Managerial Capability, Capacity and Maturity in BPO Operations

August 27 2010 by ontrac_admin in Operations Management |No Comments

Every operation has an underlying business process. Management spends a tremendous amount of time defining and fine tuning this business process. But in order to run it, there needs to be an overlying management process. The root cause of many operational problems lies in the fact that the management process is not as well defined and “managed” as the business process itself. We believe that focusing on this aspect will help business leaders leverage more out of the core business process.

The management process consists of three key components i.e. Capability of managers, Managerial Capacity available and Maturity of managerial operations.



Management Process - Capability Capacity Maturity

The Trio of the Managerial Process - Capability Capacity Maturity

Capability:

Capability deals with the ability of incumbent managers to manage people and processes under their span. Capability is a function of both knowledge and skill that the individual possesses. We have observed, particularly in the supervisory cadre, that most supervisors are promoted based on their domain or process related expertise. While they may be evaluated on potential supervisory skills, an overwhelming importance given to technical expertise. When this takes place, it must be compensated for by adequate training for the supervisory role. However, here again, there seems to be a lacunae. If training is indeed provided, it takes place over a long period of time (e.g. 1 to 2 years) when people are sent for periodic training programs. Therefore, the supervisor begins his role on a negative footing with respect to the necessary knowledge and skill.


Testing for the supervisor’s knowledge and skill is fairly easy. A simple written test will demonstrate his/her knowledge in various areas. Skills can be tested by live observations and review of secondary data (e.g. documentation related to various mandatory operational routines)


Capacity:

The general perception in operations is that the total supervisory capacity available is equal to the total number of supervisors in the system. This is not necessarily true. In a vast majority of the cases, team leaders are supposed to perform numerous supervisory jobs. However there is a tendency for companies to assign technical or process related jobs also, along with supervisory jobs. For example, in many voice processes, we have observed that TLs need to take care of “call backs”. In data processes, TLs may be expected to perform quality checks. While there is nothing wrong with this, the company must be aware that each such process related task will reduce the amount of time available for supervisory jobs. Therefore, the total supervisory capacity is not equal to the total number of supervisors available.


In order to determine the total amount of supervisory capacity, one needs to look at the various tasks that the TL is doing and cull out those that are technical or process related. By technical or process related, we mean those jobs that can be done by people in other roles such as subject matter experts, quality analysts or even senior team members. What remains, will mostly be supervisory jobs (see our earlier post “Do you have Half a Team Leader?” for more on this topic).


Data can be gathered through simple time sheets that TLs can fill up. An activity analysis on these time sheets will reveal the amount of time that they are able to spend on supervisory jobs.


Building a strong job description for each managerial role will help in pre-defining the supervisory capacity that the company will possess for each person in a supervisory or managerial role. Therefore, the appropriate number of promotions or hires can be done.


Maturity:

This one is a killer, because it is not always visible. If the capability component looks at the “what” of the management process, maturity looks at the “how”. We face an interesting situation when speaking to operational leaders about their team leaders and managers. When asked the question “do your team leaders and operations managers perform various operational routines such as coaching, monitoring, shift briefings, bottom quartile management, return to work interviews, R&R etc.”, the answer is usually an emphatic “Yes, they do all of these”. Yet, these processes face various operational problems related to productivity, quality, attrition etc. The issue therefore, is not just whether these routines are being done, but also, are they being done right? The maturity level with which each operational routine is done will define the total outcome of the process. For example, a shift briefing is a serious event. Most team leaders conduct shift briefings, but many do not prepare for them. E.g., the previous day’s performance data needs to be collated and analyzed. An agenda for today’s briefing needs to be prepared etc. Further, while conducting the shift briefing, the team leader needs to ensure it is done in a motivating manner. Only when all of these are take place, can we say that this operational routine is being executed at a high level of maturity. The same holds true for all other operational routines.

In order to determine the maturity level of a process, we at OnTrac, have developed a methodology that involves observation and review of documentation. The output of this methodology is a score, that shows the current maturity level of various operational routines against an ideal score. Using this output, our clients can focus on specific areas that they need to improve upon.

