Posts

Team Building Tips and Tricks for Managers

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Team Building Tips|Team Building Tips and Tricks for ManagersThe modern world is all about collaboration and teamwork. Without it, companies wouldn’t be as successful. After all, almost every great product in history was created by a team – not an individual.

At the moment, you might have 10, 100, or even 500 hundred employees. Whatever your exact number is, it’s important to focus on team building. This is because it:

  • Creates stronger co-worker relationships
  • Boosts morale
  • Enables better communication and collaboration

On top of all this, team building also helps to unlock potential leaders for your company – which is something else to bear in mind.

With the introduction covered, let’s now take a look at some team-building tips and tricks that all managers need to know.

Use Virtual Team Building Games

Unless you’ve been living on a faraway planet for the past few years, you’ll be aware that the workplace has gone virtual. Now, millions of employees have adopted hybrid schedules where they work between the office and home – it’s been a long time coming.

Of course, this means that teams are now using laptops, tablets, and smartphones to do their work and communicate together.

This is great for team building, as it means you and your teams have an opportunity to play virtual team-building games together when you’re not in the same place. A good example is the name that price game, which is perfect for boosting morale and allowing employees to have a good time.

Friday is usually the best day for virtual team-building games, as it’s the end of the week and everybody is looking forward to relaxing at the weekend.

Provide Your Teams with Goals

Whether you have one or multiple teams working under you, it’s important to provide them with goals. This will give them a clear direction moving forward and ultimately create greater focus and teamwork.

Teams should be briefed with goals at the beginning of each new month. Plenty of encouragement and incentives should be given to your teams, too. For example, there could be pay bonuses or extra time off for the early completion of tasks.
Plus, you should also encourage teams to set their own goals.

Use Microsoft Teams

As mentioned above, the modern workplace has gone virtual.

Now, it’s all about using internet-based tools to get work done and communicate. One of the best tools for this is Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams allows teams to hold video conferences with each other as well as send chat messages. Altogether, it’s the perfect platform for team building, especially when employees don’t see each other face-to-face.

Request Feedback

Sometimes, the best way to gain an in-depth understanding of what your teams want is through feedback.

Every month (or bi-monthly), you should hold meetings with your individual teams to discuss feedback in detail. For example, you might discover that your teams want more tools to use in the office, such as better computers.

Lastly, Get Social

It’s essential that employees don’t exclusively spend time together in the office. In addition to this, they should spend a little time together outside of work in social settings. This is because it enables employees to blow off some steam and have fun together in a less serious environment. Example locations include bars and restaurants.

Also, you should make it a rule that employees can’t discuss work when you’re socializing together! Moving forward, this will create stronger team bonds.

The Best Ways To Give Your Office A Facelift

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Give your office a facelift|The Best Ways To Give Your Office A FaceliftGiving your office a facelift can sound like a difficult job. There’s a lot of square footage to work with, and you also want to try and maintain that professional quality that’s expected from the modern workplace. How are you supposed to redesign under these conditions?

Well, you’ve still got a lot of freedom to do what you want with your office here! And while you’ve already made a lot of alterations to your office in the past couple years, there’s still a lot more you can do to make your office the place you really want to be. Let’s go through some examples of the best ways to ensure this below.

Combine Your Styles

Do you like the white, minimalist aesthetic? Maybe a little bit, but certainly not in the abundance you see in modern workplaces! So break the mold here and pick a different style or two to complement this look within your office.

Get some mid-century furniture in, use Scandi wall decor techniques, and make sure there’s a pop of color or two to help break up the monotone background you’ve always hated walking into work to.

Avoid Light Overexposure

The more light in your office, the worse it’s going to look! Yes, you need to see what you’re doing, and there’s going to be some health and safety regulations you’ll have to follow as well, but that doesn’t mean you need overhead, fluorescent lighting. You can turn these fixtures off, save yourself a whole lot of money on the literal overhead, and use softer lights instead.

For example, opening up blinds and clearing the windows to let the sun in. But when it goes down for the day, using desk lamps or standing lamps or even RGB strips instead will make your office look a lot more inviting. This kind of lighting is a lot more comfortable on the perception, and certainly won’t hurt your eyes!

