Engagement and Retention: Management and Employees, Winners on Both Sides

Abstract

Over the last few years, the call center sector in Germany has developed into a booming industry on the one hand, yet on the other, employment conditions in the industry – above all the remuneration for the staff involved – have come under increasing critical scrutiny. The media is full of reports featuring employees from the call center industry describing their – albeit subjective – impressions of their employment conditions. Investigative journalists like the German Günter Wallraff, websites such as KUNUNU, and also daily newspapers and business journals focus on this issue at regular intervals.

Call centers exist in virtually all industries; they can be operated “in-house” (with internal staff and/or with temporary agency staff) or through external providers (near- or offshoring). Often, a combination of different models is used by enterprises to operate their customer service.

The following practical case describes how a telecommunications company, when faced with a series of restructuring programs which were considered necessary by the executive management, succeeded in implementing tough measures (from the point of view of the staff involved) while at the same time attempting to retain employee loyalty.

Indeed, the project, which ran for more than 3 years and focused on genuine (not simply ostensible), regular employee involvement in issues relevant to them, management training, and the founding of a new call center organization with twice the number of employees by insourcing around 600 temps, led not only to increased employee satisfaction but also to increased satisfaction on the part of the company’s senior management. Winners on both sides!