Today’s job market favors candidates, with more job openings than people to fill them. For contact center leaders, this presents an additional challenge: dedicated employees may see this as their chance to improve their situation elsewhere.
If your organization isn’t offering a compelling reason for your employees to stay, it creates an environment ripe for unnecessary voluntary departures to competitors.
While natural attrition is inevitable, this article will help contact center leaders create the ideal conditions to retain their best employees: particularly those who may be considering leaving for better opportunities.
The grass may not always be greener on the other side. But as a leader, you must ensure your grass is as green as possible.
Here are five key areas for improvement.
1. Make It Ridiculously Easy to Work for Your Organization
The idea of making things “ridiculously easy” is gaining traction in business, particularly in sales, namely make it easy for customers to buy from you. This concept can also be applied to employment: make it ridiculously easy for employees to stay by creating ideal working conditions.
This isn’t just about compensation. In my experience as a call center agent for a 24/7 operation, I saw firsthand how certain policies could make or break employee morale.
Start by reviewing your policies. Are there any that make working for you harder than working for your competitors? Is your dress code costly to maintain? Are you requiring employees to return to the office while your competitors offer remote options? Is your paid-time-off (PTO) policy competitive?
At a minimum, your organization should be benchmarked against competitors in terms of how easy it is to work there.
The grass may not always be greener on the other side. But as a leader, you must ensure your grass is as green as possible.
Are you offering similar working conditions that make it easy for employees to come to work and do their jobs? Or are you introducing unnecessary barriers?
For example, constantly changing scheduled days off can create frustration. It’s easier for employees to manage their lives when their days off are predictable. If flexibility is necessary, consider hiring floaters to meet operational needs.
Where to begin: Ask your employees “What’s the one thing that would make working here easier?” You may be surprised by their answers.
2. Give Employees More Autonomy Over Their Day: Part 1
One of my first professional jobs was as a call center agent for an HR consulting firm, working with retirees who had questions about their insurance. It was a tough role, often involving delivering difficult financial news to people on fixed incomes.
What made the job more mentally manageable was the 30-minute daily break we were given to handle administrative tasks. This included updating customer records, speaking with our leaders for questions, etc. This time off the phones allowed us to complete tasks accurately and take a breather from difficult conversations.
Later, as a training manager for a 500-seat, three-site contact center, I saw how important it was to create opportunities for agents to step away from the phones. We also assigned projects based on employee preferences, giving them a chance to contribute to the organization while developing new skills.
Even though the majority of the agents’ time was spent on the phones, having those few hours off the phones improved their engagement and service quality.
This type of autonomy is even more crucial today. Customer service has become more complicated—and at times, more hostile—especially post-COVID. Every client I speak with reports that customers have become more challenging. Your employees need periodic breaks from these difficult interactions. Give them that opportunity.
What are your barriers to implementing this autonomy strategy?
3. Give Employees Autonomy over Their Day: Part 2
Now, let’s tackle a more controversial topic: ditching average handle time (AHT) targets.
Research shows that job satisfaction increases when employees have more control over their work. For contact center agents, this means giving them the freedom to guide calls appropriately: even if that means exceeding the established AHT.
Coach employees on AHT to reduce unnecessarily long calls, but otherwise, trust them. After all, who determines AHT? The answer is not as easy as one might think.
If they [your best agents] feel they can’t succeed in your contact center, they may seek better conditions elsewhere.
When I was in contact center leadership, no one could tell me how AHT was set. In a hospitality timeshare reservations call center, for example, we were told that calls shouldn’t take more than five minutes. This was despite a complex portfolio of properties that could make even a basic booking call much longer.
I also have experience managing outsourced contact centers, where the pressure to hit AHT targets was often more intense. I listened to countless calls where agents, rushing to meet AHT, left customers confused or annoyed. The calls may have ended within five minutes, but the service was subpar, and the customers would likely call back. This doesn’t create a positive customer experience.
Why does this matter for retention? Your best agents want to provide excellent service, and it’s frustrating when they’re told to prioritize speed over quality. If they feel they can’t succeed in your contact center, they may seek better conditions elsewhere.
What would happen if you removed AHT?
4. Don’t Punish Tenured Employees
Tenured employees are invaluable and should be treated as such. If a tenured employee leaves, the organization loses not only their experience but also their efficiency, often equating to the loss of two or three less experienced employees.
Unfortunately, many organizations unintentionally punish employees for their loyalty, primarily in two ways: stagnant compensation and limited opportunities for professional growth.
Let’s start with compensation. It’s common for new hires to be offered higher starting wages as organizations must stay competitive in the current job market or they are hiring talent with more experience that requires less training, but a higher wage.
However, this can result in pay disparities, with tenured employees earning significantly less than new hires. In my experience I have seen it to be sometimes 25% to 30% less.
Although organizations discourage employees from discussing salaries, pay transparency is becoming more common, and job postings now often include salary ranges. Even if it is not included in the posting, salary information is becoming more available on websites such as Glassdoor.
To solve this: Review salary structures twice a year. If the gap between new and tenured employees exceeds 10%, you have a retention problem. Compensation should be treated as an ongoing cost of doing business, with quicker adjustments to stay competitive.
The second issue is the lack of professional growth for tenured employees. These employees are often the go-to resources for their teams, carrying institutional knowledge. However, this can be exhausting. If they’re interested in leadership roles or lateral moves and are taken for granted, they’ll eventually leave.
To solve this: Offer all tenured employees talent development plans with a timeline for next steps and stick to the timeline! Don’t assume they want to stay in their current role. If they do, ensure their title and compensation reflect their value. If they want to move, invest in their development. Show them there’s a future with your organization, and others will see that you care about growth.
5. Reflect on Why You Stay
Lastly, make this personal. Why do you stay at your organization? Is it the total compensation package, culture, working conditions, schedule, or leadership? Once you have your list, consider whether the same reasons apply to your agents. If not, what changes can you make to improve their experience?
These are challenging times in the job market. It’s not impossible to attract and retain great talent, but it does require focus and, in some cases, operational changes.
Leaving a job that one enjoys is difficult. Use the tips above to create a positive, supportive workplace that encourages your best employees to stay. You have the power to make it happen.
Good luck!