How Dusty is Your Career Path Playbook?

Last fall, my colleague, Devin Poole, and I wrote a 3-part blog series on findings from our Global Labor Survey.  Well, the newest version of the survey has recently been released and one pair of data points really got my wheels turning.

The data says that the most “at-risk” groups of leaving the contact center organization are:

• employees who have completed a bachelor’s or university degree, and;
• employees aged 18-29

So how do you better retain folks from these two groups?  Well, the number one driver of Staff Retention is Job Opportunity (read: advancement in the company).

And the data and driver of retention may have you saying, “Well, that’s a newsflash from the Department of the Obvious”.  But what steps have you taken in your organization to create better career pathing to combat these at-risk groups?

If you’re like most organizations, you probably have an old career path playbook that hasn’t been updated in a while.  So I’d love to get your feedback on my idea for boosting retention and building a better career pathing playbook, all by creating career path opportunities in one group: Quality Assurance.

Here’s what I have in mind:

1. Quality Auditor (entry level) – even in the new competency-based model that so many organizations are adopting, there’s still a need to perform “Yes/No” analysis on some competencies that simply can’t be evaluated by a customer (things like authentication and legal & regulatory compliance).  While this entry level role may become boring quickly, it gives new team members a glance inside the QA model and gets their feet wet.
2. Quality Analyst (supervisor level) – attention is focused on either using competency-based model to evaluate customer interactions OR conducting customer interviews to evaluate customer interactions OR a combination of the two.  This role fills the bulk of QA FTEs and spends much of their time determining areas of opportunity and successes for individual staff members, then communicating those insights to the frontline staff member’s supervisor.  This group would also require a manager to oversee their activity.
3. Quality Trends Manager (line manager level) – attention is focused on evaluating QA trends for the entire center and/or service organization.  This role is focused on identifying higher level themes and providing those insights to partners within the service organization and suggesting improvements, too.  This group would also require a manager to oversee their activity.
4. Quality Senior Manager (senior manager level) – attention is focused on leading the QA team and partnering closely with colleagues at the senior management level (WFM manager, Project manager & Frontline Staff Manager(s)).

And now I’d love to hear from you?  What do you love?  What do you, well, not love? J Let me know by commenting below and thanks in advance for your input!

CCLC Resources

1)      Modernizing Quality Assurance

2)      Competency Grid Career Path

3)      Coaching-Specific Career Path

4)      Global Labor Survey