Make it Last

The more you can do now to maintain a shiny and sleek quality to your workplace, no matter how vintage or mid-century you’ve designed it to be, the less work you’ll have to do later. And this means you can work under the comfort that your office design is going to last for a long time, and you’ll always enjoy coming into work to see it.

So, what can you do to keep your office always looking clean and tidy? It’s in the little things. For example, if you’ve got wooden frames hanging on the wall, get them waxed and sealed, and make sure any signs you hang are covered with 651 vinyl. Similarly, you can layer hardwood, lino, and carpet with further carpets and easily switch these in and out when they wear away. Look around your workspace and see where other small touches can be made.

Giving your office a facelift just takes a bit of inspiration! Make a difference in your workspace using tips like the ones above for ideas.

Supporting The Working Parents Amongst Your Employees

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Working Parents|Supporting The Working Parents Amongst Your EmployeesIn the modern era, many of your employees are going to be parents. Nearly half of the current workforce have children under the age of 18, and juggling both work and family responsibilities can be incredibly difficult.

And this problem has only gotten harder to control during the pandemic; people have had to work at home, and while that means they get more time with their kids, it also has the knock on effect of making their work harder to keep up with.

However, instead of rallying against this, it’s a good idea to work with it. Your employees are never going to stop being parents, and supporting this is a great way to boost your employee morale as well as your business growth as a whole. Here are some good ways to do so.

Be Flexible with Working Structure

A flexible working structure is one of the main things you need here. Flexibility is something business owners already promote, and stretching it a little further to accommodate the parents in your workforce is a great way to show your support for the working market at large.

For example, if someone needs to attend to childcare between the hours of 8 and 10 am, let them join onto work calls or get started on projects after these hours. Alternatively, if someone needs to be available to pick up their children in the afternoon, schedule their shifts earlier.

Create a Culture of Honesty

Working parents have a lot to deal with. As such, working from home can get complicated and messy, and knowing they’re expected to be on the clock the entire time their children are also awake can mount a lot more stress on their shoulders.

Knowing this, it’s a good idea to allow your employees to be honest about their days, and what they need to do during it, to help alleviate this sense of anxiety. Let them be upfront about childcare needs and how this might interrupt their work responsibilities without fear of being reprimanded.

Allow Employees to Bring Their Kids to Work

If you’re able to return to the office for a few days per week, why not allow your employees to bring their kids with them if need be? If they cannot afford outside childcare, or have no relatives available, turning a corner of your business into a small daycare could work wonders for the flexible element of your company.

What can you do to accommodate these on-site needs? Invest in some preschool furniture and set it up in a spare room somewhere in your company. Allow parents to bring in a few toys or books of their own, and then if need be, parents will be able to keep their kids nearby if no other arrangements are available.

Supporting the working parents on your staff body doesn’t have to be hard to do. Be flexible, allow for outside needs inside of this, and even allow employees to bring children with them.

Ways to Update Your Current B2B Website Design

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Ways to Update Your Current B2B Website DesignMany marketers and business leaders believe a website is complete when it goes live. However, a B2B web design needs consistent monitoring and updating to ensure it is still working properly and you are focusing on the right business goals. To update your B2B website design, try these few things.

Do a Website Audit

This doesn’t need to be complicated but is an opportunity to make sure everything on your website is in proper working order. Go through each page and check for issues that need fixing, such as outdated or incorrect information, broken links, style and format issues, broken forms, and technical errors. Regularly doing website audits is one of the most important aspects of updating your website.

Check Your Website Analytics

If you can install tracking and analytics tools on your B2B website, such as Google Analytics, then you can monitor how your current website is performing. Website analytics provide data on things such as the most popular and least popular pages, pages with the highest time on page, pages with the highest bounce rates, which pages are converting visitors into leads, and more. You can see which pages are helping you generate clients and get insights into how to optimize the rest of the site based on this information. One best practice is to do A/B testing on your website. This involves creating different versions of an aspect on the website, such as the CTA, and testing them against each other to see which one performs better or drives more conversions.

