June 12, 2009 – Rachel or Che and I had a meeting with Senior Operations Manager of the AT&T program in Convergys Commonwealth. I was able to talk with other technical support agents of our program. They have different opinions and suggestions about the account’s development. Here are some of the agendas or concerns that were discussed:
• Pay slip. One of the agents, a lady, vouches the clearer information about the salary/pay, deductions and bonuses/incentives. The Senior Operations Manager explained that the said document was printed from Malaysia or Singapore. She explained that some employees or merely one percent (1%) were experiencing discrepancies due to human error.
• Human Resource Department’s attitude towards their treatment to some agents. We discussed the unhelpful attitude of some H.R. persons with regards to documents. The Senior Operation Manager explained that due to transfers of headquarters, some documents were not found. They therefore utilized an A-21 file to save documents and explained that there is an outsourcing who keeps the documents of the employees. The Senior Operations Manager and Administration Assistant noted the Human Resource Personnel who was described unhelpful to the agents.
• The Personal but Responsible Shouldered Project Proposal for headsets. Jethro, a tenured agent who suggested having a personal headset due to healthy propositions. As some would know, the headset is utilized once and forever for it is connected to the AVAYA, a phone used in contact centers. He proposed the said personal headset for some agents might have pulmonary contagious disease that may contract by others.
• A Medical Doctor who will be on duty from twelve midnight onwards. The shift of a medical doctor in the contact center is until twelve midnight only, they are concern if there might be any emergencies. The Senior Operations Manager noted the said issue.
• Operations. I asked about the PMP or Performance Management Program and Remediation Program whom the Senior Operations Manager explained that it is a company policy on which each agent must perform according to the client’s requirements in order for the program to stay. She explained that the only way to pass each metric is through self-motivation. One of the agents voiced out that, we should not be selfish; everything we do has a positive or negative effect to the program. Therefore, we must be aware about our performance.
• The Dedicated Escalations Issue. Some of the agents are unaware about their Tier 2 or support person that will help them while doing troubleshooting. The Senior Operations Manager will do actions by hearing the sides of each party: the Tier 1 agent and Tier 2 agent about the calls. She also told us that they will impose Incident Reports to any support groups who will refuse the escalation whether or not the Tier 1 agent has a valid basis to escalate the call.
The meeting was adjourned at about six o’clock in the morning. We have eaten a full appetizing sandwich with refillable Iced Tea. The Coffee Session has been an open forum to voice out some discrepancies towards the Management, Human Resource, Facilities and Operations concerns. Let us be pro active in our jobs. In that way, there would be a channeling towards one goal. This is a quotation I’ve learned from my previous trainer in my first contact center job, “Love your work and it will pay you back”.
I write because it's a medicine. It nurses my craft.
