Worldspan exhibits at the Professional Planning Forum
London – 27th & 28th April 2009
There are highs and lows, peaks and troughs at any exhibition. Moments of high excitement when you think you might have landed the ‘big fish’ and lows, when you are so exhausted with networking and talking to fellow exhibitors, that you are tempted to slide under your exhibition stand for a quick snooze (or power nap as it’s known in the business).
The Professional Planning Forum brings together contact centre senior staff to discuss and develop best practice and professionalism in contact centre planning. They offer research, advice, accreditation and member support to help every centre develop confident, skilled, analysts that are key to contact centre improvement.
Performance and engagement of call centre staff is crucial in order to keep them longer and reduce attrition. Money wasted by contact centres due to attrition runs into millions of pounds.
Contact centre staff’s engagement with organisational vision, values and goals, motivation to deliver against these, wellbeing and performance are vital to the centre’s success. After all, contact centre staff are representing the ‘brand’ and are often the only contact clients and customers have with an organisation, so these interactions which determine a customer’s view of whether or not the organisation is delivering their promise. Engaged employees are prepared to put in discretionary effort, deliver a better service, enjoy their work more and are less likely to leave the organisation.
So where does Worldspan come in? Either providing fully integrated staff engagement programmes by communicating, educating, measuring performance and rewarding and recognising correct behaviours or assisting with just one part of the process. Sometimes starting at the beginning and working with leadership teams to develop visions and values if required.
Worldspan tools used to deliver sustained staff loyalty and performance improvement include internal staff audits to determine the real strengths and weaknesses in the organisation, internal communications to ensure that the right messages are getting through in a consistent and inspirational manner, workshops and training modules to develop staff and enable them to achieve higher standards, reward and recognition programmes designed to empower managers and staff to celebrate effort and success. Of course we also run exciting tactical incentive programmes such as hit and win targets with spot prizes, voucher schemes and the ultimate incentive, travel reward.
Chantal Orlik, Managing Director of Worldspan Motivation Limited, together with Gloria Barber, Human Resources Director for NHS East and North Hertfordshire and NHS West Hertfordshire, gave an interesting and challenging talk in the attrition session of the forum about staff engagement and motivation within the NHS. A truly great case study that really demonstrates the importance of communicating with and engaging your workforce to get the best results.
After spending a couple of days in a vibrant exhibition environment we have built our stand, displayed our wares, spoken to key people in the world of contact centres, had some interesting conversations, and finally, have packed it all up and headed home. Another day in the busy lives of Worldspan’s event team!