is the differentiator in the business and is determined by the availability of sophisticated technology and mature processes. Competitor banks have created a gap by upping their technological capability and service levels while Banco has only just begun. It faces a dual challenge of understanding the ramifications of call centre management and bridging the service quality lag that now exists. Factors influencing recommendations The absence of managerial resources who understand the business calls for the need to clarify the larger purpose behind the outsourcing process and presenting an overall HR strategy suited to this need. The recommendations will try to be appropriate to the need for centralised control and reporting while weighing the very specific requirements of call centre management. The recommendations will consider the business need for expertise on call centre operations and the flexibility that should be provided for the nature of work. It is envisioned that the organisation will develop internal resources to provide specialised attention to the call centre. Alternately, the relationship may develop into the call centre that is managed by specialised resources that provides service to the customer. KEY ISSUES HRM Roles and Activities Centralized organisation Banco has taken a decision to set up a call centre to increase the quality of its competitive offering. The environment is rife with change and demands quick business responses. A centralised HR organisation is ill-equipped to provide quick responses to business realities. The application of banking standards to call centre realities creates incorrect perceptions and flawed decisions. Absenteeism is perceived to be high by Banco standards though it falls within the norm call centre standards. Compensation is structured without considering the context. Absence of relevant experience The absence of experience of the rapid changes inherent in this sector makes it difficult for the central team to understand the needs of the business. The sector sees a high degree of attrition while the HR team has focused on compensation policies suited to long term employment without a parallel career progression. Recruitment Channels of recruitment The central department will continue to recruit permanent staff while external agencies are being considered for sourcing temporary staff. The focus in this case will be on experience in providing temporary candidates rather than on the capability to provide suitable ones. Basis of recruitment decision Recruitment decisions are based on personality and ‘naturals’ as a result extroverts find preference whereas the job requires conformity, strict adherence to rules and provides limited scope for social interaction. This contradiction has led to frustration among the workforce. Shift and overtime Shift allowances are paid despite the obvious lack of efficacy in the system and contractual working hours fail to cover the lag between shifts. This calls for a re-work in the shift design to allow appropriate transfer to the next shift. The prevalence of high overtime cost is not analysed sufficiently and countered with a vague notion that it is unjustified. Faulty shift time management will lead to increased cost due to overtime. multi-skill and phone time The expectation of multi-skilling across staff leads to under-utilisation of skills. All customer service operators are expected to be multi-skilled. Newcomers are expected to come up to speed with experience. Multi-skilled resources are not provided a differential growth path. 98% phone time is set as a standard of performance. This does not consider realistic off-phone activities. Training and development Training organisation and drawbacks At first, Banco had a centralised department that was entrusted to identify training needs of call centre teams. However, this came as an additional task on existing work pressure and was not conducted. Team leaders were managing business and not performance. As a result nobody was carrying out the job of training. This was changed and training is now carried out by a group of Team Leaders who are expected to bring their team members up to speed with appropriate coaching and training and ‘fun’. There are two drawbacks to the current method – the team leader is also expected to carry out their business-related responsibilities in addition to training which will lead to a lack of time for that area of work. The other is the absence of a unified approach to what constitutes training and a mechanism to gauge training effectiveness. Job scope is not based on complexity and revenue potential for effective quality monitoring Compensation and incentives compensation and incentives Considering the available job options in the immediate environment and the pressures of call centre working, Banco has retained low compensation standards with high benefits – a practice that is suited to long-term employment in a stable environment. Apart from this, the call centre has yet to recognise the importance of higher short-term earnings to maintain quality and control attrition (now at 35%). Career progression The absence of career progression models that demonstrate how people can grow in the organisation is at odds with an assumption of lasting employment relationships which forms the basis of compensation practices. Employee relations Turnover and absenteeism The application of banking standards to call centre realities creates skewed perceptions. Absenteeism is perceived to be high by Banco standards though it is considered normal by call centre standards. The nature of work and the profile of the staff at the call centre need to be understood by Banco. Team building Team building is assumed to occur in an out-of-work context when the staff meets socially. Absence of a planned and monitored approach towards increasing cohesiveness leads to varying outcomes. Communication and labour representation A small percentage of the staff is represented by the union. There is no other formal channel for communication and consultation. This provides little or no scope for employee grievance redressal and creates an impression of an unresponsive employer. RECOMMENDATIONS AND LITERATURE REVIEW HRM Role and Activities The business requires an experienced HR department that implements decisions based on interactions with those at the front. The alternative is to create dialogue between HR and the Call Centre management team to drive policy. Calvert (2005, p. 48-49) strongly suggests a relationship between the Call Centre Manager and the HR department that allows the business knowledge and experience to play a role in HR policy making. The Call Centre Manager should be able to influence HR decisions with inputs about ‘best practices’ followed by others in the field. Calvert (2005, p. 210) points out that service experience