Development of a higher level of maturity in operations management will require a significant amount of workplace coaching by managers and other senior personnel. Training will provide the capability, whereas coaching will provide the maturity


As a summary, the trio of Capability, Capacity and Maturity, will determine how efficiently, the management process is able to extract  the best value out of the existing business process. To improve capability, use training to upskill supervisors and managers. To improve capacity, ensure managerial jobs are very well defined so that there is awareness of how much managerial time goes into technical/process related work. To improve maturity, make use coaching!

Who owns the specifications for production resources?

July 23 2010 by ontrac_admin in Capability Building |No Comments
Production Resource

Manufacturing and ITES/BPO Production ResourceThe manufacturing industry holds many learnings for. For instance, a production resource i.e. a machine, is completely "owned" by operations. One can argue that the factory worker is also a resource, but then again, labour costs could be less than 10% of total costs in many a manufacturing setup. In highly automated manufacturing setups, labour costs could be lower than 5%. In a service oriented business such as ITES/BPO, labour costs could could be upwards of 60%. Therefore, the equivalent of the production resource (i.e. the machine) in the ITES/BPO setting, is the employee; because without him, there is no production. In a manufacturing setup, operations will not just define the specifications for the machines it uses for production, but will also be responsible for its periodic maintenance, to maximize uptime, productivity and quality of output. Does the same phenomenon take place in the ITES/BPO industry?

BUSINESS REQUIREMENT

Unmaintained machines, eventually produce faulty products or do not produce anything at all. They either lose calibration, or incur downtime. In the ITES/BPO business, a similar situation occurs when the production resource (the employee) is not maintained. One of the major reasons businesses face operational challenges (in any function) is a lack of alignment of skills and knowledge with respect to specific job functions. Closing the gap between the required skills and what actually exists amongst employees is a constant endeavor, and is an operation in itself.

OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES – LOSS OF PRODUCTION TIME

One of the biggest challenges with traditional capability building methods from an operations perspective, is the loss of production time. Upskilling 15 people for a period of 2 days is equivalent to 30 days of production time. Flipping this around, this is equivalent to one person not working for 30 days. Usually, this is an unacceptable situation.

Now consider an operation with a 100 people and assume that each person undergoes some form of upskilling initiative for 10 days a year. That is equal to 1000 days of production time. This is a large investment by any stretch. Therefore, smart companies adopt methods that are much more fine-tuned in terms of their efficiency and effectiveness.

When we refer to production time, we are also including the time of supervisors, managers and the leadership team.

WHO OWNS THE SPECS FOR PRODUCTION RESOURCES?

Most companies have systems through which they identify the competencies (and hence knowledge and skills) required for various roles. The ownership for these systems, unfortunately, lies with HR or Training functions. In the services industry, the “employee” is the production resource (unlike in manufacturing, where it is the machine). A production resource is the responsibility of operations. In a manufacturing setup, operations will get involved while acquiring a machine. Operations managers will define the specifications of the machine and once it is acquired, will ensure that it remains production worthy all the time. The same should be true of the services sector. The “specifications” that we spoke about a few moments ago, are nothing but the competencies of the production resource. If operations does not take ownership of defining this “spec”, the results are inevitably inaccurate because HR and Training do not run Operations. Operations runs Operations!

In smart companies, we have observed that heads of operations pour through competencies required for each role and are intensely involved in defining the knowledge and skills required for various roles. They constantly evaluate the current capabilities of their resources vis-a-vis a set benchmark. This involvement by operations, introduces a high level of accuracy because a clear distinction is made between “must have” knowledge and skills, versus “good to have”. Therefore, the total amount to capability building actually reduces. It is very difficult for HR to make this distinction.

——————————————————————————————————————————

CASE STUDY: The training department of a company approached us to help fix certain problems related to customer centricity among employees.  As per the initial brief given to us, there were many complaints from customers about employees not being customer centric i.e. they lacked warmth, did not greet well enough, did not proactively offer additional help etc. The training department was quite vocal about the requirement for better customer service skills.

