Organizational Behaviour in Telemarketing Field - Case Study Example

Organizational Behaviour Case Study Introduction Telemarketing has become ubiquitous in today’s life, as telemarketers aggressively seek information from consumers for marketing their products or services. Telemarketers often seek information to push products such as credit cards, insurance for mortgages, or other products or services from a national organization. Telemarketers often call from large call centres from places in the country, where there is ample supply of cheap labour, and where the Government has installed necessary telecommunications infrastructure. Recently, call centres are being located offshore, where labour is even cheaper. Telemarketing calls are dialled by a computer and switched to a telemarketer when the phone is answered, when the telemarketer goes into pitch. In the boiler room operation, the business did not sell products or services over the phone but had salespeople as customers, who bought lists of prospects from them. The business would call people and tell them that they were conducting market research on consumer goods and services, and try to determine whether the customer had certain products such as vacuum cleaners. There were a variety of questions that would be asked to determine whether the customer had those products and credit cards. This information would be sold to vacuum cleaner sales people, and so on. The process needed a significant number of calls to generate a sizeable list. Staff would be hired to make the calls for the minimum wage. Staff would usually operate in the evening from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm, based on a script given to them that the business. The script had been prepared by the business owner, who felt that the script would generate the best results. The telemarketers would sit at the table with a phone, photocopies of pages from the phone book, script, and information sheet to be filled by the prospect. Staff did not find the work desirable, as they had to try to convince people to answer a few questions about their household and finances until there was enough information to determine whether they were qualified to buy the product. In the case study, symptoms including low job performance, absenteeism, no care for company, and going to work drunk were observed. The symptoms were resulting from high employee turnover, where new employees were unstable in their jobs. The motivation and morale was low, as there were no growth opportunities, and there was no job security. The working environment was comfortless. The training was little or lacking, and job satisfaction was low. The location of the work was not very convenient for after hours work, and the working environment was not comfortable. Payments were made in cash as the operation was “off the books.” Cash payments allowed recruitment of people who would otherwise not be available for the job. There were lots of single mothers on welfare, students with loans, people on disability pensions, people in bankruptcy, and various kinds of moonlighting workers. The requirement for staff varied wildly and the workforce was transient. Sometimes they would be busy for a month and then shut down for a few weeks. New employees were given a brief training to help them catch on the process, and tips were given about the pattern to use, answer common questions, and modification of the tone of their voice to assure customers that it was okay to answer their questions. Interventions for improvement in business performance by improving absenteeism and reducing staff turnover include staff selection and job design, and motivating staff by using suitable approaches for motivation. Improving Staff Motivating Intrinsic motivation is defined by five key precepts: meaningful work; belonging; opportunity to perform well; recognition; job design and job matching. The business operation must make a strategic plan and clearly articulate values, mission and vision. Values include what they stand for, and what they wouldn’t stand for. Mission includes what they are here to do, for whom, and in what way. Vision includes what they were as an organization and where they were headed. Employees would be motivated to follow the leadership of an organization with clear values, mission and vision. A sense of belonging could be instilled in staff by showing their role in the organisation and in the bigger industry, and providing interesting facts about the industry, such as growth rate, people employed and that they were in the right place in the industry for building a meaningful career in the industry. Scripts and demand for strict adherence is de-motivating for employees, and diminishes the real value of the telephone channel. Instead, staff should be trained, given tenure and encouraged to have meaningful dialogues with customers. Reliance on measures, such as contacts/hour and average talk time should be balanced by other measures such as, list penetration, closing percent, revenue per sale, and customer satisfaction. According to Jay Hall, author of The Competence Connection, employees want to do good work and want their work to be acknowledged by others. Recognition should recognize individual contribution, and focus on recognition of performance. Careful consideration must be given in the creation of games, contests, and incentives, as they tend to have limited impact. Closely matching motivations and behavioural preferences could result in improved staff performance. Job matching is about hiring suitable staff, whereas job design is about adapting the job to the motivations and preferences of existing people. Intrinsic motivation can thus result in lasting performance (Hurst, 2002). Improving Absenteeism Absenteeism has been defined as “non attendance of employees from scheduled work when they are expected to work.” It has been estimated that upto 50 percent of absences are caused by unavoidable circumstances, including illness, transportation problems, etc., where as other absences are attributable to avoidable reasons. A sizeable portion of absences are caused because the person prefers to remain away from work. Absenteeism is undesirable in an organization with fixed work schedules, as