Employee Engagement via Motivation and Encouragement

By Crystal O'Hara

The importance of employee motivation is vital to any business. If you have motivated staff, you have a highly productive staff. The fact that we are in the call center industry means we market our employees; they are our front line to our clients. Finding ways to motivate employees is always a concern for management. It's something we always have in the forefront. We want our employees to be happy and have a level of energy and commitment to the company. If our front-line employees are happy that means, they will give the customers a positive experience, when they answer the phone.

At American Communication Centers, there are many ways that we motivate our staff. Here are a few incentives we have come up with to keep our employee morale up.

1. We personally thank employees for doing a good job. When I speak with an employee, I thank them for what they do. I like them to know I appreciate the hard work they put in.
2. Listen to your employees. I’m always asking if they have suggestions, ideas or any feedback. When they share it, I listen. If it’s a suggestion that we cannot do, I will try and find some way to incorporate it somewhere else or, tweak it to where it does fit. However, just listening shows you care and are interested in what they say.
3. Provide feedback on job performance. Every week I do some evaluations on each of my employees and provide feedback, and not just what needs to be worked on, but what they did well. I believe constructive criticism as well as positive words are just as important.
4. 5C policy. This has been a policy that I have used for many years. When you answer phones for 8 hours a day, you get those occasional calls where the other person is just not satisfied with anything you can do for them. These calls can drag people down, so we have a policy in place that doesn’t spread that negativity to the rest of the staff. It’s called the 5C policy. This policy is a zero-tolerance policy where we do not allow anyone to talk in a negative or derogatory way about our callers, clients, competition, and  co-workers. It goes with the adage, "if you don’t’ have something nice to say then don’t say it at all". It has worked really well over the years, and it’s actually become a policy that everyone likes. Let’s face it, most people don’t want to sit around listening to others complain.

These are just some of the ways we try to keep our staff motivated and enjoying work. In what ways do you motivate employees? 

Crystal O'Hara is a vision-driven, goal-focused executive with a proven history of innovation and achievement. Throughout my 17-year career, I have established a reputation as a transformational leader who is driven by challenge, undeterred by obstacles, and committed to furthering standards of excellence. My expertise encompasses all aspects of business development and administration, from controlling costs and maximizing revenues to harnessing team strengths to improve company wide performance.

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