However, we were aware that this company is a price-value leader in its segment. Its customers probably get the best possible price at this company for a certain category of products. Therefore, we challenged the training function by asking them what possible difference will it make to sales (or profitability), if customer centricity among employees improves? We went further and asked, will it make a difference to sales and profitability, if customer centricity actually deteriorates?  To get answers to these questions, we were put in touch with the operations function.

The discussion with the operations function resulted in a clear decision. Any improvement or reduction in customer centricity from its current levels will NOT have any impact on the sales and profitability. While it is nice to have employees who are customer centric, operations was absolutely sure that customers reach out to them because of one fact alone, that is price. All that the company had to do, was invest in being the the price-value leader in its segment.

We of course, did not get any business from that company, but we received tremendous good will, as we saved them a significant amount of money. At the end of the day, Operations was able to distinguish clearly between “must have” and “good to have”

——————————————————————————————————————————

THIS IS LEARNING NO 1  - TOTAL NUMBER OF CAPABILITY BUILDING INITIATIVES REDUCES WHENEVER OPERATIONS TAKES OWNERSHIP

MAXIMIZING PRODUCTION TIME

Earlier, we spoke about the fact that 15 people attending a two-day program amounts to 30 days of production downtime. Operations, at the end of the day, is responsible for maximum possible production uptime. Therefore, this should be a cause of concern.  If it is a cause of concern, then there are two options; A: Do not send anyone for any capability development initiatives or B: Send them. The problem with option A is similar to not maintaining a machine in a manufacturing setup. A machine that has not been maintained or calibrated is bound to become a liability over time. The problem with option B, is the cost of lost production. Assuming that Operations owns capability building, they would choose option B, but implement it in a way that minimizes production downtime.  Therefore, smart operations people dig further and realize that there are two distinct types of capability building that need to be done.

Knowledge: The first type of capability building is with respect to building core knowledge on various topics. Knowledge is easy to impart and there are multiple channels available. Classroom based upskilling is one of them. Others include elearning, books, articles, magazines etc. The best part about knowledge is that it is binary. Either you know it, or you don’t. Therefore, it is imminently “testable”.  Whenever operations is involved, they will choose the best channel for disseminating this knowledge. Some of these channels WILL require employees to be away from work (thereby resulting in downtime) . But others can be done asynchronously, with minimal loss of production time.

Skills: The second type of capability building is with respect to building skills in various areas (such as technical skills, or behavioural skills).  By their very nature, skills are best developed through practice. Imagine teaching someone how to swim using powerpoint slides and role plays – it won’t work. Therefore, smart companies will try to address this issue through CONTEXTUAL capability building i.e. through systems such as coaching on the floor, on a one-on-one basis.  When people don’t leave work to learn, production uptime is maximized

THIS IS LEARNING NO 2 – WHEN PEOPLE DON’T LEAVE WORK TO LEARN, PRODUCTION UPTIME IS MAXIMIZED

MAXIMIZING ROI

Every investment needs to have a return and the same is true of capability building initiatives. Production time is precious currency, and it should buy solid return for operations. However, most skill building initiatives that are classroom driven, may not be able to offer this return (remember learning swimming through powerpoint ?). As was mentioned earlier, skills do not typically fall into the “know” and “don’t know” categories. People usually have a range e.g. some are great at prioritizing while others are not, some are great at building rapport on calls, others are not. Getting all of them into a classroom for a standard sessions, may not add value. Secondly, participants need to be able to take the generic concepts taught in class and apply them to their own specific scenarios. This capability may not exist in all participants. This is an inherent defect in the “one-to-many” models. Therefore, that leaves us with the “one-to-one” capability building model, and this provides the maximum ROI. Individuals can be taught to use prioritization techniques in their specific circumstances, thereby maximizing ROI.

