Do you accept that the reason for call centres becoming 'sweat shops' was the way they measured and monitored their people?

Many managers cannot accept this idea. To put it another way, the major variation in call centre agent performance is in the system - the way the work works - it is not between agents. But all of management's work has usually been based on the assumption people make the difference.

Here is an exercise you should go through to help you unlearn:

Take call centre agents' data - for example calls answered or AHT - and plot them in a control chart. To get help with how to do this you could turn to any good text on control charts, you could buy "Learning from Variation", you could buy "The Vanguard Guide to Creating and Using Control Charts".

Present the control charts to your agents. Say: "If we accept the theory of variation, these charts tell us we can expect to do between here (lower limit) and here (higher limit) and all results between these limits would be normal." To prepare yourself for doing this read the articles on call centre issues: http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/6.asp

Ask: "What, in your view are the causes of variation?" Brain storm a list with the agents. Expect to get about five flipcharts.

Now go back through the list and ask: "Which of these causes are due to the SYSTEM - the way the work works, and which are due to the agents?"

You will learn that over 90% of variation in performance is in the system. If yours is a traditional call centre, what are your managers focused on? The 5%. Stop and think about that. It is a good way to begin the process of change to a systems approach.

A systems perspective gives managers a better set of questions to address:

Why do customers call in from their point of view? What is our capability in responding to customer demands? How much of our work is, in truth, waste - and how much of this is created by the way the organisation works?

As managers and agents learn to ask and answer these questions, performance and morale improve - always. They also learn for themselves that the measures they used to use actually had a deleterious impact on performance.

To get a general perspective on the issues, read the free articles in the call centre section of this web site.