Update Keywords

Keywords are an important part of your website and should be updated as your business evolves and changes. Even if you did SEO keyword research when you built your website, it’s likely these keywords will change based on your audience’s preferences and needs. It’s crucial you devote time to checking your keywords regularly. You can use tools to make this an easier process, such as Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Moz. You don’t always need to create new content for your keywords, in some cases, you can simply update your existing content to correlate with new keywords. This can be a simple and effective way to make sure that the website is up to date and still relevant without having to do a full website overhaul.

Regularly Publish Blogs

One way to keep your B2B website updated is by regularly writing and publishing blogs. How often you do this depends on your business and availability of copywriting resources. A small company may only be able to post a few times every month, whereas large businesses may have the bandwidth and resources to post every day. In addition to considering how often you publish, think about what you are hoping to accomplish with each blog post and who the target market is for each blog. Regularly posting blogs helps improve brand awareness and establishes your brand as a thought leader in the industry.

Refresh Your Existing Content

Google and search engines reward websites that publish fresh content regularly and adding new content is a quick way to update your B2B web design, especially with tools like Sharepoint Edits which make customization quick and simple. When you add new content, it can be a great way to improve your b2b web design. You don’t necessarily need to add new content to accomplish this. You can update or refresh older content that drives traffic to your website. By refreshing existing content, you are creating relevant and fresh content that may even double your traffic. For any business in an industry that is evolving, keeping your website updated and relevant is important. Not only is it important to Google, but it also helps with visitor engagement.

These tips should help to ensure your website is current and relevant. However, every few years it’s important to redesign a B2B website design and content to ensure it’s fresh, consistent with your brand, and reflects current trends in design.

How To Maximize Your Call Center Productivity – Call Center Incentive Program Ideas

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | How To Maximize Your Call Center Productivity – Call Center Incentive Program IdeasIt is important to recognize that every job position and every employee needs a bit of a boost from time to time. This is why incentive programs are critical to driving performance. This is especially true in call centers, where a highly stressful working environment can make it difficult for the employees to remain in their position for a longer time.

Due to this, most of the large organizations have a formal reward and recognition program in place. Out of those organizations, more than 70% have different call center incentive programs, ranging from 3 to 6. They are based on different incentives and aimed at individual workers. Studies show that the companies with the call center incentive program in place have increased the performance of their workers by 27%.

In a stressful working environment, your employees might feel like their efforts were not appreciate. It is likely that individual employees would work harder if they were more appreciated. This is why it is a good idea to set up formal recognition programs for your employees. These programs make employees feel appreciated and encouraged to work harder.

A good call center incentive will lead to a boost in performance and overall improvement in your company culture.

Call Center Incentive Ideas

In every call center, employees have the opportunity to work with customers to create pleasant experiences. While the work can be complex, the effects of delivering an exceptional experience to customers are worth it. However, if your employees are unhappy, they are not likely to provide a pleasant experience to your customers.

Your employee mental health, and their feeling of appreciation, are closely connected with your customer experience. In order to improve the service and the customer experience, it is critical to provide incentives that will motivate your employees to do better. And the best way to keep your employees motivated is by providing incentives that will boost productivity and maintain morale.

Here are some ideas on building a successful call center incentive strategy.

1. Awarding the Employee of the Month

It has been proved that recognition is one of the most significant call center incentives. It’s essential to recognize people for a job well done regularly. A lot of companies have an employee of the month award to recognize the efforts of their employees. You can also split your call center into teams and set up a friendly competition.

When you break up your call center into more teams, you can have more awards given. These awards can be by votes and can encourage co-workers to be supportive of their peers. Most of the employees believe that rewarding employees who perform well is important. This emphasizes to your employees that you value their efforts and notice their hard work.

A side benefit is that when their manager appreciates them, it improves their relationships. Employees end up trusting their managers, and it leads to a more positive experience for everyone. It is an essential step to recognize your best employers in order to keep them motivated. Have a variety of ways to showcase your appreciation towards your workers.