THIS IS LEARNING NO 3 – INVESTMENT IN CAPABILITY BUILDING IS MAXIMIZED IN ONE-ON-ONE MODELS

————————————————————————————————————————–

ONTRAC’S METHODS

We (at OnTrac) have always been extremely sensitive to the requirements of our eventual clients, i.e. people who run operations. We understand their constraints and have mastered methods to help them improve operations. Lets take a look at the three key learnings again:

LEARNING NO 1 – TOTAL NUMBER OF CAPABILITY BUILDING INITIATIVES REDUCES WHENEVER OPERATIONS TAKE OWNERSHIP

LEARNING NO 2 – WHEN PEOPLE DON’T LEAVE WORK TO LEARN, PRODUCTION UPTIME IS MAXIMIZED

LEARNING NO 3 – INVESTMENT IN CAPABILITY BUILDING IS MAXIMIZED IN ONE-ON-ONE MODELS

All of these three point towards the following set of actions that OnTrac adopts in its solutions:

a.    Direct interaction with operations is required to understand their real challenges. The requirement, for example, may not be to enhance communication skills. The requirement may be for reducing the number of customer complaints, and communication skills may not be the biggest contributor. On the other hand, the solution may involve developing a combination of skills including communication, prioritization, data analysis etc. It may be a program on basic finance that will help show employees the impact of their behaviour (through poor communication) on the bottomline of the company. The actual solution may even be a simple set of “tips and tricks” that will take no more than 15 minutes of coaching.

b.    The solution needs to maximize production time. Therefore, there should be minimum classroom based programs and maximum workplace based coaching.

c.    The solution needs to be effective. One on one coaching at the workplace with immediate feedback works very well in this scenario. It is specific to the requirements of each individual, contextual to the work of the individual and quick. It requires much less time to impart a concept one-on-one, versus in a classroom. Feedback on actual actions by the individual provides authenticity required for learning.

d.    The solution needs to be layered i.e. concepts need to be imparted to individuals one at a time. A classroom-based program may teach multiple concepts in a two-day span. But the ability of people to remember and apply is limited. On the other hand, one-on-one coaching helps participants have a better uptake.  Also, it allows for concepts to be learned one at a time.

CONCLUSION:

Those Operations, which really own their resources, will be intimately involved in ensuring that the resources meet the required specifications, both at the definition stage and at the calibration (upskilling) stage. Also, they will do so in a manner that minimizes production down time. They will employ methods that provide them the maximum ROI. They will not just delegate it to other functions.

The Pre-Shift Briefing: A humble, yet powerful performance enabler

June 28 2010 by ontrac_admin in Operations Management |2 Comments

The Boat Race

Imagine you are  participating in a boat race to go around the world. Winners will be judged on two key parameters i.e. covering a pre-determined distance each day, and minimum deviation from the race course (the path). Before the race begins, your team goes through an intense planning process. The day of the race arrives, and you get going. The captain is extremely positive and the team believes that they are doing very well, that is, till you arrive at the first intermediate port. You discover that 60% of the competitors are ahead of you. Your optimistic captain, again, encourages everyone. All of you vow to work twice as hard. You set out to sea again. Very soon, the fact that you are in the bottom 40% is a distant memory. But when you reach the second intermediate port you discover that you are in the bottom 25%. Adding to the problem, there is some discontent in the team about lack of communication and recognition etc.

You now rise to the occasion and realize that when you are at sea, there is a big gap between the team’s perception of its performance and the actual performance. In fact, you realize that the captain’s super positive attitude is a potential contributor to this problem. If there was a way to bridge this gap on a daily basis, perhaps the performance of the team would be much better in the next leg of the race. You therefore convince your captain to adopt a new method that involves daily communication with the team. You decide to inform the team about the following, every day:

1. Current position of the boat, versus where it should be.
2. What are the team’s goals today
3. What should the team do today, to ensure that it stays on course, and covers the desired distance.
4. Appreciate the previous day’s heros

With this new plan in mind, you set out to sea for the next leg of the race. The next day, the captain calls for an all hands meet very early in the day. He provides the following information:

1. The boat is 15 miles off course towards the north.
2. An important cable was severed yesterday and Stephen fixed it in record time. Without this, the boat would have probably been much more off course. Kudos to Stephen for saving the day.
3. You have covered about 444 kilometers and you are ahead of schedule
4. The goal of the team today, is to cover 222 kilometers. There is an upcoming storm, therefore, they need to go further off course by another 30 miles to avoid it. Therefore, the boat will be 45 miles off course tomorrow.
5. The team needs to (a) keep an eye on the sail at all times. Even though they will be avoiding the storm, the winds will still be strong (b) Ensure that the ballasts were 70% full.

