Published on: 06 April 2016
Last Updated on: 29 June 2021
Call Center employees are into a most demanding job as they represent the human face of a specific brand or organization while delivering one of the best excellent customer services. Given the intense rhythm of a call center and sometimes isolated nature of an agent’s work, team building in a call center industry is considered to be the most essential thing of motivating the employees, enhancing their sense of camaraderie, and sharing their learning driving their productivity. Given here are the five major ideas and strategies for bringing out the team spirit in a call center through team-building activity.
4 Creative Team Building Ideas for a Call Center Industry:
1. Role Play:
Roleplay generally shows the customer service representatives that they could rely on their team members for advice and feedback, giving them an opportunity to ask questions about how they could handle calls in a better manner, allowing employees to walk away from the session with some tips that could apply while receiving calls. Have employees act out scripts one with a customer calling placing an order, and the other disgruntled customer who has not received an order yet. Have your employee being acted as a customer while the other as the customer representative and then switching their roles again.
2. Gamification:
Gamification is one of the most popular trends in the call center industry posing a variety of benefits such as healthy competition, optimizing the training of all the call center employees, and employee motivation to succeed. Call center industry representatives would here compete with each other in order to reach specified goals like achieving first call resolution or signing into new accounts. Gamification is here likely being used to train and assess the agents in a fun yet meaningful way. Agents would share one of the best practices with their friends and employees while being motivated to achieve their best for every business activity they have been doing.
3. Hosting a holiday drive:
During a holiday season have your employees work as a team to collect items for a charity drive. To begin collecting from toys and all the non-perishable foods in order to winter the clothing and blankets. So plan to donate to one or the other several households or to a non-profit organization. Call center to begin to be fulfilled, as they give the community back with the things they need, and continue to feel proud that they along with their fellow co-worker making a difference. Once the drive ends to reinforce the idea of working as a team in order to achieve the goals relating the ideas to provide one of the best services over the phone.
4. Shared Learning:
Agents would continue to feel like a team where their ideas are heard and exchanged among the team members. And in addition to meeting the above best practices, call centers could here make a step further encouraging the employees to read books together in a book club format attending a webinar that is related to their business, or taking classes with the continuous post-activity decision on internal social networks exchanging ideas and take away.
To conclude Call center organizations are typically a force behind the success of customer service and sales, so it does become critical enough to foster a team spirit through call center team building that would recognize the individual potential while establishing their common goals and best practices. Through the team building activities, the employee would here tend to feel more motivated enough to do their best while learning and meeting their professional goals.
Abdul Aziz Mondol is a professional blogger who is having a colossal interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, he loves to share content related to business, finance, technology, and the gaming niche.
Are you struggling to keep pace with the ever-evolving demands of your Agile projects? In today's fast-paced development environment, scaling your team efficiently is not just an option; it's a necessity. Therefore, you must use staff augmentation, a strategic solution that can rapidly accelerate your Agile project delivery.
Discover how integrating skilled professionals into your team can bring unparalleled flexibility and expertise, significantly boosting your project's efficiency.
We'll explore the tangible benefits, practical strategies, and insightful best practices to help you effectively scale your Agile team through staff augmentation.
Get ready to transform the way you manage your projects and achieve remarkable results.
Understanding Staff Augmentation: A Quick Primer
Staff augmentation is a flexible strategy for outsourcing the right talent for the right job. This strategy is followed by big firms globally for managing augmented teams.
Unlike conventional hiring, which often involves a lengthy recruitment process and long-term commitments, staff augmentation offers a nimble approach to scaling teams.
This strategy is particularly beneficial for businesses needing specialized skills for short-term projects or to fill temporary skill gaps.
Here’s a breakdown of how staff augmentation differs from traditional hiring:
Time Efficiency: Staff augmentation services enable quick onboarding of skilled professionals, reducing the time-to-hire significantly compared to the traditional recruitment process.
Cost-Effectiveness: It eliminates many overhead costs associated with full-time employees, such as benefits, office space, and long-term contracts.
Flexibility and Scalability: Companies can scale their teams up or down based on project requirements without the long-term commitment of a full-time hire.
Types Of Staff Augmentation
There are three main types of staff augmentation, which are:
Short-term: Typically used for specific projects with tight deadlines or to cover temporary absences.
Long-term: Ideal for extended projects where ongoing support is required.
Specialized: Focuses on providing experts in niche areas or new technologies that are not present in-house.
Understanding these distinctions and the types of staff augmentation available helps businesses make informed decisions about how to effectively scale their teams and meet project demands.
This approach is increasingly popular in Agile environments, where adaptability and speed are key.
The Role Of Staff Augmentation In Agile Project Management
Integrating augmented staff into Agile teams can significantly enhance project management efficiency.