there could be cost implications including overtime to fill the position, overstaffing, etc. Disruptions in work, reduction in productivity, loss of experience, revision of work assignments, administration costs, and morale of other employees are indirect costs. Structural incentives have an impact on absenteeism, as there is operant conditioning. Rewarding staff for unused sick leave, by counting unused sick leave towards the length of employment for retirement purposes could provide a positive enforcement, and encourage staff to report to work more often (Camp & Lambert, 2005). Reducing Staff Turnover Turnover could be reduced by changing the job and its environment eliminating negative characteristics, and screening potential leavers during the hiring process. An approach for businesses in the case study is to make a greater effort to identify people who would find such jobs interesting and challenging. The reason for this is that employees with personality profiles associated with success and interested in the work they perform are less likely to leave. Well-constructed staff selection programs could reduce voluntary employee turnover rates, and any deficiencies could be compensated by training programs. Hiring decisions must integrate interests and personality assessment. Peoples’ behaviour remain consistent over time, thus making it possible to make predictions about their future behaviour in given situations. The Big Five or the Five Factor Model, are dimensions that have been used to describe people. The Big Five personality characteristics include conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and emotional stability. Preferences for particular types of situations or experiences are interests, and remain relatively stable over time. Like personality characteristics, interests could also be reliably assessed. A strong desire to achieve, and enjoying with others on a regular basis have been observed in telemarketing executives. They score well in emotional stability, agreeable, and conscientiousness. Attention to detail, seeking information, evaluating consequences have been observed in customer service representatives. They score high in conscientiousness, openness and emotional stability. Job fit has been described as the level of congruence between personality characteristics, interests and job demands. The Myers-Briggs tests have been used for employee development and training, Hogan Personality Inventory test have been used for selection, and several other tests are available for the selection of employees. The businesses in the case study could be more profitable by reducing staff turnover, and could increase customer satisfaction by appropriate selection of staff (Adorno, 2007). Staff Selection and Job Design Interaction between job stress and task interest have been determined to be significant predictors of turnover. An illness prevention approach and job-enrichment approach could enhance the quality of working environment. The illness prevention approach addresses job stressors that make employees dissatisfied, and the job enrichment approach involves making changes in the working environment, fostering feelings of growth and accomplishment (Zautra, Reynolds & Eblen, 1987). The person-environment fit approach has been widely accepted in the evaluation of job stress (Blau, 1981). Job satisfaction and job involvement are reliable predictors of absenteeism and turnover. Job satisfaction and effectiveness are significantly affected by motivating environments (Katzell, 1980). Motivation is important to the performance of behaviour, and a goal of behaviour change. For effectively changing behaviour, it is desirable to know the desired behaviour change and intended outcome (Clark, 2005). According to Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, when there is a discrepancy between belief and action, the person will act to resolve the conflict and discrepancy by changing their cognitions to justify behaviour, or adding cognitions to alter their views for achieving consistency and feeling comfortable. According to Heider’s attribution theory, for motivation towards behaviour change, it is advantageous when an individual has an attribution explanation of effort; task success depends on the effort put to complete the task. Positive reinforcers provide incentives for increasing behaviour, while punishers have the opposite effect. A behaviour change program has the following elements as explained by Weinreich’s synthesis of behaviour change theories. The target population must believe that they are at risk and consequences could be severe. The proposed behaviour will lower risk or prevent the problem. The advantages of behaviour performance outweigh disadvantages, and they intend to perform behaviour. They have the skills necessary for behaviour performance, and behaviour is consistent with self image. There is greater social pressure to perform behaviour than not to perform, and the barriers to perform are lesser than not to perform it. The top ten factors for smooth behaviour change include knowledge, relevance, costs and benefits of change, barriers to change, self-efficacy, self-image, norms, commitment, prompts, and incentives. Knowledge, relevance, costs and benefits could be achieved by increasing awareness about the issues and benefits of behaviour change. Barriers to change should be identified and addressed. Highlighting the necessary skills and that everyone could change improve self-efficacy. Normative pressure could be created by identifying those with improved performance, and reinforcing the belief that they all could do something. It is important to gain commitment for inducing change, and timely prompts are needed to remind them what they are trying to change and how. Incentives are necessary for rewarding positive behaviour, and being careful not to damage intrinsic motivation (Clark, 2005). Approaches for Motivation An important tool for motivating staff is consistent coaching and feedback. This could make staff feel special and create opportunities for meeting with the management. This requires implementation of a quality program for measurement of staff performance, and in comparison to their peers on a monthly basis. A pleasurable