This goes on every day. The captain even shares performance information including distance travelled and course compliance in a visual format as shown below.

Cummulative Distance

* This graph shows the cumulative distance travelled by the boat, as compared to the distance they should have travelled. Any distance above the black line is in excess of the target. Any distance below the black line, is below the target. For example, On Day4, the boat has not covered as much distance as it should have. This provides the team a hint that they need to increase their speed. Similarly, on day 7, the graph shows that they have covered more than they had to, so they need to slow down.

Course Compliance

* This graph shows the number of miles the boat is off course on any particular day. With this graph, the team knows how much effort they should put into navigation, in order to reduce this deviation.

The captain also answered all of the team’s questions. He ended the meetings with a few brief words of encouragement. By the time you reach the next port, you find that you are in the top 25%.

What really happened here? Why did the simple act of providing clear information on performance work better than the “rah rah” that the captain engaged in earlier?

Logic behind daily team briefings: There are two reasons for the the team’s success.

1. Confrontation with Reality: Team members change their behaviour when confronted with reality. When the captain makes it visible to his team where they really are verses where they should be, each team member automatically calibrates himself on the efforts he needs to put in, to get through the day successfully. In the absence of such information, each team member will calibrate against their own self perception of performance, without regard to reality. Therefore, each team member will put in varying amounts of efforts, often working cross purpose. However, when the information is made visible, their behaviour changes because they now know what needs to be done in the immediate future.

2. Limitations of foresight: It takes a superhuman effort for most people to visualize beyond what is immediate. Therefore, providing them with daily updates, helps them visualize what needs to be done for that day, in order to stay on track. Without these short term goals, the team would not have a sense of urgency and purpose for that day.

Pre-Shift Briefings:

The concept of such daily briefings is not new. It is used in a variety of industries such as manufacturing, retail etc. It is used in any situation where the work is transactional in nature. Therefore, it fits in very well with the nature of most BPO work. A team leader needs to ensure that a briefing is conducted every day, prior to the start of the shift. The purpose of this briefing is to bring about visibility on key parameters that affect the performance of the team. This visibility brings about a sense of reality among the team members on their actual performance on a daily basis. Without this, the gap between that the team’s perceived self performance and the actual performance usually widens. Another purpose of this briefing is the ensure that the team knows what they need to do today, in order that will help them get closer to their goals. Some of the best managed teams have pre-shift briefings as an integral part of their operations. However, the briefing is carefully conducted by the team leader, keeping in mind a prior agenda.

Preparing for a pre-shift briefing: Most shift briefings should have the following three categories of information :

a. Performance : The team leader needs to provide information about the prior period’s performance (e.g. yesterday’s performance) along various parameters that are critical to the team. For example, the team leader provides information about productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, accuracy etc. The team leader also provides information on where the team stands on a month to date basis, or a week to date basis, if the metrics are being measured with this periodicity. Next, the team leader needs to provide information about the day’s targets and get the team’s buy-in to achieve these targets.

(b) Recognition: The team leader needs to appreciate the previous day’s best performers. He also needs to identify and showcase any productive contributions by team members. These contributions could be in any area (e.g. team administration, arranging for team activities etc.). Finally, he should recognize people for creating and adopting of best practices that help in improvement of key metrics.

(c) Broadcast: This category deals with information that needs to be communicated to the team from the company or the client. For example, the team leader communicates any changes in company policies, process updates, upcoming events in the company or planned events for the team.

There is usually a fourth “Miscellaneous” category, to help capture anything not covered by the other three categories. For example, the team leader may want to conduct some activities such as quizzes in the pre-shift briefing.

Briefing Readiness: Its can easily be seen that the team leader needs to do prior preparation in order to conduct the briefings. This can be done either just before the shift begins, or after the previous day’s shift ends. Preparation should not take more than 10 minutes.