In Agile environments, where adaptability and rapid iteration are paramount, augmented staff provides the necessary skills and manpower to meet fluctuating project demands.
Impact on Agile Processes and Workflows:
Enhanced Skill Set: Augmented staff bring specialized skills that might be lacking in the current team, facilitating more diverse and innovative approaches to problem-solving.
Increased Flexibility: They allow Agile teams to quickly adapt to changing project requirements, ensuring that deadlines are met without compromising on quality.
Improved Productivity: With more hands on deck, teams can manage larger workloads more efficiently, accelerating project timelines.
A practical example of successful integration can be seen in a tech startup that leveraged professional IT staff augmentation to speed up the development of a new software product.
Facing a tight deadline, the startup augmented its existing team with skilled developers who specialized in the required technology stack.
This integration allowed the team to maintain Agile methodologies, like daily stand-ups and sprint planning, while effectively managing the increased workload.
As a result, the product was developed and launched within the desired timeframe, demonstrating the effectiveness of staff augmentation in Agile project management.
The key to success in such integration lies in ensuring that the augmented staff are not only skilled but also align with the company's Agile culture and practices.
This alignment ensures seamless collaboration and optimal results.
Benefits Of Staff Augmentation For Agile Teams
Staff augmentation offers a myriad of benefits to Agile teams, enabling them to tackle projects more effectively and efficiently. Here are some of the key advantages:
1. Access To Specialized Skills And Expertise
Staff augmentation allows Agile teams to bring in professionals with specific skill sets that may be lacking internally.
This is especially valuable for projects requiring niche expertise or for navigating emerging technologies.
2. Flexibility And Scalability
Agile projects often fluctuate in scope and scale, necessitating a flexible workforce.
Staff augmentation provides the ability to scale the team size up or down based on the current needs of the project, ensuring that resources are optimally utilized.
3. Cost-Effectiveness And Efficiency
By augmenting staff, companies can avoid the long-term costs associated with permanent hires, such as benefits, training, and other overheads.
This approach is also efficient in reducing recruitment time, enabling teams to focus more on project delivery rather than on lengthy hiring processes.
4. Enhanced Productivity
With additional skilled resources, Agile teams can manage workloads more effectively, leading to increased productivity.
This also allows for faster turnaround times on projects, as tasks can be distributed more evenly and handled more competently.
5. Focus On Core Business
Augmentation frees up internal resources, allowing teams to focus on core business activities.
This is particularly beneficial for smaller teams or startups, where internal resources are often stretched thin.
Overcoming Common Challenges In Staff Augmentation
While staff augmentation offers significant benefits to Agile teams, it also comes with its own set of challenges.
Addressing these effectively is key to leveraging the full potential of this strategy.
1. Addressing Skill Gaps And Training Needs
One of the primary challenges is ensuring that augmented staff possess the right skill sets and are up to date with the latest technologies.
Regular training and professional development opportunities are essential to bridge any skill gaps.
2. Navigating Administrative And Legal Considerations
Augmenting staff often involves dealing with contracts, legal compliance, and administrative tasks, especially when hiring internationally.
It's important to have a clear understanding of these aspects or work with a partner who can manage them.
3. Ensuring Quality And Performance
Maintaining the quality of work and ensuring the performance of augmented staff can be challenging.
Setting up key performance indicators (KPIs), regular performance reviews, and continuous feedback mechanisms can help in monitoring and maintaining work standards.
4. Cultural And Communication Barriers
Augmented teams might face challenges due to cultural differences and communication barriers, especially in a remote working environment.
Encouraging open communication, cultural sensitivity training, and team-building activities can mitigate these issues.
5. Integration With Existing Teams
Ensuring seamless integration of augmented staff with existing teams is critical.
This requires clear communication of roles, responsibilities, and project goals, along with fostering a collaborative team culture.
The Best Staff Augmentation Practices In 2024
If you want to make the most of staff augmentation for agile project management, here are some necessary practices that you must inculcate:
1. Maintaining Clear Communication
If you wish to have a strong team that gets theory work done on time with zero errors, having clear and open communication channels is a necessity.
Having proper communication between all the members of the team is necessary for development. This is because it facilitates everyone in the team to work together and solve any issues that may crop up.
Moreover, open communication improves team bonding, which is crucial for all team members to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This helps the team leaders to make better decisions regarding the allocation of work according to everyone's strengths and expertise.
Therefore, use team communication tools like Slack, Asana, Trello, Skype, and Microsoft Teams.
2. Clearly Define Job Roles
To get the most out of staff augmentation, you must define everyone’s job roles. If all members of your team know what they must do - and what they shouldn’t do - to get the job done, it prevents chaos and conflicts between your team members.
Moreover, having clear job roles will make everyone's daily tasks clear. In addition, having a job role comes with various expectations. Therefore, it will help team leaders better measure the performance and efficacy of team members.
