By: Ned Rossini
The answer to that is 100%, YES! It absolutely matters to the overall success of the organization for a lot of reasons. The most important reason being, that if you have a good working culture and employees, you will have a much better product. The opposite is also true. If you have a bad culture and unhappy employees, the entire organization will suffer. I don’t think that is all that groundbreaking of information and most of us know and agree with that in principle.
Here is my effective culture story – When I was in college (which seems like 100 years ago now) I experienced a great work culture that still to this day remains a great point of reference and lesson for me. I worked as a server in a very fast-paced and busy restaurant that was one of the more iconic spots in Knoxville and was always busy all the time. This is the kind of place you go to for graduation dinners, or if your family was in town and you wanted to take them to that perfect unique one-of-a-kind spot, this was the place.
Essentially the story is that everyone had to work together as a team, or the restaurant would suffer as a whole. So, if you walked out of the kitchen without running food or you walked by a table without picking up empty glasses or empty plates, the server staff would hold you accountable. I remember very early on in my tenure there, I walked past a tray of food and walked out of the kitchen empty-handed because it “was not my table”. A more seasoned server saw this and pulled me aside and told me in no uncertain terms that if I walked by a tray of food again without taking it out to the table, I might as well walk out the front door and not come back because that was not acceptable. No manager came and spoke to me, no write-ups occurred or any of that. The more seasoned server was the one who carried that message. That is what I am talking about when I talk about good culture… I have carried that message with me throughout the rest of my career and I am grateful for my four-year tenure at that restaurant and eventually, it was people like me who carried that message to freshmen who weren’t all for one and one for all. In my professional career, things are a bit different because there is rank and file and the product is different and all of that good stuff, but the restaurant had a reputation, and it was important to the staff to maintain that reputation and no one person was bigger than the whole. It was a privilege to work there (and you made great money). That is a very strong work culture.
Over the course of my 20+ year contact center career, I have been a part of some great cultures and I have been a part of some not-so-good cultures.
Oftentimes for me, I am better at defining things by what they are not. So, I wanted to list out a few bullet points with a brief explanation about the top 5 things that are not good for culture, especially in a contact center environment. And hopefully, this list is not the same ol’ cliché things you see on every other list.
- Learn how to communicate with your staff – Not everyone is the same. They are not motivated and inspired by the same things. You have to find out what works best for your individuals and then leverage that. For example, you have some team members who do not like a lot of interaction from their manager, and that is okay. You have others who want constant communication from their manager, and that is also okay. You have to find out which is which and then plan your strategy around that. Most leaders make the mistake of thinking what they want is what their employees want. That is not correct. For example, for me, if you “question” what I am doing, I find that offensive (not saying that is right, just being honest). So, my leader knows not to approach me that way. He/She is strategic and knows that making things my idea is a better approach. Other employees may feel like you don’t care about them if you don’t question what they are doing. See how easy it is to fall in that trap. This is key to creating a great culture!
- Don’t be Incompetent – Nothing will kill your culture faster than incompetence. Incompetence is the inability to execute on things successfully and it is a pattern of behavior. If you are a leader or have a leader in your organization that consistently gets things wrong, no one will respect that person and the staff will actually work pretty hard to go around that person. That is not the culture you want to create. Also under this one is the “do as I say, not as I do” type culture. That is not good.
- Interact With Your Staff & Be a Part of the Staff – When I worked in operations on the contact center floor, I walked around all the time and talked to people. This created a culture where I was one of the people, right? I was not in an ivory tower, and I would find out a lot about what was going on with people professionally and personally. That time was super valuable. If you never come out of your office (or whatever the case may be) your staff knows that about you, and it makes you unrelatable and unapproachable and in some cases, the enemy. Not good for your culture.
- Not addressing things as they occur – When you allow bad behavior to occur for whatever reason, you are giving your staff a license to do whatever. So, if someone is acting dumb on a call and it does not get addressed right away, you are giving everyone a license to do the same thing. If a person is always late and you don’t address it, you have a bigger problem brewing than being late. More harm can be caused by what you don’t do. That is not good for culture, especially in a contact center environment.
- Don’t rely on pizza parties – Look, I am a pizza lover, and I am always a fan of a free meal, but if you think that is creating a great culture, that just isn’t true. So, if you are asking yourself what you do for your culture and a pizza party (or free bowling or whatever) is high up the list, you are not creating a very good culture. Most of your staff cares very little about this kind of thing and it is not moving the needle. Should you do those things at all? Probably but it is not the key to good culture.
The bottom line is, that creating a good culture is about being authentic with people and not elevating yourself above them. You are all part of the same team. You may have different roles and different titles but creating a good culture means you are all in it together. The person doing the “lowest job” is just as important as the CEO. You make that your culture, and you win. If not, you are going to battle culture all the time and your organization will suffer.
