Ideas to enhance employee engagement in a contact centre

It’s not a secret that every company should strive to foster an environment that promotes productivity and keeps employees motivated.

One of the keys to nurturing this type of environment is employee engagement, especially in contact centres.

Employee engagement activities enhance job satisfaction, efficiency, and the overall success and growth of your company.

It would be nice if there was a one-size-fits-all approach to mastering employee engagement but of course, we are dealing with human beings, who, as we know, are all motivated by different drivers.

A recent contact centre industry benchmarking report did, however, provide some insight into the top five employee engagement activities that mean the most to employees:

• Increased shift flexibility.
• Opportunity for additional professional development.
• More rewards for performance.
• Face-to-face activities at work.
• Face-to-face social activities.

We’ve got lots of articles that can help provide you with some additional insights, but for this article, our focus is on providing you with ten ideas to enhance employee engagement in a contact centre that you can implement with relative ease and low cost.

10 Ideas to enhance employee engagement in a contact centre

Employee engagement focuses on how you can enhance employee wellbeing while bolstering the efficiency and success of your business.

The 10 ideas to enhance employee engagement in a contact centre below hopefully sparks a few ideas that can help you boost employee engagement in your contact centre.

Employees who work in a call centre likely spend a substantial portion of their day seated at a desk in front of a screen.

While this is the nature of call centre work, it’s incredibly important to encourage movement and mindfulness.

Exercise and controlled breathing is known to promote feelings of calm and clarity while supporting an enhanced sense of motivation and focus.

Try implementing a morning yoga routine in your office.

This shows employees you’re invested in their holistic wellbeing, and provides an excellent opportunity for connection amongst colleagues.

All you need is some clear space, some yoga mats and you’re good to go!

Hosting an annual or bi-annual awards evening is an excellent strategy for increasing employee engagement.

Hard work can often go unrecognised, and this is immensely demotivating.

The promise of public appreciation helps people to feel driven and valued.

Furthermore, a fun celebration may serve as a bonding opportunity – but just go easy on the drinks!

It can be challenging to schedule regular and fun employee engagement activities, especially in a call centre environment when it’s difficult to organise time off the phones.

A great way to overcome time restrictions is to combine lunch and employee engagement.

Providing lunch once a month (or more often!) shows employees that you care.

Plus, this lunchtime break serves as an opportunity for sharing updates and a chance for employees to interact and perhaps spark some new friendships.

Trivia quizzes are among the most popular strategies for enhancing employee engagement in call centres.

They are fun and they can include prizes that everyone wants to win.

As well as general trivia questions, you can also sneak in some work-related questions that can also help your employees learn information about your products and services, processes, company history etc.

Of course, coming up with trivia questions can be a challenge but don’t worry, we’ve got your back!

ACXPA Members can download a ready-made general trivia questions kit each month that has everything you need already done for you!

Download some trivia questions now >

To effectively create a working environment where people are encouraged to share valuable knowledge with others, you need to create the right space for this to take place.

Learning circles are an enjoyable and interactive way to accomplish this.

What are learning circles?

Learning Circles are flexible, peer-directed learning experiences.

A Learning Circle is a group of employees with a common interest who meet regularly to learn from each other, and others, about a self-identified topic and in a format the group has decided upon.

In a contact centre environment, you can have a mix of new employees mixed with a couple of more experienced employees that could meet weekly, where each week a new topic is tackled.

Bonus: Allow your more experienced employees to take the lead in organising the sessions and content – it can be a great way to provide them with some extra responsibility and make them feel valued for their experience.

This strategy for enhancing employee engagement aims to make call centre work fun and engaging by adding a competitive twist to boring tasks like time tracking.

By using digital leaderboards, you can make tracking employees’ times and tasks a game, and at the end of a set period, you can reward the winner.

Gamification is becoming an increasingly popular tool for boosting employee engagement that benefits your employees and delivers a range of benefits for your business, including lower turnover, improved efficiency, improved attendance and more.

If there is one thing contact centres do exceptionally well, its a dress-up day!

Dress-up days allow employees to get creative and promote a sense of camaraderie, which ultimately boosts team spirit and morale.

Associate the dress-up occasion with a specific learning theme or occasion to keep it relevant.

Ideas can include:

• Current Sporting events (i.e. State of Origin, AFL, Tennis Grand Slams, F1, Olympics)
• Movies
• Cultural Events (Halloween, Christmas, Easter etc)

Volunteering not only shows you have a social conscience, it lets employees give back while on the clock too.

Once a month volunteering at an animal shelter, children’s home or soup kitchen can boost morale and make employees feel part of a team.

You can have a list of company-aligned charities or let your employees choose their own.

Ergonomics specialists understand the value of comfortable and efficient work environments.

This is particularly vital in call centres where most employees spend most of their day seated.

Improving your employees’ physical comfort boosts productivity and promotes a healthy and engaged working environment and really shows your care.

Of course, it can also reduce stress and fatigue and help improve productivity so it really is a no-brainer!

It’s sometimes challenging to truly connect with employees within the office environment.

Taking them outside of this setting may enable them to bond with fellow co-workers while reconnecting with your business’s fundamental goals and principles.

And sometimes, it’s just as simple as enabling a different mindset by being in a new location.

Ideas can include:

• Walking meetings
• Have your one on ones at a local cafe or in the park
• Hold your team meetings in a restaurant, business centre etc.

Summary

It would be great if there were a straightforward fix to improve employee engagement.

Still, the truth is numerous factors combine to deliver a great experience, and, of course, not every employee is motivated by the same criteria.

One thing we do know is that the more you try, the more you succeed!

So we hope these ten ideas to enhance employee engagement in a contact centre at least provide you with some fun activities and ideas you can implement for your call centre employees.

Doing so will increase retention, boost morale, encourage teamwork, improve customer interaction, and ultimately result in greater productivity and job satisfaction for all.

And surely that’s a good thing!