3. Learn How To Use Project Management Tools
If you want to lead a project from initiation to its completion, you and your staff must use the best project management tools in 2024.
Project management tools provide better documentation and storage of all work done by your team. Moreover, this helps in staff augmentation since many outsourced employees might be from other countries. Therefore, giving them limited access to to your sheets will help you better track and manage their work.
The best project management tools in 2024 are Trello, Jira, and Microsoft Office 365.
4. Encourage Documentation-Driven Development
How do you know that an outsourced staff member has done their work? No word of mouth will be tolerated here. The only permissible proof is proper documentation of your work.
Therefore, team leaders and managers should encourage a work culture where all staff members (especially augmented staff members) must have proper and updated documentation of their daily work.
This will help you keep track of everyone’s work and help you asses future actions and strategies.
Conclusion: Scale Your Agile Team with Staff Augmentation
In conclusion, staff augmentation emerges as a powerful strategy for scaling Agile teams, addressing skill gaps, and enhancing project delivery efficiency.
This approach provides a pragmatic solution to the dynamic challenges of modern project management, offering flexibility, specialized expertise, and cost-effectiveness.
To recap the key benefits:
Access to a global talent pool for specialized skills.
Scalability to meet fluctuating project demands.
Cost savings compared to traditional hiring.
Increased productivity and efficiency.
However, it's important to approach staff augmentation with a strategic mindset.
Choosing the right partner, ensuring cultural and process alignment, and effectively managing augmented staff are crucial steps towards success.
Additionally, overcoming challenges like administrative hurdles, quality assurance, and team integration is essential for a seamless experience.
Moreover, following the best staff augmentation practices will help you manage and track everyone’s work. In addition, it also facilitates clearer communication with outsourced staff members as well.
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Being a small-business owner, you have been putting your whole-hearted efforts to make your business venture a success. You have been working long hours, traveling for client meetings to different cities, staying away from home for days on stretch and also investing all your personal savings and assets to take your business to new heights. Now that you have put your business on the path to growth, it suddenly dawns on you that you have not been able to pay adequate attention to your financials. Now when there is a significant opportunity in front of you in the form of a brilliant idea, which will change the future course of your business, you find that you do not have necessary funds to put that into practice. You feel anguished and frustrated, but that is not going to serve any purpose. So rather than ruing your ill-luck, its better you start looking at other options that you must explore, to meet your financial requirements. One of the most obvious options is availing an Unsecured Small Business Loan.
What is an Unsecured Small Business Loan?
Business Loans that are available to small business owners for their desired purpose without any requirement of collateral are called Unsecured Small Business Loans. These loans are extended by all financial institutions in India, private sector as well as public sector. You are free to utilize the loan amount for any purpose you may deem suitable including the purchase of machinery, upgradation of infrastructure, renovation of office premises etc. There are two types of unsecured business loans in the market NBFC business loans and Bank business loans. The repayment of these loans is to be made in monthly EMIs.
Advantages of Small Business Loans
Small business loans offer a flexible source of funding for you to meet your urgent financial requirements. There are various advantages provided by small business loans such as: -
No dilution in ownership :
When you take a small business loan from a financial institution, you need not provide any collateral and are free to utilize the money in any way you want for your business purpose. The lender does not have anything to do with the way you have spent the money, as long as you repay your EMIs on time. This ensures that the ownership of business stays with you and is not diluted. This is a better option compared to other sources as venture capital or personal borrowing, where you must give up a part of your ownership of your business in lieu of money.
Taxation Benefits :
Small business loans are to be repaid in monthly installments, which comprise principal component and interest component. The interest that you pay on loan is allowed as an expense, and you can claim tax benefits against the same. This, in turn, reduces your tax burden, and the loan in effect costs less in practicality. No other source of funding offers this option.
No Collateral required :
If you do not have any collateral to be hypothecated with the financial institution, then unsecured business loans are your only option. This is an ideal situation for new businesses or start-ups who have a great idea but do not have any collateral to be mortgaged. If required by the lender, you can get a guarantor on board.
Lower Interest Rates :
Unsecured small business loans have a more moderate rate of interest as compared to various other sources of finance such as credit cards or private money lenders. Lower interest rates mean lower EMIs which translate into a lesser burden on your finances. In some cases, the government also offers subsidies on unsecured business loans to help small business owners have easy access to credit at lower interest rates.
No stress on working capital :
When you are able to avail an unsecured business loan, you get spare money at your disposal, which can help you in getting better deals from your suppliers and vendors. Moreover, this ensures that you need not withdraw money from your working capital and thus you can meet your daily expenses conveniently. Also, as the EMIs are to be paid on a monthly basis only, you do not have to put pressure on your cash cycle by withdrawing huge sums together.
