Ensuring that coaching takes place

[cjw17]

I'm looking for ideas on how to make sure that the supervisors are spending adequate time coaching. Our supervisors wear many hats, & can tend to get bogged down with putting out fires. I want them to spend at least 5 hours a week actually sitting with reps, reviewing calls & coaching them. They all say they do this, but truthfully it's the easiest thing to push aside when it gets busy.
I'm not looking for suggestions on lightening their workload. What I'm looking for is a way of measuring the time they spend with their reps. Short of putting a video camera on them (just kidding), what can I do?

[earhart]

You might try having the agents do a mini review on the team lead each month. This has worked well in some centers and really opens up communication and drives to issues. Some questions may include:

Number of monitors recvd this month?
Coaching and review seesions for the month?
Suggested training or reading?

Good Luck

[Donnella]

If you currently monitor calls, why not set a target that for every x number of staff monitored, coaching should take place, with a summary, time taken and learner feedback section on the form used. This allows flexibility in who recieves the coaching, but the amount done can be measured for discussion in monthy 121's with the team leader.

[Maverickkac]

Many of the responses are ways to measure if coaching is happening, but what we face is that the grind of doing the monitors looses the luster and effect. If you measure results in the "how many" you loose the real purpose of coaching. the measurable result of coaching is based on individual results of the rep, and the overall team results. are we meeting goals, and what incentives have you provided your people to get to a point of success. find the motivational factors of getting the individual in conjunction with the team to perform. communicate, motivate, communicate more, and motivate more !!

[JimGarey]

Supervisors do wear many hats and this can either be allowed to stand as an excuse to avoid coaching or it can be corrected. If you believe that it is possible for the supes to coach and they just aren't prioritizing it, why not tie coacing to their compensation plan? Money makes the world go around!

Before taking this drastic step make sure that you have the proper quality-monitoring & recording systems so that the supervisors and agents can perfrom this critical task as efficiently as possible. Many times it is the terrible inefficiencies associated with the QM/coaching process that cause supes to avoid and agents to dread it. Conside this carefully as it is probally the key to your future success.

[Maverickkac]

Jim,

you are correct and hit the nail on the head!! the real issue in most cases is that the monitoring process becomes a production line activity versus coaching. In many realities you need to determine the motiviators of the individual and what options you offer as a company to drive people to meet and exceed goals. In other words Walk the Walk with something that talks !! And in many cases the incentives a company offers are mis-represented and not used as a motivator. Money talks !!

Thanks for the feedback !!

Maverickkac

[TPodlesak]

I would offer this suggestion; You give the names of the people you want evaluated for that week to the supervisor. Give them a check list of the things you want trained or talked about during their session. Have the employee sign the form along with the supervisor.

A copy of that training or coahing session goes into the employee file. The next time you assign the supervisor to sit with that person, they have the previous training sheet to review. This will allow you to measure the employee's performance. It will also give the supervisor the ability to see who their best people are.

If for some reason a CSR is having the same issues over and over and you need to let them go for performance, you'll have the required documentation.

You might be able to use those forms to give out performance incentives.