Janice shared:
I’d had enough: the gossip; the veterans scaring the new hires; more and more people doing just enough to get by… And I was frustrated because we’d done so much to foster employee engagement.
I changed out some toxic leaders. We revamped our coaching program to focus on the positive. I’m here every Saturday right along with them. I bring bagels. The day I forgot the bagels, I bought lunch. We have fun incentive programs and have really positive approach to coaching.
I was intrigued. The call center I’d been called in to do consulting work for was doing so much right. And yet they had brought me in, “because there’s always room for improvement.” Yes, another sign that they are Winning Well. They had terrific margins, unheard of low turnover, and everyone was smiling.
Apparently, it wasn’t always that way.
I asked about the tipping point.
One Saturday, I just couldn’t take it any more. So I transferred the phones to another center, and had everyone pull their chairs to the center of the office. I expressed my frustration– and then said, “Please, please help me. What is the source of our morale problem?”
I was shocked by the answer.
They didn’t want more fun, incentives or even time off the phones.
It all came down to one thing.
They wanted us to take a hard stand on the slackers. Those coming in late. Putting customers on hold for an extra breather. Absence.
Side note– Apparently there was almost unanimous agreement that this was the issue, while three people remained silent– you guessed it– the slackers.
So I pulled reports and dug into the patterns of every rep.
Note: She then pulled out binder-clipped half-inch stack of paper– which was a computer print out of one rep’s tardy logins (all one or two minutes), but there must have been hundreds of occurrences.
Which of course begs the question– why should I sign in on time, if no one does anything to those who don’t?
Then I met with every rep and showed them the impact they were having on our morale problem. If they were consistently on time and doing the right things, I thanked them and apologized for not paying closer attention. If they were part of the problem, I asked for their commitment on specific behaviors to improve.
Morale soared.
Letting slackers slide may seem like a short-cut to being likable. But such “Pleaser” behaviors crush the spirit of those making the biggest impact on your team.
Where do you need to hold people more accountable?
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