Flexibility in Repayment :
some NBFC business loans come with the option for EMI holiday or flexible repayment options, where you only need to pay interest on the loan as your EMI for a specified period, in the beginning, this way your EMI payments, in the beginning, is reduced and you get time to manage your financial position. The principal amount for this mortarium period is adjusted over the remaining period of the loan.
Unsecured small business loans offer a lot of benefits for you. But you must conduct proper research and analysis before you take a final decision regarding the loan.
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Once you’re ready to sell your small business, hiring a business broker tops your list. An article from this perfectly defines the role of business brokers that is to act as “intermediaries between buyers and sellers of a business”. They are the equivalent of real estate brokers or agents who sell properties on behalf of property owners.
Business brokers manage everything necessary to sell your small business, from planning to marketing to closing the deal. Some even assist during the transition process. Considering such an enormous task, enlisting a broker may seem the easiest and most convenient thing to do. However, their service comes with an outrageous fee, usually around 10% commission from the sale. This is certainly a huge cut from your profits.
If you want to retain the full profit from the sale, you can opt to sell your small business sans middlemen. This is an excellent choice especially if you have previous experience selling a business, you know of prospective buyers, or you’re not in a hurry to sell-off. However, when you decide to sell your business on your own, you have to be ready for a tedious legwork.
So, how do you go about the sale?
Know your reason for selling the small business
According to a business broker, the first thing that a buyer would want to know is why a business is being sold. For a business to attract a potential buyer, you need to have a good reason.
Some of the common reasons are retirement, sudden changes in personal circumstances, illness or death, boredom, partnership disputes, and burnout. Prospective buyers find these as ‘attractive’ reasons to buy a business.
It may be harder to sell a business if you tell the buyer that you’re selling the business due to its sorry financial state, persistent losses, lack of manpower, and changing market conditions and trends.
Make your business easily marketable by timing your sale properly. Show positive attributes to make it more marketable such as a strong customer base, increased profitability, consistent good financials, well-defined business processes, and a good contract.
Plan your sale
Prepare your business at least two years ahead of the sale, especially if you won’t enlist a broker. Have an ample amount of time to improve your client base, business structure, and financial records. This will help improve the value of your business and make it more attractive to buyers. This should also help ease the transition process.
Get your business appraised
Once you’re ready to sell, you need to decide on the worth of your business. It is best to work with a professional business appraiser to get a proper valuation. Often, business owners become illogical when it comes to evaluating their own business. Some price is too low in an attempt to make it more marketable but end up losing on potential profit. Others price it too high hence making it unattractive to potential buyers.
A business appraiser will evaluate your business to determine its worth. He then prepares a detailed explanation to give credibility to the proposed price.
Prepare all documents
Give time in preparing the design or sales package for your business. This document represents your business in the best possible light to potential buyers. It should include financial, operational and marketing information. If you are not comfortable with your communication skills, you can enlist the help of professional business writers.
Financial documents are an important part of the sale process. Gather your books of account, financial statements, and tax returns for the past four years. Review these documents with an accountant. In addition, develop a list of assets that are being sold along with the business. Include other necessary documents such as lease agreements, supplier contracts, and contact lists.
Prepare an information packet or operating manual that provides an overview of your business processes. In addition, you want to add photographs of your business, testimonials, case studies, and customer profiles. Highlight accomplishments and milestones to make it more marketable and command better-asking price.
Prepare your business on-site
Alongside the documentary preparations, you should also make your business site presentable. Check your physical store, production site, warehouse, and other related locations. You might need to have some areas repainted or redeveloped. Check if equipment or machinery needs to be replaced or fixed before the sale. Investing in such developments can help improve the asking price.
It might sound cliché but first impressions last. An unkempt and dilapidated business site might turn off a potential buyer. It pays to invest in your physical asset as soon as you decide to sell on your own.
Look for a buyer to sell your small business
Finding a buyer is difficult, but it becomes doubly challenging if you don’t have a business broker. Unless you have a ready buyer, it may take several months to years before you can find the right buyer.
The advantage of hiring a business broker is that they have wide networks and established marketing methods. If you are working solo, you will need to compensate for these services. There are listing sites dedicated to businesses-on-sale. You only need to pay a one-time fee and your business becomes available to potential buyers.
You can also tap your networks. Perhaps, a friend or an acquaintance (or someone they know) is planning to buy a business. You can check your local business clubs or chambers. Visit online forums and social networks. Don’t limit your advertising methods.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, if you sell your small business without a broker is possible. It can even be advantageous if you play an active role in the sales and negotiation process. Quite obviously, business owners are more passionate to sell their business to the right buyers. Of course, you just have to remain rational and avoid getting your emotions to affect your decisions.
As a final caution, if you have no experience selling and buying a business, you should consider working with a business broker or someone who has experience in this field. Better yet, you can check with your local chamber of commerce for assistance and counseling.
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