The Stress of Staffing

“One reason people change jobs is because they never feel welcome or part of the organization they join.”*

It should be an easy task.

Create a job description, post said description in a variety of places, interview qualified candidates, hire the most qualified, and enjoy the fruits of a successful professional relationship.

Why is it then, that the process of hiring, onboarding, and retaining employees is one that continues to cause many sleepless nights for contact center hiring managers around the world?

Is the system flawed? Are the wrong types of candidates applying for our positions? Are we failing to meet their expectations once they’re in the door? What is causing the stress of staffing to be so great?

During my experience both in and out of the contact center, I’ve been involved in every part of the employment life cycle: from recruiting at job fairs and facilitating company orientation to developing positions and a hiring strategy to announcing layoffs and terminations. I’ve cursed these processes at their worst and have reaped the benefits of them at their best. Through all of it, I’ve discovered the components critical to a program’s success and unveiled the sometimes hidden pitfalls that can exist.

One of my universal learning’s was that whether your responsibility in the contact center involves creating the job descriptions, conducting the interviews, or managing the people once they’re hired, it’s critical for everyone in the center to understand and have some level of involvement in the employee life cycle.  The employee life cycle includes the following phases:

1. Attraction
   
2. Recruitment
   
3. Onboarding
   
4. Development
   
5. Growth & Enablement
   
6. Retention
   
7. Separation
   

The earlier in that life cycle that you get involved the better for everyone.  All too often, however, we’re brought in (or bring people in) once it’s too late.   The root cause of this is typically not knowing or considering how someone can provide value at any given point.  I want to empower you with the knowledge of how to use the initial phases as a springboard for launching a highly capable, highly engaged, high productive workforce.

Next week, I’m delivery a new 2-hour virtual session on Hiring and Onboarding in the Contact Center. In those two hours, we’re going to focus on the two components that are foundational in ensuring the long-term success and sustenance of the contact center:

1. Identifying the ideal candidate pools
   
2. Ensuring that employees are engaged and productive beyond the “honeymoon” period.

If we don’t get the right people in our doors from the start AND if we don’t have an effective onboarding program in place, nothing else really matters. Are you going to allow yourself to continue to pay the price of an ineffective system, or is enough finally enough? Join me on December 4 and learn what steps you can take to move your hiring and onboarding program in the right direction.

* Brown, J. (2003). Employee orientation: Keeping new employees on board. Retrieved online 1/25/2012 from http://humanresources.about.com/library/weekly/uc042102a.htm