Gower handbook of contact and call center management

People and Structure In order to craft and deliver a leadership development strategy, build and maintain credibility with the business, all members of my team are expected to invest time and energy in their continuing professional development. Benchmarking with other organisations helps maintain an objective, progressive approach.

As HML grew, its learning and development team grew with it. The demands of high numbers of new starters meant induction training was a high priority to get right. It also meant rapid career progression for a number of aspiring managers. In a not untypical tale, many of these customer-facing employees found themselves promoted on the basis of their technical expertise rather than their people-management competencies, posing a challenge for leadership and management development.

A central management development team was set up to provide training, coaching and support for these managers, with the initial focus on first-line managers. This served the organisation well for three years as a high priority on core organisational needs such as recruitment and selection, coaching, performance management and handling discipline, and capability meant a large volume of workshops, e-learning and one-to-one internal consultancy was required.

With further growth came new sites in Lancashire and London Derry. The need to take the learning to the learner became ever more apparent and we soon devolved the delivery of these core modules to each local site, retaining ownership and accountability for a consistent overall framework centrally.

C r a f t i n g a L e a d e r s h i p a n d M a n a g e m e n t D e v e l o p m e n t S t r a t e g y II 65 With greater organisational maturity came more sophistication of people processes, and the human resources and learning and development teams were restructured in a manner designed to ensure a horizontally integrated provision of service.

Now, service delivery has responsibility for all aspects of day-to-day delivery of recruitment, induction, management development and support; business partnering for internal consultancy and organisational development for strategic people objectives around employee engagement, talent management, leadership development and organisational performance. Our current structure brings talent management and leadership development closely together. The team structure is helpful to us in developing our leadership development strategy, but how people work together across boundaries is what is most important Figure 4.

It is important to recognise that the pace with which any development strategy evolves is a function of both the rate of change within and outside the business and the maturity of the organisation. Our leadership development strategy has been informed by the thrust of a successful, growing business. Recent developments in leadership theory and practice have emphasised the increasing role of values, communication and interpersonal relationships, and the central importance of responding to, and shaping, continuous change for all those in leadership roles.

Our approach has been to focus on these areas. Figure 4. Over a number of years, change has taken the form of growth and expansion, resulting in new people- managers and the setting up of new sites, new teams and processes. The ability to respond to the needs of expansion has become a core competence of the company and leading change a required competence for leaders. New York: The Free Press. C r a f t i n g a L e a d e r s h i p a n d M a n a g e m e n t D e v e l o p m e n t S t r a t e g y II 67 The milestones along the journey will be different for different organisations yet the constantly shifting nature of organisational life will be similar.

In , HML was about to take off. A combination of attracting new, larger clients and the growth in the mortgage industry meant exciting times ahead. Senior leaders were invited to leading-edge sessions on distributed leadership and action learning partly as development and partly as a way of creating some engagement and alliance amongst the senior leadership population to help support a shift towards a learning culture. A platform for learning needed to be built.

Following the introduction of a competency framework, an exercise in degree feedback was conducted for the whole of the management population. Inexperienced team leaders, many of whom had taken the opportunity provided by a growing business to seal promotion, were shown to be struggling in the key people management competencies of the time — developing and empowering, clarity for performance and motivating and inspiring.

There were clear benefits to us in identifying real needs for a large population. Analysis of the results of this exercise on a global basis looking at norm groups for team leaders and department managers highlighted key development areas for the different levels of management as a whole.

It also enabled us to repeat the exercise two years later as a method of evaluation, when the results showed a 10 per cent improvement in competency scores across the board. Performance management was introduced to provide the bedrock necessary for facilitating learning conversations and improving performance. It proved to be an important element of the business achieving the training and competence requirements of mortgage regulation the following year — another example of the external environment impacting leadership within the organisation systemically.

This proved to be a learning experience. Although in itself the framework was robust, reflection since suggests that it was too early for the business to embrace such an approach, with more structure required, and uptake from the target group was low.

More recently, however, elements are working successfully in the leadership development programme — suggesting it was the right idea at the wrong time. At this point, a decision was taken to not conduct degree feedback again over the whole management population; a decision based on the need to shift our culture to one where individuals direct their own learning. The expectation now was that was there as and when they needed it as a tool to support their development.