attitude to work could lead the staff to be motivated and thereby increasing productivity. This could be achieved by creating a workplace that is different and fun. There should be career path opportunities for staff, such as team leader training programs and opportunities for cross functional experiences with management (Furniss, 2003). The business should analyze average compensation in the industry to ensure that compensation offered is attractive and in line with market averages. Salary increases should be in proportion to contribution, and more frequent. Criteria include results, monitoring, and quality of work. Bonuses should be calculated based on quality and performance (LEcuyer, 2004). An incentive program should create opportunities for staff, monitor staff performance and award points, and provide an opportunity to do something exciting. Examples of rewards include actual goods or items, vouchers, additional annual leave, flex-time credits or other benefits, vouchers for education, training, etc (Sigmer, 2008). The physical working environment should be designed to minimize physical stress. This includes ergonomic considerations, such as furniture, lighting, air conditioning, and ambient air quality. A working environment contributes to employee morale and well being. Staff should be provided awareness on occupational health hazards that could result from such stressors and how to deal with them effectively (Parker & Ohly, 2007). Training programs often miss the voice of the customer. The business operation should develop a training program to train staff to leverage the voice of the customer to enhance experience, apply analytics, improve staff confidence levels, improve communication skills, developing organizational policy, and delivering credibility through consistency (Monger & Nickerson, 2005). Conclusion A vision, mission and values development plan has been envisaged. Employees would be motivated to follow the leadership of an organization with clear values, mission and vision. A human resources plan has been developed, where stable and reliable employees would be hired, and staff selected more carefully. This includes a plan for staff selection and job design to keep employees motivated, and training has been planned for staff to optimize performance. Solutions for these problems have been based on human resources practices, theories of motivations, work conditions, leadership and company’s vision. Intrinsic motivation could be attained by meaningful work, belonging, opportunity to perform well, recognition, job design and job matching. Motivations include wages, recognitions and rewards. Wages have been linked to performance, and the pay would be proportional to industry averages and performance. Star employees would be recognized, and rewards would be awarded. Working conditions have been improved, based on ergonomic considerations. Absenteeism could be addressed by rewarding staff for unused sick leave, by counting unused sick leave towards the length of employment for retirement purposes could provide a positive enforcement, and encouraging staff to report to work more often. Turnover could be reduced by changing the job and its environment eliminating negative characteristics, screening potential leavers during the hiring process and designing jobs that match abilities and aspirations of staff. Positive reinforcers provide incentives for increasing behaviour, while punishers have the opposite effect. Rewards could be actual goods or items, vouchers, additional annual leave, flex-time credits or other benefits, vouchers for education, training, etc. The physical working environment should be designed based on ergonomic considerations, such as furniture, lighting, air conditioning, and ambient air quality to minimize staff stress as the working environment contributes to employee morale and well being. The training program should train staff to leverage on the voice of the customer to enhance experience, apply analytics, improve staff confidence levels, improve communication skills, develop organizational policy, and delivering credibility through consistency. References Adorno, Anthony J. (2007). Understanding and Combating Employee Turnover in Call Centers. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from The DeGarmo Group, Inc Web site: http://www.degarmogroup.com/pdf/Employee_Turnover_Article.pdf Blau, Gary. (1981).An empirical investigation of job stress, social support, service length, and job strain. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance. 27, Issue 2, 279-302. Camp, Scott D. & Lambert, Eric G. (2005 07 07). THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL INCENTIVES ON ABSENTEEISM: SICK LEAVE USE AMONG CORRECTIONAL WORKERS. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from U.S. Department of Justice Web site: http://www.bop.gov/news/research_projects/published_reports/prison_mgmt/sick_cjpr.pdf Clark, Ben. (2005). Motivation and behaviour change. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from Brightplace Web site: http://www.brightplace.org.uk/pdfs/motivate.pdf Furniss, Bob. (2003). Motivating Your Workforce:Techniques For Your Contact Center. [Brochure]. Bartlett, TN: Touchpoint Associates, inc. Hurst, Clifford G. (2002). Motivation that Lasts. [Brochure]. Dayton, Maine: Career Impact, Inc. Katzell, Raymond A. (1980).Work attitudes, motivation, and performance. . Professional Psychology. 11(3), 409-420. LEcuyer, Mariane. (2004). How Motivating and Compensating Agents can Help Improve Your Bottom Line. [Brochure]. Verdun, QC: BCE Elix. Monger, Jodie & Nickerson, Anne. (2005). Customer-Driven Training: Using the Voice of the Customer to Maximize your ROI. [Brochure]. Sterling, Virginia: Customer Relationship Metrics. Parker, Sharon K. & Ohly, Sandra. (2007). Designing Motivating Jobs. [Brochure]. Sheffield: SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series. Sigmer Technologies Ltd. (2008). Incentivise Press Coverage. [Brochure]. Brighton, East Sussex: Sigmer Technologies Ltd. Zautra, Alex J., Reynolds, Kim D. & Eblen, Cristóbal. (1987).Some determinants of employee turnover in a psychiatric facility. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research. 15, 11-17. Read More