1) SUPERVISOR RESPECT: The supervisor needs to be respected. This is not something that is just given it must be earned. If you are not arming your supervision with the tools they need to succeed then whose fault is it when there are issues in the center? If there is a lack of supervisor respect then you will have unneeded situations arise. They must be the first one to show up on the team, dress properly, they must have the most amount of program knowledge and most importantly they must have a want to help each team member succeed... in short they must be great leaders. I put the most amount of my day in constantly working with my middle management team. If they are world-class the sky is the limit. If they are average how can we expect our reps to be more than that?
Ask yourself, have I done all I can my make stars out of my middle management?
2) UNDERSTANDING OF EXPECTATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES: Make sure everyone knows what is tolerated and what is not tolerated in writing. We would give a quick quiz on dress code, attendance issues, how to address management and things of this nature in their initial training. Our policy book that was online for each rep to look at had what was expected and if those expectations were not met what the consequences were. There is nothing worse than having HR, your supervisors, or yourself try to be a judge and jury when it comes to inappropriate behavior. When you leave consequences to be dealt with in a subjective way more issues arise. If these things are in writing then consequences are known and are not up in the air depending on who is handing them out.
3) DON'T LET THE SITUATION LINGER: If there is an issue on a team the supervisor must take care of it immediately and they must do this off the floor. If a rep has a blowup on a supervisor then we immediately take both of them off the floor and deal with the situation. If you are not sure who was at "fault" then what I suggest is you send your rep home for the day after getting a statement from them and tell them that the incident is under investigation. If it was a little blow up and we document the incident and hopefully move on after both are talked to. I am talking though about bigger issues that happen on a team. I have made SOOOOO many bad mistakes on spur of the moment judgments. Take a deep breath, get a rep statement, and send the rep home. Then get a supervisor statement. Because how well I believe my supervisors are trained I can tell you I normally have their back unless they admit they were wrong (which is OK!!!) and we deal with it from there. I try to call the rep and have them come in for their shift tomorrow for a quick meeting if we think the situation has calmed down. If it's a big deal and the rep was wrong we will tell them of their consequences over the phone (1-3 day suspension... or whatever your penalties are)
4) KNOW YOUR REPS: If every supervisor takes the time to know their reps on a professional level then a lot of this can be avoided. Supervisor need to know what motivates certain individuals. Humor may work for Suzie, Rah Rahs for Janie, and tough love for Jeff are all tools that your supervisors need to be trained on and know how to deploy. Also know strengths and weaknesses of each team member individually. Knowing shows your supervision have bought into their team members.
Moral of the story:
Properly trained middle management will cut down on a ton of confrontational issues. If you are promoting reps to become supervisor without training you are doing your organization and more importantly your supervisor a disservice. Training for middle management never ends, if you reach for perfection you will hit excellent. Keep moving the bar!
Visit us at http://www.expivia.net or contact me at tlaird@expivia.net.
We are the future of customer interactions. This is Expivia.
We are the future of customer interactions. This is Expivia.
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