Workplace Happiness: How to Make it Happen for Your Team
As a contact center manager, you’re responsible for a large number of agents. Your agents are your most important assets. They are integral to the long-term success of your business. As their manager, do everything you can to ensure happiness and engagement. Here are a few tips on how to increase workplace happiness.
Respect Your Agents
Respectful leadership has a positive impact on retaining and engaging your agents. If employees don’t feel respected by the leadership in their contact center, they’re less likely to be happy. Respect begins at treating your agents as equals. Be courteous and trust your employees to do their jobs. Micromanagement is not an effective way to show support or respect to your agents. The best managers set expectations and provide support while giving their agents autonomy.
This has a powerful effect on your agents’ happiness. It will also encourage them to treat colleagues and customers with the same respect
Empower Your Agents
Empowering your agents will help challenge and develop them. When you empower them to take control of their jobs, you give them more room to grow as professionals. The right amount of distance encourages your agents to take ownership of their role. It also makes addressing mistakes and coaching easier. When your employees are empowered and own their job, it encourages them to focus on self-development. When an employee understands their strengths and challenges, it makes addressing mistakes and coaching easier.
The freedom to make decisions without a supervisor will have a positive impact on your company culture.
Celebrate Your Agents
When an agent has a great call or completes a task, it’s important to recognize them. You can write them little notes, send an email to them or announce it at a team meeting. This recognition will go a long way in helping them feel they are excelling at their job. Celebrating wins has a positive impact on your agent’s coaching. This makes development moments less critical and helps them be more receptive to constructive feedback. Celebrating wins can also make it easier when the agent needs coaching as they can acknowledge that you recognize the good and the areas of growth.
Encourage your agents to celebrate and recognize one another as well. If you do daily stand-ups or regular meetings, have time for kudos. You can also offer up little notes for agents to write to one another.
Your people make your business. And an agent who feels acknowledged will be more excited to go to work each day.
Coach Your Agents
Coach your agents with a developmental mindset. This helps them feel supported which will improve their satisfaction. You need to coach your agents while ensuring they don’t feel attacked. The first thing to do here is to set clear expectations from the beginning. If they know their responsibilities, they will be more responsive to feedback. When you address your agents with negative feedback do so in a clear, concise, non-confrontational manner.
Delegate To Your Agents
Delegate a variety of tasks and responsibilities to your agents. Give them projects that provide purpose, professional development, and that stretch their experience. This will relieve some of your work and help your agents feel more appreciated and trusted.
Don’t only delegate work. Delegate leadership. If there are opportunities to let your agents take charge, do it! This can be as simple as letting them plan and schedule lunch & learns where they teach others a new skill. Or, if you have regular meetings, turn over the management of those meetings to your agents. Let those interested take turns creating and managing a meeting agenda.
Delegation serves two major purposes. First, it provides your agents with more ownership, which will increase their happiness and commitment to the job. The second purpose is to see who shines — these are your future leaders. They can take a lead role or even move in as the manager when you’re ready to move up.
Support Your Agents
Your agents are people with lives outside of work. Be flexible with things that pop up. If possible, let your agents work from home on occasion. A good agent can work as well or even better from any place they choose.
Another way to support your agents is by encouraging them to take vacation. Too many companies offer vacation time but then prevent employees from using it. Burnout is real. And discouraging your employees to take vacation will only increase attrition.
Provide your employees flexibility and support to help them be more productive and rejuvenated. This will help them stay more satisfied in both the workplace and at home. For more on how Sharpen can help improve your workplace satisfaction, check out how we helped onPeak improve morale and cut agent sick time by 65 percent.
Your agents are an invaluable resource. They serve as your front line support and product experts. As their manager, do your best to support your employees and assist in their workplace success. When you take steps to increase agent happiness you increase engagement and encourage advocacy.