Pleasingly, many did continue to undergo the process on a regular basis. However, it was noticeable that of those who did not, many had not scored well previously. The introduction of a new leadership development programme now means that, as part of the programme, leaders are expected to undertake at the beginning and end of the process — still not a blanket exercise, but perhaps a good balance enabling identification of the whole spectrum of leadership capability at that level.

There was an increased emphasis on leadership in , having focused primarily on management development needs for two years. Talent management was introduced and the Aspiring Leaders programme provided support for many soon-to-be team leaders in a still rapidly growing business.

Further development opportunities were made available through an increasing focus on corporate social responsibility initiatives, especially volunteering and cross-sector programmes developing leadership beyond authority.

In , HML underwent further significant change. This time, however, the focus was internal as the organisation restructured to become aligned with the core internal processes associated with mortgage administration. The approach taken was one of action learning sets; the groups were self-organising and were facilitated by the group members themselves.

The vision for the groups was to provide an environment where a group of peers could discuss their experiences of leading change and the challenges they were facing, with a view to reflecting on their leadership practice, planning and reviewing action. The success of these groups was mixed. Some individuals found great value in having the ability to make sense of change and to develop a wider understanding of the business through a cross-section of managers.

Other groups were a success for a while, but petered out. Others barely got off the ground. The reasons for these groups not working this time were around managerial time pressures, a lack of facilitation skills, a lack of clarity around their focus within the overall framework and perhaps inadequate sponsorship and visibility. Perhaps another good idea too soon. Despite these problems, our conviction that action learning was a valuable methodology for us in developing leadership and a learning culture was undiminished.

The problems associated with the learning groups were not due to the methodology and could be mitigated with facilitation and strategic positioning. The learning we gained from this experience stood us in good stead when designing the Leadership Development Programme in Leading self. Here the focus is on self-awareness, self-development and leadership style.

Leading people. Leading the business. These behaviours were developed through semi-structured interviews with 32 of the most senior leaders within the organisation.

Stories of great leadership and poor leadership were elicited and the behaviours suggested by them were captured. A view as to the strategic challenges of the organisation and the type of leadership behaviour required for the next three to five years was also sought. The behaviours are assessed as part of the performance management process and are also used in recruitment and selection, for competency-based interviews.

There are different ways in which an organisation can choose to assess leadership performance, and the value placed on leadership as part of overall performance assessment will vary from organisation to organisation. In seeking to assess leadership using these ideals in performance management, we are faced with a number of choices.

Do we make demonstrating effective leadership behaviour a prerequisite for meeting expectations? Do we assess leadership behaviour as a separate entity to objectives?

Or do we attempt to measure leadership as a single objective amongst other objectives? All of these options have advantages and disadvantages and unfortunately leave a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction.

Yet despite measurement being troublesome, our belief is that it has to be better to at least try to assess leadership behaviour and performance. Leadership Development Principles Key to all of our development programmes a core set of principles, which guide the design of our interventions and act as a way of conveying our underlying philosophy.

They are important from a learning and a cultural perspective, with a focus on sustainable self- directed learning. There is a challenge for us as developers here in terms of recognising the importance of informal learning, so the principles stress action-based learning.

In our experience, there has been a necessity to facilitate an education process around this in that many people still carry with them traditional pedagogical notions of learning.

They are informed by theories 12 Mumford, A. Hence, encouraging self- direction and taking responsibility for learning through the setting of goals and plans, and providing an environment for reflection on action through, for example, action learning sets and manager one-to-ones. The principles are illustrated in our degree feedback process, where the individual will kick-start the process by identifying whom they will get feedback from.

The feedback, once completed, will be collated into a report which is fed back face-to-face by an objective internal coach who has not been involved in the process. The individual will then sit down with their line manager and summarise the feedback, gaining support and challenge on their proposed development plan as a result. This way the individual getting feedback takes ownership for the process from start to finish.

We aim to build flexibility into our programmes so that leaders can take their learning in different directions according to their own agendas. There is tension here — the need to work to organisational outcomes as well as individual agendas is a difficult balancing act. It is essential to pursue, however, given the nature of learning and the motivation that needs to be there for it to occur. Informal learning plays a major part in our philosophy, with individuals given the tools to make the most of everyday learning through structured reflection, internal coaching and ongoing development plans.