with a call centre operator is the strategy to gain long-term customer loyalty. Quality monitoring and coaching models help push this agenda. Recruitment The channels of recruitment should be specialised in recruiting candidates for call-centres instead of in providing temporary candidates. Given the high turnover, the HR department or agency should be in a position to quickly source suitable candidates (Read, 2005, p. 37). The call centre should also develop internal recruitment channels. Schuler and Jackson (2004, p. 255) point to the use of internal sources for filling vacancies by European countries. Fitz-enz and Davison (2002, p. 91-93) provide guiding formulae to strike a balance between internal and external recruitment. The use of defined traits and assessment tools rather than undefined traits will help the recruitment effort. Calvert (2004, p. 70-77) recommends competency as the basis for assessing the suitability of candidates. The call-centre requires a strategy for the management of multi-skilled resources. Multi-skilled operatives should be identified and allocated on the basis of need (Calvert, 2004, p. 190). The possibility of transfers between roles and career progression should be visible (Calvert, 2004, p. 89). 98% on-phone time requires to be reconsidered. Read (2005, p. 43) recommends a calculation of time on the phone that factors idle time, administrative wrap-up time and short rests in order to arrive at a realistic on-phone time calculation. It is also recommended to rank calls on the basis of complexity and potential for revenue generation to set performance measures. Schuler and Jackson (2007, p. 320) quote Batt’s study on the four segments of call-centre work ranging from high-margin, low volume interactions to low-margin, high volume ones. Shift management should take a mid-way between fixed timing and a people-centred approach. Faulty shift planning will lead to an increased in overtime costs. This is a complex field and is better managed with the use of interactive software that allows an overall view, individual application and communication that allows monitoring of hours worked. Calvert (2004, p. 192-202) suggests that shift-timings may be flexible to cater to the pressing needs of team members and should factor in breaks like lunch, rest, holidays and leave for planning shifts and overtime. The author suggests the use of software to manage shift rotations and provide sufficient cover between shifts. Training Training should be monitored by a department that has responsibility for business results. The training strategy should be designed to ensure that knowledge is available on call. A system-based approach for independent knowledge enhancement is the way ahead. Calvert (2004, p. 83-88) feels it is important to train team leaders to reinforce skill. Fitz-enz and Davison (2002, p. 284) found an increasing trend towards providing e-training since it is an effective ‘just in-time, as-needed’ method that ‘suits a distributed workforce’. Reward Management Consider the working context and make the job attractive with suitable offers like ‘flexible work hours, non-contributory pension schemes’ (Calvert, 2004, p. 69). The attractiveness of a compensation package is determined by personal preferences and the effort should be to create suitable options that are workable within the existing systems framework. Banco should have a clear definition of the constituents of multi-skill. Talent may be managed by providing career routes on the basis of preference and business need. Calvert believes that multi-skilled agents should be provided clear ‘route maps to personal development, learning and salary progression (2004, p. 89). Performance based incentives that link corporate performance are suitable measures for managerial staff while the front-end should realise incentives closer to the time of performance. By the same measure, disincentives may be introduced for poor performance. Incentive pay may be designed with the involvement of the employee (Fitz-enz and Davison, p.116) or to boost performance by introducing ‘job insecurity’ for those who do not gear up (Schuler and Jackson, 2004, p. 273). Employee relations Turnover and absenteeism The application of banking standards to call centre realities creates skewed perceptions. Absenteeism is perceived to be high by Banco standards though it is considered normal by call centre standards. Read (2005, p. 37) points out that high turnover is a feature of call centers. Calvert (2004, p. 85) suggests tracking absenteeism as one of the individual factors to gauge performance on a balanced scorecard. Team building Team building is assumed to occur in an out-of-work context when the staff meets socially. Calvert (2004, p. 47) highlights the connection between teams and customer satisfaction and business results. This connection necessitates the introduction of a planned and monitored approach towards increasing cohesiveness. Communication and labour representation The organisation should focus on keeping unionization under control by creating formal communication channels. The HR department should ensure representation in this area as a way to maintain contact with employees. Read (2005, p. 115) points out that the presence of unions can pressure companies to bear raised compensation costs without taking a larger view of financial performance. Schuler and Jackson (2007, p. 374-375) emphasise the need for open and honest communication as an effective means to manage change. Conclusion The report has brought out the key issues and their impact on Banco Call Centre operations. The centralised HR organisation with resources that have no relevant experience has led to practices that are not suited to the call centre environment. Inappropriate measures will lead to the feeling that the organisation is an unresponsive employer. This impression will spread in the area (with its booming service economy) thereby making attraction of suitable talent a greater challenge. The recommendation to decentralise, change the focus of recruitment and learning processes, compensation and incentives, employee relations calls for a dedicated HR organisation for the call centre. The recognition that the existing practices are not suited to the business can be an impetus to change. This recommendation is likely to face initial reluctance that is expected to be overcome due to the pressing need for change. BIBLIOGRAPHY Calvert, Natalie (2004). Gower Handbook of Call and Contact Centre Management. Gower Publishing Ltd. Fitz-enz, Jac & Davison, Barbara (2002). How to Measure Human Resources Management. Mc-Graw Hill Professional. Read, Brendan B. (2005). Designing the Best Call Centre for Your Business. Focal Press. Schuler, Randall S & Jackson, Susan E. (2007). Strategic Human Resource Management. Wiley-Blackwell. Read More