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About
iOps
iOps
is a newsletter for BPO professionals in India. Its mission is to enhance
the operational capabilities of the Indian BPO Industry through
dissemination of
knowledge and sharing of best practices.
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Last
Issue
The last issue of iOps was on Retention which
ennumerated the concept of the value basket to retain staff. We have
received numerous raves on this article and would like to thank our
readers for the same.
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An
iOps Tip
"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone" - Chinese Proverb
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Monotony
Human
beings tend to get bored with repetitive activities. Fortunately,
nature has provided us with infinite variations, however minute, in
every occurance. This means that every time the same transaction
repeats itself, it is actually different in some way from the previous
transactions. It is the knowledge of these variations that can keep
jobs very interesting.
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BPO jobs are monotonous
Or are they?
A lot of allegations have been thrown at the BPO industry. Statements
like "the jobs are monotonous", "the jobs are repetitive", "its boring" etc. are fairly common. Even the ex-head of a large BPO
company with international operations was heard saying that BPO jobs
are monotonous. Maybe that's why he is the ex-head now.
Every Job is boring
But
jokes apart, which job in the world is not boring (we are using boring and monotonous interchangeably)? If an agent's
job is monotonous, so is the team leaders', managers' and the
CEOs' job. The accountant, head of administration, technology manager,
quality analyst; they all have monotonous jobs (or so it can seem).
Looking at it a bit deeper, a very large portion of most jobs has
repetitive components. Therefore, anyone can find their job to be as
monotonous as they want it to be. Most of all, an agent in the BPO
industry can definitely find his job to be devoid of excitement.
And
why not? 6:00 PM-Auto in. 9:00 PM to 9:30 PM-Aux 3 (or what ever aux
for break), 4:00 AM logout. In between, complete as many transactions
(voice or non voice) as possible. Add the following to the mix: repeat
every day = formula for boring. Is there no escape from this?
So what can be done about it?
If
90% of a job is repetitive, how can the job be made exciting? Well, all
it takes is speaking to a few people who have such jobs and who love
it. Here's what they would probably say:
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Enrichment
Doing the same thing
repetitively without knowing the science behind it can become very
boring. Therefore, the idea is to seek external or internal inputs to
discover why things are the way they are. For example, if I am a
frontline BPO employee, I could find out why are there so many metrics?
What do they mean? How are they related? Why are they important to the
client? What are the metrics in other processes? Why are they different
from mine? Etc. etc. Similarly, I could discover answers in other areas
e.g. what kinds of reports are produced? What do the fields in them
mean? Who produces them and what can we understand from them?
Here's one last example. I could find out what are
the other functions in my process? What is QA all about? What is
workforce management all about? Why do we have a Csat lead? Etc.
The
number of answers to discover is literally infinite. Another way to
find enrichment is to read up on topics related to the work. Such
topics can be found in books, web sites, journals etc. Some people who
continuously engage in this process will probably not find their job to
be boring because every day will be different.
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Depth
Another method to keep the
excitement of the job is to get into the depths of the function. For
example, if I was an associate in a process that deals with accounts
payable, I could go into the depths of the domain itself (e.g. invoice
processing). I could also go into the depths of the large number of
variations in the types of jobs processes for my client. Similarly, if
I were in a technical support process, I could go into the depths by
continuously discovering answers in my knowledge base. These endeavors
would make me an expert in the process.
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Contribution
Some of the people who
continue to remain excited about their jobs engage in a high level of
contribution towards the job. These could be in the form of taking
initiatives, lending a helping hand to the boss/colleagues or to
volunteer for tasks. One can come across numerous instances of people
taking initiatives to improve process training, increase contribution
to the knowledge base, improve quality or customer satisfaction or any
other form of process improvements etc. Volunteering to resolve
problems also makes jobs enjoyable (e.g. helping clear up hugh queues
of work, volunteering to perform root cause analysis to identify a
problem etc.). Volunteering to help in other functions/departments also
keeps the jobs enjoyable. For example, an agent in a BPO company wanted
to move to a role in the HR department. This was proving to be
difficult because of the non existence of a formal lateral movement
process within the company. So he decided to volunteer his free time
(on one of his off days) to help out some
people in the HR department on some odd jobs. During this time he
became familiar with most people in the department, including the head
of HR. When the time came for the HR dept to recruit a person, they
obviously chose this agent, who was already familiar with them, and had
build up his equity in the department by volunteering his time.
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Professional interactions
Interactions with peers
within and outside the company at a professional level helps to foster
interest in one's job. For instance, it would be
very interesting to note how people from another company are addressing
a work related problem that we are currently facing. These interactions
could happen in person (e.g. through friends) or
online. There are numerous groups on the internet where people discuss
various issues at a professional level. Another way to foster such
interactions, is to contribute to a news letter or a magazine and then
seek feedback (as we like to do at OnTrac).
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Experiment within tolerance levels
There is an old saying "if you always do what you have always done, you
will always get what you have always got". Therefore, if
the job seems to be boring, then its time to change something in the
way we do the job. One can always experiment, within tolerance limits
of course, by tweaking a few components of the job. For example, if I
were a customer support executive, I could experiment on ways to build
better rapport. To do this, I would need to change something in the way
I normally speak with a customer. For instance, I could read up the
latest in entertainment news from web sites such as MSN.com and use
that knowledge (e.g. did you see the Oscars last night?). OR I could
choose a completely different technique e.g. speak to a friend of mine
who is in a collections process. How do they build rapport with
customers who they have to convince to pay up?
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Building relationships
Another great way to keep
the remove the monotony from the job is to build relationships with a
variety of people. These are those people who we would not normally
interact with. For example, as a BPO associate, I might interact 70% of
the time with my colleagues, 25% of the time with my team leader and
only 5% of the time with others (including managers, people from other
functions etc.). If I took the initiative to take a portion of the 80%
and allocated it to interactions with other people, I would give myself
a chance to build completely new relationships with a variety of
people. A key success factor for people in any company is the
number of relationships they build horizontally or vertically in their
organizations. Again, such endeavors keep the job interesting.
At
the end, each individual's attitude towards his/her
job will determine how exciting or boring they find their job to be. No
one can tell the individual how to develop an interest in the job. For
example, when the manager assigns a variety of tasks, some individuals
can regard it as regular work. On the other hand, initiatives by
oneself (as mentioned above), will be viewed as exciting because it
comes with a higher sense of ownership.
OnTrac Internal Staff
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ONTRAC NEWS
=>Over
1400 Team Leaders across multiple BPO companies in India have received the
OnTrac Star Certification
This
is the first program of its kind in India. The Star Certification
Program helps team leaders manage their teams and deliver superior
performance consistently.
=>OnTrac launches the Manager's DNA (MDNA) program to enhance capabilities of mid level managers in the BPO industry.
The
MDNA program has been created to tackle the key challenges faced by
middle management in the BPO industry today. These challenges line in
the areas of managing their teams, managing client relationships and
managing the organization.
=>OnTrac launches the Xcelerate series of career enhancement programs for frontline BPO agents.
Xcelerate
series consists of courses that help agents get promoted to a role of
their choice within their own organization (e.g. team leaders, v&a
trainers, quality analysts etc.). Many agents have already received the
benefits of these programs and have moved on to become team leaders and
v&a trainers.
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Tolerance Levels
There
was a time when people held onto on job for decades. They tolerated the
worst of conditions, including mind numbing monotony because there were
not many alternatives out there. Today, the situation is different.
Even jobs that otherwise would have been considered
interesting are dumped in the name of monotony. The question remains,
how do we increase the interest levels of people on their jobs in this
day of plenty?
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