Increasingly in recent times, we have sought to leverage the value from managers using real planned experiences as a vehicle for their ongoing development.

Planned activity such as reflecting on a recent one-to-one coaching session with a view to setting a development goal prior to a coaching workshop shows how the informal can meet the formal in an integrated way. London: Little, Brown. Yet even in planned programmes, we signpost and encourage informal learning, in line with our principles. Our Type 3 programmes are largely run internally, but we have some key strategic external partners who run and co-run some elements.

They have been chosen because of their expertise in the field, for example, we use a company for training on lean production tools and techniques. We also have a long- term relationship with Sheppard Moscow who have co-designed and co-facilitate our residential experiential event, due to their strong track record in this area.

This brings added credibility and strong design and facilitation skills to the event. We have sought to provide an integrated framework, where our stakeholders can see the key formal interventions and transitions in the journey of a leader within HML. In even a medium-sized organisation, a progressive approach to leadership development will lead to a high number of interventions, both formal and informal, over time and it is important that development looks and feels consistent and familiar to leaders progressing in their career.

It is important to note that this framework is continually refined, improved and adapted to business needs, learner and stakeholder feedback. In the last five years our programmes have been reviewed and adapted three times Figure 4. You will see the significance of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, featuring as they do in all four levels. Aspiring Leaders Aspiring leaders is our development framework for those individuals who are generally employed in entry-level roles, for example customer service advisors, who have career aspirations to move into a people-management role.

Aspiring leaders would attend modules in these areas alongside existing team leaders, providing insight for them into real experiences in leading a team. They and their line managers would also be encouraged to find ways in which they could gain on-the-job preparation through deputising, running team meetings and shadowing their manager.

In effect, aspiring leaders were being given access to the training and learning a new team leader would typically get within their first six months in the role.

Having run for around 18 months, feedback from some stakeholders suggested that there were some issues hindering the success of the programme. A cross-site review was held including key operational stakeholders at all levels of the organisation, including some aspiring leaders. Despite some positive feedback, three main issues emerged.

First, people were being nominated for the aspiring leaders programme who were not suitable for people-management and sometimes not even willing! Finally, there was some feedback from the learners themselves around the lack of prestige associated with entry onto the programme — at that time line manager nomination was all that was required.

Aspiring leaders has since gone on to prove a highly successful programme in preparing people for the challenges of their first people-management role. It is now more structured and relevant to needs of individuals and the business.

Almost without exception, successful candidates for the team leader role are now people who have participated in the programme. Although the programme has changed a number of times, its core components have remained in place: specifically, learning modules in performance management, recruitment and selection, discipline and capability and coaching. With any core programme such as this, ongoing feedback from a wide range of stakeholders and sources can be very helpful in ensuring relevance to business needs.

The content of Growing leaders is currently being revised again to align it with the Leadership development programme, business strategy and feedback sought by both HR business partners and through focus groups of team leaders. The revised programme will include 13 modules geared towards supporting a new team leader in their role, including feedback, managing relationships, leading change, coaching, team dynamics, commercial awareness, leadership brand and influence and persuasion.

Some of the anticipated changes will be in the methodologies adopted, with each module comprising on-the-job activities for example, a coaching session , an online or workshop element and action planning, supported by action learning. Working on the basis that the first 90 days within a leadership role are essential, a familiarisation module is being developed to guide all new leaders through this period, with an emphasis on performance management and the four elements of our balanced scorecard.

Strategic drivers are identified through discussion with board members and in strategic plans. Other drivers reflect the need to look outside the organisation at the external environment, including feedback from clients, good practice in other organisations, and the use of external consultants. Gower Handbook of Customer Service. This new Gower Handbook covers an area of management that is now regarded as fundamental to the success of any organization, whether it is in the private or the public sector.

A team of experienced professionals and practising managers have pooled their expertise to provide nearly 50 chapters of current. A Handbook of Management and Leadership. Providing guidance on the processes of management and leadership, this work presents particular reference to what managers and aspiring managers need to know about the skills of management and approaches to effective leadership. Gower Handbook of Purchasing Management. This handbook covers the entire spectrum of purchasing, from policy and organization to systems, procedures and techniques.