Helping People Enjoy Their Jobs

The ultimate test of the engagement and commitment of staff is whether they recommend the job to their family and friends. At the NRMA Insurance call centre at Hurstville in NSW, the last two staff intakes have been made up entirely of new people referred by the existing staff team.

In the sometimes high pressure world of call centres, getting people to enjoy their jobs can be quite a challenge. John Hallal and his team at NRMA Insurance's call centre in Hurstville have managed to do just that.

Through a real focus on his employees, John and his team have achieved some remarkable results. Employee engagement scores, as measured through IAG's annual 'Your Voice' survey, have risen from 52% in 2004, to 62% in 2005, then 69% in 2006, and last year increased to a whopping 85%.

"Engaged employees are not only happy and satisfied, but loyal and willing to go above and beyond for the organisation," John says. "At the end of the day, focusing on our employees is a huge driver of business value, not to mention making it a much more pleasant place to work! Three years ago, nearly 120 of the 240 employees in the call centre basically didn't enjoy coming to work. We've managed to make real improvements on that front, and our business results are testament to how important it is to have employees who enjoy being here."

Perhaps the ultimate test of the engagement of your employees is whether they recommend the job to their friends and family. At the Hurstville call centre the last two staff intakes have been solely made up of new staff referred by existing staff members.

John's approach to building employee engagement has been built on six simple but crucial skills:

• Build strong people relationships. Genuinely care for people and treat each person as an individual. Understand what intrinsically motivates people to perform and set clear expectations of their performance.
• Provide real, structured and meaningful career paths for people;
• Recognise people's strengths and build their skills around these strengths;
• Give people an understanding of the 'big picture' of the business;
• Recognise, reward and value people, and do it consistently; and
• Make sure feedback to people, whether positive or negative, is constructive.

Anne Tone, a customer service consultant at Hurstville, sums up how the improvements in engagement feel to people working in the call centre. "People are valued as individuals," says Anne. "The managers here really take time out to talk with everyone and see how we're going. They take an interest, and they pat us on the back if we're doing a good job. It sounds simple, but it's the little things that really matter, and just knowing that your manager and colleagues are interested in you and what you're doing is hugely important. It's easy to get a bit forgotten in a big call centre sometimes. That doesn't happen here."

The Hurstville call centre now has the lowest annualised staff turnover in the IAG call centre network at 20.7%, against a network average of 27.6%. Sales are consistently the highest in the network. Absenteeism is consistently the lowest. Customer satisfaction scores are up to 83%.

On the back of these outstanding results, John Hallal and his management team are often invited to address or present their program to other management groups. Their response is to invite interested managers to visit Hurstville.

"The best way to understand and appreciate any management program is to see it in operation in the workplace," John said. "We're proud of what we're doing, but we're not complacent. You can never take your people for granted".

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