Conducting the briefing: All the points mentioned above, can easily be put up on a notice board for everyone to read. Alternately, it can be sent via email where ever possible. Therefore, there could be an argument about the usefulness of  a physical meeting.

The point of having a physical meeting goes beyond just sharing information mechanically. This is an opportunity for the team leader to continue the never ending process of building rapport with the team, and motivating them to achieve their targets. Motivating, in this case, does not mean creating a rah-rah. It means providing the team with the confidence that they can achieve their targets and that the team leader is behind them all the way. Therefore, a few basic rules need to be adhered to, by the team leader. He should, firstly, be on time. He should educate all team members on the importance of the briefing. He should pay attention to his body language and should speak up clearly. He should come prepared with an agenda, so that the team views this as a professional meeting. He should provide the team an opportunity to voice their opinions and provide them with answers, or follow up with answers later (or in the next briefing). While recognizing people for their performance, the team leader must demonstrate a sense of pride in his voice.

Challenges in conducting a pre-shift briefings: There are many challenges that team leaders may encounter while conducting pre-shift briefings. Some of them are:

a. Lack of time: There may be delays in the arrival of team members (e.g. due to transport delays). In such situations, the briefing should still be conducted with the few people who are already present. The rest of the team can be updated via email or via information put up on the notice board.

b. Multiple shifts: All team members may not be working in the same shift. Therefore, it may not be possible for the team leader to meet with all of them at the same time. In such situations, the team leader should make an attempt to have a team briefing somewhere in the middle of the shift, when the maximum number of people are available. Alternately, the team leader could have multiple shift briefings, as and when each shift arrives.

c. Lack of information: It is possible that data for the previous day may not be readily available. Perhaps, data is published with a delay of two days. In such situations, the team leader should provide what ever data is available, even if it is two days old.

Follow up by operations managers: There is an established relationship between team performance and the rate at which team briefings are conducted. Therefore, the operations manager needs to follow up with team leaders to ensure these briefings are conducted regularly. Given below, is an example of a graph, that provides the operations manager a track record of briefings conducted by a team leader.

Pre-Shift-Briefing Tracker

The manager can track the actual number of days the pre-shift briefing was done, as compared to the number of opportunities that the team leader has, to conduct pre-shift briefings. If a team works for all 7 days (with various people getting 2 days off at different points in the week), then there are 7 opportunities to conduct a shift briefing. The team leader should ideally conduct atleast 5 briefings out of 7 (assuming that he will work for 5 days a week). Therefore, every week, the manager should see 71% compliance (5/7 = 71%). Anything above this is good. But anything below this, should be investigated.

This data can easily be gathered by a simple process of ensuring that the team leader submits his shift briefing agenda to the manager on a daily basis. The manager can then collate this data in the form of the graph shown above. This graph can be used to communicate with the team leader on his/her frequency of conducting the pre-shift briefings.

The above graphs will not provide the quality of the shift briefing. This can only be verified through physical observation. The manager will need to visually check for the quality of the shift briefing if the TL is conducting the briefings as scheduled, but the performance of the team is still not up to the mark.

Keeping track of shift briefing agendas also has other benefits. For example, it is possible to track if the team leader has communicated an important company update to the team. This may be important from a variety of perspectives including, but not limited to internal audits, maintaining certification standards etc.

The bottom line is that pre-shift briefings are often under leveraged. They are an integral part of operations management, and if they are not being conducted, it will contribute to non performance of the team.

Do you have half a Team Leader?

May 19 2010 by ontrac_admin in Operations Management |No Comments

Many of our consulting assignments deal with helping our clients improve various aspects of performance in specific processes. As a first step, we conduct a study to understand the “as-is” situation of the process and this frequently provides some interesting insights.

One of the key requirements of any process, is the availability of both supervisory capacity and capability. Depending upon the type and complexity of work being done in the process, management determines certain ratios such as one team leader for every fifteen employees etc. The assumption management makes is that with this ratio, the requisite supervisory capacity would be available to team members in order to enhance and/or maintain performance.

