Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

The saying, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," suggests that work should be mixed with fun.. Ken Wisnefski, president of VendorSeek, has several ideas about how to do that:

A call center’s atmosphere is important. Call center employees communicate with customers on the phone. Happiness needs to be a part of the product. Unfortunately, there is no recipe for happiness; you cannot serve it to your workers throughout the workday. Or can you?

A happy atmosphere needs to be inspired by the management and then will be shared by the employees. Management can brainstorm to come up with ideas on how to make their specific call center’s working environment more fun. It may be coming up with themes each Friday like recognizing your favorite football team, wearing Hawaiian shirts, dressing casually, playing bingo, etc.

 

The word “work” carries with it a negative connotation. This does not have to be true about your workplace. Make your working environment productive, in addition to being enjoyable for the worker.

Some managers may have cringed reading some of these insights (make work fun?!), but they are not seeing the aforementioned “big picture.” Remember, the whole is the sum of all the parts; the more satisfied your employees, the more productive your call center.

It starts with managerial examples and implementations...

For further reading: Tom Vander Well shares a fun example from Southwest Airlines archives. The Call Center School talks about fun in the context of their Seven Techniques for Creating a Motivating Workplace.