2. Set Goals for Your Team

In order to know what habits to praise and which employees to award recognition to, it is important to have set goals as an individual. The first step to this would be finding out how you can help your employees reach their goals. You can locate the people that want to advance in your company and have a talk with them. Figure out what would work the best for them as individuals and for your company as a whole.

By helping your employees achieve these career goals, you can have them working for you more productively. Get your employees to clarify their goals; you can encourage them to pursue the next stage of their life.

This might be hard to do with remote teams. You would need to rely on video calls and online conferences to connect with your team. Try using HR videos to communicate ideas more creatively across the team.

It won’t always be the case that your employees want to remain working in a call center. Some employees will have goals to move to another position. Instead of having them disengage with the work, encourage them in the work they are doing, and help them get to the next stage of their career.

There is no better way to motivate your employees, but by helping your best employees have a fantastic future for themselves. Find your workers who have ambitions toward advancement and encourage them. Help them improve their position and be better workers. Consider how to get people to the next level and develop your employees in your company.

By helping your employees become better at their job and helping them prepare for future careers, you showcase a great culture and a team mindset. Having people collaborate fosters camaraderie. It brings people together. When combined with fun events and programs, it helps people stay motivated and think about being a part of a more excellent ideal.

Combine personal goals, a fun time, collaboration, and managers that care. It makes a powerful combination and encourages people to try more for their companies.

3. Reward the Employees Who Care

Your employees will feel more appreciated if they know that the rewards are personal. They don’t have to be expensive outings or trips. Even a personalized thank you note can make a huge difference to your employees.

Having a formal recognition plan can boost employee morale. Personalized rewards are even better.

To make a personalized reward means that you need to understand what interests your employees. For example, make sure you have asked beforehand what is essential for them. This can be done by conducting focus group interviews, or by online forms and surveys. After this, formulate a plan on considering how to reward them for their work beyond better pay.

Sometimes you should consider using incentives that aren’t cash payments. It can be travel or merchandise awards. Make something personal to your employees. It can be a dream vacation or a personalized cup with a picture of their family. There are a lot of these subtle touches that can impact your relationships with your employees and boost everyone’s morale. Whenever possible, consider how to personalize your rewards and recognitions.

A way to find out what your employees care about and what interests them is to survey your employees. Try forming a pre-formatted questionnaire about different prizes, a dream vacation, and career goals. When you set up a survey it should express that you want to help them achieve their goals and get things they want in life. Even if it doesn’t match your specific goals, encouraging them will lead to increased morale and trust in your company. Employees will work harder for you and it will ultimately lead to more productivity.

4. Shake up the Routine

Agent churn can be a big issue in call centers. This is mostly due to having little room for growth and nothing is done to relieve the monotonous nature of the job at regular intervals. Not to mention that the stress in call center calls is a real thing. Your employees are front line in dealing with your customers and the customers are not always pleasant.

Then it is no wonder that call center agents rank as one of the highest turnover jobs in the world, This turnover rate can get up to 45% in certain cases.

One way to reduce turnover and poor performance is to invest in gamification to motivate employees to engage and achieve. Try setting up a few games to be played in your call center in Fridays, to make the day-to-day slightly more interesting.

5. Allow Time-Off or Working From Home

Sometimes the best reward can be some time to yourself. If you would like to set up a wonderful call center incentive program, consider making impromptu time away from the office a spot prize optional for on-the-fly recognition. According to researches, instant recognition has been linked to increased productivity, greater employee satisfaction in the workplace, enhanced teamwork, and more.

Of course, this may require some work in the resource management, but when executed correctly, it can become a fantastic incentive to perform at optimal levels throughout the day.  Having a day off, or a chance to work a few days from the comfort of their home could be a great morale boost for your loyal employees.<

6. Let Your Employees Pick Their Shifts

Because many call centers operate 24/7, employees will always have a preference for certain work shifts. This may also differ from one person to the next. Some of your employees will prefer working the nights, while some better function in the early mornings.

This is why, if possible, you should have a talk with your employees and set up the shifts in your call center according to their preference. This won’t always be possible, however, with a bit of compromise it can be a great call center incentive.