Whenever there are performance problems, management does a deep dive to understand root causes. Among the various contributing causes, the issues of team leader capability stands out more often than not. In such situations, we are told by our clients (in our preliminary discussions) that the team leaders need to be upskilled. They are not doing what they are supposed to do because their operational skills are not up to the mark. If these skills are enhanced, the problems would be solved. Based on our experience in the industry, we understand that their conclusions are correct. However, our study provides alternative insights that deal with supervisory capacity (and not just with capability). These insights are not always in consonance with management’s initial thinking (but to be fair, management thinking usually changes when we provide actual data based on the study).

In order to understand these alternative insights, lets analyze a team leader’s role:

A team leader exists in order to monitor, coach, guide and motivate his team members so that they can meet their organization’s and their client’s goals. In order to do this, the team leader needs to be able to invest a significant amount of his time in various operations management routines (such as coaching, monitoring, feedback, shift briefings, team bonding activities, bottom quartile management and many more) that deal with ensuring availability of resources (team members), their productivity and the quality of their work.

Performance problems start to occur when team leaders are not able to invest the appropriate amount of time in these operations management routines that ensure resource availability, productivity and quality.

Reasons for TLs not investing enough time on Operations Management:

1. Team leader as a production Resource: In many situations, the team leader also performs other tasks that are not directly related to operations management routines. They are more related to the process they are working on. A direct example is when a team leaders himself works on processing transactions or taking calls along with his team members. At that time, he is not longer available to manage his team. During an assignment with a back office process, we found that the TL needed to call back some customers to check on certain information. This was a mandatory process related task that could be done by other people, but it was assigned to the team leader. This task alone took about 8 hours a week, during which time the TL was not involved in any management activity.

2. Team leader as an MIS Resource: The team leader’s job necessarily involves some amount of MIS and Reporting work. However, this can get out of hands sometimes. In a particular situation, we observed that TLs in a process were sending out multiple versions of the same report because various people in the hierarchy wanted to see these reports in their own way. Each report took just about 20 minutes to prepare, but the TLs spent over 4 hours per week preparing them (many of these were daily reports).

3. Team Leader as a meeting resource: Team leaders need to attend various meetings, but over zealous operations managers can upset the applecart. Managers sometimes request for long meetings on a daily basis (that can be minimized through better planning). The Team leader tends to further loose time due to these activities. For example, 30 minutes a day, translates to 2.5 hours a week. Further, some managers tend to call for adhoc meetings that add to the problem. As these meetings are not documented, it does not stay in memory and the perception is that very few such meetings are held.

4. Team Leader as a learner: Many companies, in their good intentions to develop team leaders’ skills, assign them projects. These projects could sometimes be counted in their score cards. Problems arise when team leaders are given projects that either take too much time per day, or when they are given multiple projects at a time. For example, in one company, we observed that TLs were spending 15 minutes a day on a particular project relating to improving customer satisfaction. They were simultaneously assigned to a green belt project. Further, they were assigned an HR sponsored project on attrition control. In all, these projects started to take about 1.5 hours a day i.e. about 7.5 hours per week.

Apart from the above, there could be many other tasks that eat into the team leader’s management time thereby reducing the available supervisory capacity. Therefore, whenever performance problems occur and clues point to team leaders, it would probably be best to first look at how much time the team leader is really spending on managing his team. Fixing this problem is easy and will result in immediate benefits. The next step can be to enhance his skills (capability) through training and coaching.

Collecting data:

The amount of time that team leaders spend on various activities can be checked by getting them to fill up a simple time sheet. This is easier said than done because team leaders will be suspicious, if this activity is not positioned properly. It is best to be honest with them, and explain that this data will help the management in reducing their (the team leader’s) workload. To further motivate them to fill in the time sheets regularly, a competition could be held.

Take a look at the attached spread sheet for a simple time sheet. It contains data for one TL, for one day. A basic analysis of his work shows that there is potential to double supervisory capacity from 40% to 80% just by rationalizing the tasks that the team leader is doing.

