Promotion as team leader, and targets - some thoughts

I truly appreciate your thinking & you know not many people thinks this way. Now, here I'll make something clear that No one can be a Team leader just because of performance. performance is only one among the parameters to become a TL. Almost no company promotes an agent because of the only reason that they are performing. As I said earlier there are other parameters like Leadership quality, ability to work under pressure, ability to handle people & people management & many many more. So if a person has all these abilities, I really don't think keeping such a person as an agent will do good to the company & infact if they are promoted as a TL, they can contribute much towards the company. When I got a team of another TL who left, the teams Overall performance(including Attendance, quality & more parameters) was 79%. I brought the team performance to 91% in 2 months time. But if I stayed as an agent, i would alone perform & team performance is always better than Individual performance. When you are in a team, there have to be something called Team Spirit. I myself used to sit & take calls so that others can follow my techniques to perform better. Now compare this: If I was an agent & say its a sales process where I make 10 sales a day & my team(a team of 20) makes 90 sales a day. Now I became a TL & my team(of 20) now makes 150 sales per day. Tell me what's better?? The management looks at the same abilities whether is the person can perform as a TL or not. If they think they can, they will promote or else keep me as the best Agent. Here a TL didn't put his target to others or made to work others under pressure, here a TL used his ability to improve the team performance. There are tricks & tips for sales & also for customer service. Many of the agents are not aware of the techniques of calling, so a TL contributes towards that. There are many among my team who worked on their weekly offs & also worked overtime because of the team spirit. But when I was an agent, I never even worked overtime for my TL. But my members do because of the ability of a TL to build the Team spirit. I'm not trying to sing praises of me but was giving an example from my life & my thinking's. There are many TL's, just like me who has great leadership qualities & deserves to be a TL or a higher position. These are my point of views & I don't know how much you can understand it or buy it but I was just speaking from a TL's side. Now a higher management or a Senior manager should always have a substitute for every posts. It depends on his talent how he deals with the loss of an employee. Many big companies always have a buffer of 40 agents in training. that means they always have atleast 40 agents to hit the floor, depending on the attrition. Also the management will have a substitute for each post in agent level. That means if a TL quits, they will have someone to be promoted to the vacant post. After all its a big & complicated cycle & strategy inside the management & life is not that easy compared to an agent for the management. So If I start writing in detail everything , it will never end. Have a nice Time

Consistency is the key to identify a performer. If you perform today & don't perform for a week, then you cannot be called as a consistent performer. Now, Tokyo was once a city as bad as the one in Afghanistan with no development. Now the city has became a super mega city, infact among one of the top cities in the world. Now is it possible for the city to go back to ashes all of a sudden without a major devastating incident? I think no. Similarly can Brazil fail to Bangladesh consistently after being world champions. No because they are performers & once we came to know how to perform, Its difficult to remain as a non-performer(its really suffocating). If I can make 10 sales, why cant you make atleast 7-8 sales after all I'm giving you all the practical techniques which should be used & those which a trainer can never explain. There should be a reason for not performing. What will that be? 1) you don't know the exact techniques other than the script. 2) you don't like the work & work place. 3) There is no energy & enthusiasm & you work just for the sake of working 4you have some personal problems interfering your work 5) You are not getting recognition & also appreciation for the work you are doing. These are some of the reasons for no performing & the main reason is the lack of techniques & help. If I ask my friend to tell the whereabouts of Delhi, he might say that its located at Latitude : 28.38 N & Longitude : 77.12 E But Another of my friend will say that Delhi is the capital of the country India which is located in Asia. Now which one as a normal person, you understand better? the same rule applies when we talk to others. We should recognize the customer & should speak in their language. If its sales, Remember Emotion sells. If there is a good rapport building, then the call will mostly land as a successful call & the customer is most likely to remember this person for sometime & hence the companies reputation increases. But rapport building is something which is not there in text books in the training. Plus there are many such things which makes each & every person to come to an average level. I don't expect every one to perform but I expect every one to be an average performer. I always succeeded in created average performers out of non-performers & yes there will be day where we can't meet our expectation, but the month as overall is considered & I'm so sure that my consistency will not go down even if my whole team quits because a Diamond maker knows how to make The most beautiful Diamonds out of something like Stones. Now, a call center & BPO is almost the same. Call center is the name given when the company itself owns the process. Eg. 3G has a call center. BPO is the name given when the company outsource the process to another company. IBM has a BPO. I worked with a BPO, Call center in both sales & customer service. Now when the manager gives a monthly Target Do you think he wants you to achieve that???? No way. A manager always gives a target of 60%more. They thinks that if they give a target which is achievable, then you will take things lightly & may relax after achieving the target rather than putting effort for more. But for me, I never follow this, I have my team targets which is quite achievable because if you give unrealistic targets, just like you said, many of us will think its not gonna happen & then we give up. So I always give achievable but yet challenging targets which my team always achieve & will always be motivated. After all,every TL has his own strategy. What you can do is to create a target of your own & work on it & I'm sure you can do good. After all an agents life in a BPO depends on how good his/her seniors & managers are so that you can say that this company is really good to work with, or else you will have a really bad impression about the company. Will your Enthusiasm to live ever die? even if it does, what if I tell you that next week we are going along with our family & friends to US for a week on a holiday!! Ofcourse you will be so happy & enthusiastic throughout the week & after that what if you can have dinner with Sharukh khan tomorrow so again you will become so enthusiastic about life also there will be an interest in life. same is with work. If you yourself can find it or if someone like your TL helps you make the work so enjoyable & you would be even ready to work with half the salary, the rest like targets & performance will come by its own. So there are many ways to kepp the enthusiasm & motivation alive. Now sometimes you might not accept my points because there is a method to speak to each person so that they can purely understand what we say. The method of explaining things is different for different people. I wonder how you'll buy these points Now about my targets, I really don't want to stay on 91%, anything between 88 & 98% would be fine with me.

