Last week, I spent time with the director of marketing for one of the nation’s largest mail-order organizations. Being a seasonal business, she and her team hire more than 1000 call center staffers for a two month period beginning on Nov. 1st of every year.
She complained of the frustration she experiences annually with the 200 or more “warm bodies” who end up at a work station providing less-than-adequate customer service. This costs the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in abandoned orders, mistakes and angry customers. In asking a few questions, I discovered that the recruitment and selection of seasonal staffers is performed by
the HR staff in each of the three locations. They are tasked with the job of attracting and hiring people willing to work for a short period of time in a pressure filled environment where callers can be demanding, rude, and downright dense. I asked which was more important, all the slots being filled or the quality of the hires.
“We have to have both,” she said. But then, after a pause, admitted, “I realize that’s not possible.” After some more discussion about how to resolve this conundrum, I asked “Have you ever had this conversation with the HR folks?” She admitted that they had danced around it a few times, but never resolved the issue. “They keep saying how hard it is to simply recruit enough people to fill the positions.”
“It sounds like both departments need to sit down and have a meeting of the minds,” I said. “Your concern is the cost of employing people who make mistakes and abandon their jobs. Their concern is finding enough people to fill the slots. Have you ever shared your costs with them?” She admitted she hadn’t. “That’s the place to start,” I said.
Often times, we make assumptions about others motives without verifying that the objectives are the same. The longer we take to do this, the more money this disconnect generally costs.