After working a main peak season and returning for a mini-peak season later last year, I was selected to remain onboard right on through to the next main peak season! During that time, however, I was given the opportunity to advance. As such, the company put in an application for a “Hybrid Trainer/Team Lead” position for me and I got a promotion! However, I learned that Training (known in this company as Learning & Development) had quite a different attitude from Operations.
* Teletech is in love with seasonal positions and seasonal employees for its work-at-home/@Home employees – it’s just common knowledge. At the end of the season for whatever project might be involved, Teletech “ramps down” and lays off many employees. Sometimes – as was the case on my project – this might involve laying off hundreds of employees only to have a handful (say 30 or 40) manning the phones until the next season. As a result, the already high turn-over rate that would be expected from your average call center is even higher with Teletech because of the seasonal nature of its work.
--- As a temporary employee, you don’t get benefits like paid time off/vacation time or medical insurance, even if you are working full-time hours. On the one hand, this seems reasonable since employees are just going to get one big “vacation” at the end of the season anyway, but it really makes it hard to entice and retain employees. As a trainer, I would see attrition in training classes that would be in excess of 30% because trainees either couldn’t get the schedule they wanted or because they had all sorts of “personal issues” develop. Honestly, I think what a lot of them probably did is actively apply elsewhere for something more permanent or enticing and merely used Teletech as a stepping stone.
--- The end date of “ramp down” isn’t always clear. Agents often won’t be notified that they are being laid off until a few days – sometimes less – before it actually happens. Some agents get an invitation to continue on another company project, but the invitation may arrive shortly after being laid off from the current project or weeks down the line if it arrives at all.
--- Those employees that Teletech retains full-time at the end of the season are known as “steady state” employees that actually DO receive benefits. Many temporary employees have complained that their performance metrics and attendance were outstanding, but that they were not extended the opportunity to stay on board.
--- In fact, based on my observations both in client chats and Teletech’s own internal chat systems, I think there is somewhat of a “clique” phenomenon that goes on here. Those who are steady state employees build bonds and get to know each other well, but are less warm to newer employees or those who are trying to follow documented processes or procedures. One key example of this is when I was fortunate enough to be retained as a Tier 2 agent after mini peak. The majority of my Tier 1 agents were steady state folks who sometimes were less patient or courteous when asked questions or asked to follow through processes (i.e., the “you know me” or “I’m not new” mentality).
* Learning & Development has an attitude problem. There, I said it. I hate to put that as a bullet point in a review since I’m trying to be as professional as possible, but I don’t think I can word it any differently than that. Training/L&D and Operations was like night and day on this project.
--- The tenured trainers don’t generally have a positive attitude on this project. In trainer touchpoints with middle management and even in meetings between trainers, there is quite a bit of complaining and nit-picking about trainees and their actions. Trainers – especially the tenured trainers – don’t always act with a cheerful and courteous disposition toward their newhire trainees. The general attitude I always perceived from the rest of the department on this project – especially from tenured trainers and management – was a “what is it now?” type of attitude when it came to addressing challenges with trainees.
--- That’s not to say that trainees are perfect or that they are never in the wrong, either; I found many instances – even in my own classes as a trainer – where trainees were obviously not paying attention, had background noise, or were not using their time productively (avoiding Simulated Learning calls, not completing modules, and so on). However, I always “assumed innocence” and gently guided trainees back on task or took actions to get their attention (such as forcibly removing them from the training conference) without interrupting the class or embarrassing/shaming the trainees in front of their peers. The tenured trainers seemed to put an emphasis on negative reinforcement and disciplinary action to resolve problems. There were training supervisors who encouraged their trainers to bring them into class to be the “bad guy” so that the trainees were aware that they COULD be disciplined during training and needed to pay attention.
--- Long, boring lectures are the bane of any training program, and I swore to my trainees that I would never waste their time or subject them to any ILT or lecture time for any more than was necessary. Even in the training modules that we took as trainers, we were taught that the average adult attention span is 15 minutes. So, while I can appreciate the fact that trainees should be held accountable when they are clearly not paying attention or participating, I think it’s important to be on the look-out for trends and patterns of behavior among multiple trainees and classes and address the common root causes of inattentiveness. If it's a common problem that impacts many trainees, maybe an approach other than threats and public shaming is called for. This project’s training curriculum – created by the client and influenced by Teletech – puts about 75% of the materials into a self-paced, module-based curriculum anyway, so it makes no sense to keep doing something over and over again that clearly isn’t working well.
--- My fellow seasonal trainers – especially the newer ones – would often come to me to ask for advice or get answers to questions. Although it was rarely discussed among us, I suspect that they had the same concerns I did about the tenured trainers and middle management; they were just so unapproachable, especially by chat. Too many times would a trainer ask a question only to be told that it was “clearly described in the e-mail sent out <insert time/date here>” or “specifically gone over in the meeting we had <insert time/date here>.” So when it came time for the trainers to offer input or ask questions during trainer touchbase sessions, middle management would be flabbergasted when everyone was silent. Huh! Imagine that! At times, it would be hard for me to blame trainers for being discourteous or blunt with trainees; I mean, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
* Lack of global operating processes. The good news is that Teletech has a Sharepoint like any major corporation ought to. The bad news is that it is badly underutilized. The project’s L&D group did have a dedicated Sharepoint, but it was disorganized, cluttered, and didn’t have all the information trainers needed to complete their daily tasks all in one place. Middle management and tenured trainers would expect trainers to retain information about important processes (terminations, rosters, quality evaluations, module completion reports, schedule requests, graduations/change of managers/etc) based on meetings, touchbases, and trainers’ initial “train the trainer” sessions. Actual documentation on these processes were scattered between Sharepoint and the client’s own systems, if they were even available at all.