That tazheone was a wonderful explanation. U r one of the exceptional TLs, I'd say ratio of candidates like u would be 1 out of 20 or even less. Giving realistic targets, that is the key. And realistic targets make people put in their efforts, and take it easier towards the end of the month, once the target seems achievable. It is like u r driving, as u start slowly, u run the vehicle at a furious pace a little later, and again slow down when u reach closer to the destination. Samething applies to animal driven transporations as well. Consistently achieving at ur levels - 88 to 98 percent - that too monotonous tasks - without physical movement! U did list out reasons and I agree with each one of them. But I dont think average of 10 is 7 or 8. As far as I know it is 5. :) Has that average been arrived with weighted average method? Or is it based on previous records? Each time even that matters. Sometimes records are easy, so u can easily achieve. Sometime product is easier to sell. Sometimes, it is tougher and more time consuming to sell. Then how do u say averages are comparable! Shouldnt those factors be also considered? Well, I was into indexing. We used to get ordinary magazines, as well as some deeper stuff. Magazines related to celebrities and movies were very easy to abstract and index, because there were limited words that could say it all. But when it came to deeper stuff or politics, like some study on strategies of brokers in stock markets, u can hardly expect to take it easy, I mean - it is not as if he is dating somebody, or breaking up with somebody kind of thing. U need to understand the strategy and then represent it. Of course, I got best quality for it, and frankly I loved such articles may be because I could understand them and got A+ (it is natural to like such magazines once they give u that kind of honors). But it was time consuming to read and understand. However, I was not thrown out. :) But there was another friend of mine who was. And I was thinking from his perspective. All things being equal - it is possible to achieve equally. I dont think personal matters remain in mind once u r at office with an objective on mind. Not to the extent that they affect the performance anyways. If things were indeed that bad, people would not turn up at the office. And even if it does, there will be these days of low performance. Personally I would say 75 percent to me is distinction, so anybody who is 75 percent of the highest achieved in the day is acceptable to me, and anybody who achieves less than that is somebody who needs to be worked on or somebody who needs to be graded differently. Dont u think ur proteges are also comparing their hard lives with those of other sectors? If after the hardwork they put in, they dont draw comparable remuneration, they dont get equal work satisfaction, find the job monotonous, and face job insecurities, u have given them grounds to be unhappy - and depressed! In about 20 years from now, we will be facing the first generation of Indians with unique set of health problems. The first generation of the computer buffs would be retiring, and their health problems would surface. And that is when we will know what price we have paid for all this. People who fail to meet those targets are at office even on Sundays and holidays! Pity folks who kept India afloat and brought it out from its financial crisis face no happy retirement and have faced these job insecurities throughout their lives! :( There was a time not so long ago, when we had to pull out our gold to meet balance of payment crisis. From there, today we have come to a level where we are ourselves a financial force. Hats off to BPO and software.

Hi krupesh, it was sweet of u to come to this discussion, even if u have nothing to offer. :) Please dont feel obliged to participate in everything that I start just because I have come to ur discussions quite often. I dont have any such hangups. U r and will remain a good friend of mine, even otherwise. :)

No obligation or as such...just was going thro' the recent posts & saw yours which made me to go thro' your discussion & just let you know thats all..

same here too with the friendship one

Vandana! I buy your argument that 'stress' could be killing on young souls and they also start cursing their team leaders in their hearts of hearts. Yes, your suggestion of placing the averaged graded employees at a separate place, appears a very good suggestion. However, companies calculate their overheads and net profits first, before thinking about welfare of their employees. Perhaphs, they know that there is so much unemployment and there are many eligible souls to grab the vacant posts, therefore, they become ruthless in shunting out their employees.

Yeah deepak, the stress really gets to these kids. And because of the constant follow up on their targets, they resent their team leaders as well. Why must such feelings be there when they can simply grade the employees. In case they find that it is expensive to hold on to the employee at the same premises (costing - such as area pers employee, computer time, power and other utilities per employee, then they can consider starting a unit elsewhere - a cheaper accommodation - where these few can be shifted and they can continue to remain employed for all practical purposes. That way, if thes slow employees have taken any loans - they can meet their obligation. Overall cascading effect will not be there. I used to cry in the beginning when employees were asked to leave. But as time passed I became hard hearted. Lack of job security is a big thing in BPO and software industries.

hi vandana, thanks for the response,you have discussed a lot of about BPO with taztheozone,that is good discussion,but i have not read the same,i am keeping the information,some where else,if i require,i will check,have a nice day

Nice of u to have bothered to come to this discussion. I am already arguing with taztheone. Poor fella, he is struggling to answer my questions. :)

Yeah, but it is a very short-term view of the problem, dont u think? If an organization has to survive as a "going concern" as accepted in accounts, then employees cant be treated like the housemaids. :(