The Cost Of A No Show

The lazy, hazy days of summer are right around the corner. That’s good news as long as everyone arrives at the office on time and every day. It’s not good news if they don’t. Here are six things you can do to inspire people to go to work when the beach beckons:

1. Make Punctuality Your Priority: If you arrive at the office on time and use the hours available effectively others will follow your lead. You’ll show your staff that showing up promptly is important. Too many managers stroll in late or wander from meeting to meeting as though they have all the time in the world. The message they send their staff is that punctuality is not a priority.

2. Turn Technology Off: Let people know that play is just as important as work. Turn your Blackberry off after hours and do not respond to messages – no matter how tempting. Ask people how they spent their week-end. Pretty soon people will realize that it’s okay to stop working.

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3. Avoid a Work Hang-over: There was a time when staying too long at the local pub made it tough to go to work the next morning. Today people are more likely to suffer a work, rather than an alcohol induced hang-over because they spend the wee hours on-line rehashing the latest office gossip. Encourage people to leave the office – mentally and physically – so that they arrive fresh and ready to work in the morning.

4. Get Out of the Inbox: Encourage people to take breaks outside. Help organize a boot camp in the morning, a walking team at lunch or see what you can do to build camaraderie with a team sport. When people are active the job is fun. Everyone gets an emotional boost as a result: customers, coworkers, colleagues and clients.

5. Acknowledge Attendance: Tell people you’re happy to see them. Let them know how valuable their contribution is. They’ll come back for more.

6. Chart the Missing Person: Individuals don’t know how valuable their contribution is to the team until one of them is missing. Make a simple chart showing how many customers one person connects with in one hour. Multiply that by the number of hours in a work shift and people start to see how important it is to show up. For example, if one person handles ten calls in an hour and a shift is 8 hours long, missing one person means that 80 customers need to be handled by the remaining nine people. That isn’t just nine extra calls a day for each person – it’s a lot more stress – and a lot less time spend with each customer!

First published on Call Center IQ