--- Trainers were required to upload certain files – including daily reports – to certain sections within the Sharepoint. However, the fact that there were so many duplicates or files put into the wrong area were a clear indication that trainers themselves didn’t even know how to use or navigate Sharepoint effectively – something that is itself deserving of a global process.
* Total disregard for the time and energy of salaried employees. At the time I was brought into a trainer position, I was salaried. Many of my peers were also salaried. Many of us found ourselves working over 50 hours per week. As we drew closer to main peak, middle management added a sixth day for training. Rumors abound that trainers would face deductions from their salary if they were absent or otherwise unable to attend work, but we routinely put in additional time without additional compensation.
--- Bringing it back to Sharepoint and the paperwork aspect for a moment: a lot of it came down to paperwork. Trainers were required to submit a daily report on Sharepoint describing headcounts and class progress while also completing a detailed Excel spreadsheet documenting terminations, course completions, hours worked by each employee, assessment scores, and each trainee’s “skill” and “will” levels (low/high). I have to emphasize that this information can be pulled from other systems and in fact are routinely entered into them – yet, trainers are expected to essentially do the work twice by entering them both into systems that require the information (such as timecards in Teletech’s timekeeping system) and in the spreadsheet. Reports can be pulled on course completions, but the limited documentation on Sharepoint that describes how to do it is the slowest available method that requires going into each and every employee’s transcript and looking at the courses they have done one by one.
--- Trainers’ focus is often diverted from the clients’ curriculums and back onto the Teletech-specific curriculum because of noncompletion from trainees. There’s no detailed global process on how to pull the reporting in real time (although it can be done); rather, trainers are expected to wait 24 hours or more for a report from a separate group that generates the reports each day. Given that this was a chronic problem for MANY trainers and their classes, this would signal to any reasonable person that there was a need for process improvements; yet, no process beyond “write ‘em up” was ever implemented. Think about it: yes, there are unscrupulous trainees but if this is a COMMON problem, perhaps the problem goes beyond mere slackers?
* Unwillingness to improve processes. This actually goes back to the points I was making earlier. Teletech (or, at least, the project) had many opportunities to reduce paperwork and increase the efficiency of the work by utilizing tools like Sharepoint, but just wouldn’t. I actually considered myself one of the few “brave” outsiders who would bring up important points and suggestions, but found them pushed to the side by tenured trainers who seemed more concerned with keeping things as they were because it was convenient to the clique.
--- Case in point: I raised the idea of creating a “personal view” in Sharepoint in order to filter specific rows and columns in order to upload information faster without having to make as many clicks or navigate as many pages (or do as many searches or filters!) to get to the area that was needed during my “train the trainer” period. The trainer (who happened to be a tenured, steady state employee) vehemently stated to me – in front of the other trainers - that I shouldn’t do it and became emotional when I tried to explain how personal views work. When I discussed it with middle management, it responded by saying that we shouldn’t use those and that IT had asked that we do not. As “personal views” are essentially saved filter settings (i.e., you can do the same thing by running searches or clicking the little arrows next to the columns), they don’t alter the actual Sharepoint. In fact, “personal views” are visible only to you and not to anyone else. (If you don’t believe me, check Microsoft’s own Sharepoint documentation!) When I rebutted with these points, middle management said that it just followed what IT wanted and didn’t ask questions. Naturally, the lack of willingness to ask questions here results in more time and energy spent finding and sorting information.
--- To the same tenured trainer, I mentioned the idea of using filters in Excel in order to hide and sort information on our daily reporting to make it easier to read and fill out. She said that we shouldn’t do it because it would hide information that middle management needed to see; when I explained that filters could simply be removed, she just repeated her order not to do it. (Of course, we all did it anyway and middle management later wondered why we wouldn’t use tools available to us; that particular trainer just didn’t know how to use Excel filters!)
* Lack of coordination and planning. When classes are in session, trainers have a clear idea of what needs to be done because they are on a schedule. Outside of that, though, there is often lack coordination and planning with other tasks. Side tasks such as follow-ups on continuing education or chat support might be assigned, but the techniques of how agents can be contacted or interrupted aren’t always clearly spelled out and who is responsible for what and where isn’t always clear. Goals should always be SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Unfortunately, management’s endeavors to accomplish anything beyond the usual course of business (the actual classes themselves) rarely have these qualities.
* No open door policy and very little oversight of the relationships between managers and employees. While the management team puts out surveys for frontline employees and trainees that collect feedback about the performance of trainers and team leads, the feedback itself isn’t collected frequently. There is very little oversight of the relationship between middle management, frontline managers, and employees. Even as a trainer with direct reports (newhires), my direct supervisor and the supervisor above her would rarely review or intervene on the specific reasons for employees quitting or get feedback about my performance as a trainer from the employees.
--- So, to put it in perspective, I very well could have been rude or mistreated my employees and – as long as I “behaved” with my supervisor or their supervisors around – my supervisor and the managers above her likely would’ve been none of the wiser. As bad as this lack of transparency is between frontline managers and their agents, it gets even worse the further up the ladder you go, and management is quite content with letting you go without a second thought based on what your immediate supervisor has to say.
So, with everything that happened, I essentially transitioned from a dream to a nightmare. The Operations team had the right attitude and seemed to care about the relationships within their department and the emotional well-being of their people. By contrast, Learning & Development thrived on negative energy and reacted to new ideas in a defensive and sometimes offended manner.