Sample Team Leader Time Sheet and Analysis

This analysis can become a lot more rigourous if data is collected for an entire month as it will help capture almost all the activities that a TL normally performs.

A Perspective on Team Work training programs

February 24 2010 by ontrac_admin in Training ROI |No Comments

Training programs on team working have always interested us. We have conducted numerous programs related to team bonding, team work, collaboration etc. for our clients. As is the case with most assignments, these typically start with a call from a client, who expresses the need to conduct such a program for one or more teams at her company. The client is typically from the Training or HR functions. We are normally expected to send a traditional proposal that contains “standard” elements of a team working program. These include topics and activities that help participants get to know each other, how they could collaborate and support one other etc. Sometimes, there is also an expectation of seeing established concepts such as Belbin’s team role profiles or Disc that would be used in these training programs. However, over time, we have learnt the importance of truly understanding the real need, before sending our solution based on the preliminary inputs we receive.


Who is the real beneficiary?

The real beneficiary of training programs is some other department or function (such as operations, sales etc.). The request for such a training is usually communicated by a senior manager or leader from these functions to the training or HR department. However, a lot could be lost during translation. Therefore we ensure that we meet with these functions before conducting the program. Here are two situations that give rise to completely different training programs on team working:


Situation 1: Take the example of a team of software engineers, or a team from an R&D department. Typically, these teams have individuals who necessarily need to collaborate in order to produce the output. Each person is dependent upon one or more members of his team to do his work. Each team member could have a different role and is perhaps focusing on different tasks (or components of a larger job). It is possible that the output of one team member is the input for another team member. There could be numerous interactions between team members during the day in the form of emails, phone calls, face-to-face meetings etc.

This situation requires team members to understand each other very well. They need to understand each other’s roles, personalities and should be able to deal with uncertainties that each of them brings to the team. Therefore, a traditional program on team working, that fosters collaboration, trust and understanding of personalities could possibly work well here.


Situation 2: This situation is at the other end of the spectrum and is applicable to teams where all team members are doing the same set of tasks. They are not dependent upon each other to complete their job. The absence of any particular team member does not directly affect the output produced by the others. In many situations, there could be a complete absence of communication between team members. Yet the rest of them could continue to do their jobs. These situations occurs in the Call centers (and other BPOs), manufacturing, sales etc.

What does team working mean in these situations? Here is where the danger really lies. If the manager in situation 2 requests for a team working training program, it is important to understand his unstated business need. Without this understanding, his team would go through a traditional program applicable for situation 1 above. This would result in no impact or sometimes, a negative impact.


Case Study:
Here is an interesting case study of a request we received from one of our clients with a call center business, to conduct a program on team work. Here is what our research revealed:

We asked the training manager to put us in touch with the requester of the program. This requester happened to be an operations manager who was running a setup with about 100 people. We pointed out to him that since his team members never collaborate to produce their output ( in this case, answer calls), there would not be much use for a training program on team working. His responses to our challenge enabled us to precisely understand his requirements. His requirement was not that this team members should collaborate to do their jobs, but to rather manage themselves in order to have an equitable distribution of work across all team members.

In a call center, if team members did not adhere to break schedules, or had unscheduled absenteeism, the workload would need to be handled by other people (who are more disciplined). However, these diligent people would also slip in their habits, if they see that their colleagues are habitual defaulters in terms of schedule adherence. This behaviour would result in a problem for everyone. Therefore, the need was for everyone to understand the impact of their actions on others.


Solution
Having understood this requirement, we created a different type of a training program that had nothing to do with teamwork. This was a short training program on core operations. We explained to participants the math behind how operations worked and how each of them impacted service levels through their own behaviours. We showed them, through maths and illustrations, how work gets queued up and how their presence becomes important in clearing the queues. We also showed them the “power of one” i.e. how the absence of a single person can significantly affect the service level and increase the load on others.

This program was a revelation to participants, who had never been told this before. Needless to say the manager saw a significant drop in absenteeism and improvement in schedule adherence.

The lesson we learnt from this is to always meet with the end beneficiary of the program and probe for the exact requirements before proposing a solution.

Next Page »