Turning The Tide: A Remarkable Journey Of Employee Engagement

Jeremy Markey, Director of CS Operations / Workforce Experience, Hunter Douglas

In the quest to raise three beautiful and well-behaved children, we encountered a curious revelation during our family trips in the Toyota Camry. Despite our best efforts to curb their squabbles and maintain harmony, the confined space of the vehicle seemed to ignite endless bickering among our little ones. Desperate for a solution, we explored various parenting techniques, but nothing seemed to quell the incessant fighting.

As fate would have it, our pursuit of a solution led us to consider a minivan, particularly the Honda Odyssey. With skepticism in tow, we test drove several SUVs, experiencing both the joys and challenges of keeping our kids content during the process. However, the Honda Odyssey held a transformative surprise in store. It was during this test drive that our exhausted and fractious children displayed astonishingly kind and well-behaved behavior, similar to their behavior outside the confines of the car.

Intrigued by this revelation, we delved deeper into the underlying dynamics of our children’s transformation and recognized the significance of the environment they were in. The minivan provided them with ample space, comfort, and freedom, which, in turn, facilitated their positive behavior. Inspired by this analogy, we embarked on a similar journey at Hunter Douglas when we faced challenges with employee engagement, realizing that the workplace environment played a pivotal role in nurturing a positive and productive workforce.

This article explores the valuable insights gleaned from our minivan epiphany and the subsequent steps we took to improve employee engagement at Hunter Douglas. By recognizing the role of the environment and fostering a conducive workplace, we set ourselves on the path to a brighter and more promising future.

Bottom Line Up Front:

We saw significant improvement across the following key performance indicators:

Coaching Effectiveness and Employee Engagement from 25th percentile to 75th percentile as measured by Gartner

Annualized attrition reduced by 60 percent

Average Speed of answer reduced by 86 percent

Agent productivity up by 27 percent

Average handle time down by 12 percent

Escalated call reduction of 94 percent

Supervisor administrative time reduced by 82 percent

How We Did It

As we entered the challenging year of 2020, our company faced a disheartening reality - our employee engagement results were lackluster, and several key performance indicators were far from satisfactory. Adding to the complexity, we had recently promoted a substantial number of new supervisors, and the pandemic forced us to transition to a remote work setup. The odds were stacked against us, and with our business experiencing exponential growth, we knew we had to act swiftly to reverse our fortunes.

“Through automation, shifting responsibilities, and outright canceling certain assignments, Supervisors regained control of their time, eliminating the need for 60+ hour workweeks and reducing escalations”

Taking proactive measures, before receiving the 2020 engagement results, we unified our workforce around a common culture and strategy through our CARE Matrix - continuously improve, anticipate needs, resolution-focused, enable success. A comprehensive nine-month training and calibration process, accompanied by distributing mouse pads imprinted with the CARE Matrix, aimed to align everyone with our vision. However, when the 2020 results arrived in early 2021, they were disappointing, placing us in the 25th percentile according to Gartner’s assessment.

Recognizing the need for a fresh approach, we embarked on formulating a new strategy. Our first step was to streamline the agent scorecard, reducing it from a cumbersome 12+ metrics to just three easily reproducible metrics: attendance, quality, and productivity. The focus now primarily rested on productivity, a novel metric for our organization. We measured the number of interactions completed versus the time spent working after accounting for shrink.

One of the pressing challenges was our rapidly deteriorating speed of answer. Dealers could be left on hold for up to six hours on our worst days, impacting customer satisfaction. Addressing this, we restructured call routing, mandated supervisors to dedicate at least 2 hours daily observing agent behaviors, and instituted a daily review session with the employee engagement director. These efforts uncovered instances of agents engaging in non-work-related activities, necessitating a more intentional approach to observation in the remote work setup.

Another critical issue we confronted was the increase in average handle time (AHT) by 10 percent during the transition between CCaaS vendors. Targeting poor performers and implementing systemic changes in after[1]call handling, we effectively reduced AHT. The key to our success lay in evaluating the after-call wrap-up timer on a queue-by-queue basis, leading to intelligent adjustments based on specific queue requirements.

To alleviate the overwhelming workload burdening our supervisors, we reevaluated and removed non-essential tasks. Through automation, shifting responsibilities, and outright canceling certain assignments, Supervisors regained control of their time, eliminating the need for 60+ hour workweeks and reducing escalations.

Simultaneously, we invested heavily in enhancing supervisor training. Custom-built training sessions were deployed, supplemented by listening to a manager tools podcast weekly. These efforts bolstered the skill set of our supervisors, equipping them to excel in their roles.

As a result of these comprehensive changes, all our internally measured key performance indicators aligned, and by late 2022, we reassessed our employee engagement levels to witness a significant improvement. Gartner itself expressed surprise at the magnitude of our progress. While we acknowledge that there is still work to be done in 2023 to further enhance employee engagement, we have achieved an all-time high in voice of the customer (VOC) and witnessed the lowest attrition rates, signaling that we are on the right path.

In conclusion, we recognized that the root cause of our poor performance did not lie with our front-line agents but rather with an unhealthy system that failed to support our front-line supervisors effectively. Through the implementation of the aforementioned changes and more, we have transformed our work environment into a healthy and thriving one, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable.

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