Case Study for Assessment

Team Leaders at Red Telecom Australia

1. Organisational Change Context

Red Telecom (‘Red'), a relatively prominent Australian Telecommunications carrier, services both business and residential sectors with a comprehensive range of high-speed broadband, data, internet, fibre optic internet, web hosting and home phone products. One year ago, Red underwent a global restructure in its technical and customer service divisions. This was in line with the increased global expansion of the company - moving most of these divisions out of Australia. The customer service division experienced changes in customer call operations. Previously, the overseas, outsourced call centres had only handled surplus enquiries and after-hours service for Australian customers. Today, after undergoing cultural training and technical training, operators within overseas call centres in various locations service all calls from Australian customers.

The Technical Division, along with its different levels of technical support, were also relocated overseas. They now liaise with sub-contracted, onsite technicians in Australia to service business and home customers on-site; in relation to faulty ADSL and phone connections. The Customer Resolution Department remained in Australia. Red Telecom experienced a sharp rise in complaints from Australian customers in regards to the relocated overseas frontline customer service and technical support. Customers were reporting frustration at language and cultural difficulties when discussing their accounts with overseas operators, and they were also upset at changes to pricing policies and processes such as bill payment. The latter had become stricter in terms of timelines and frequently resulted in customer disconnection.

2. Problem Statement

The Australian Customer Resolution Department received an unprecedented number of calls in the first six months of the change; and staff felt stressed and frustrated with their jobs, customers, colleagues and their overseas counterparts. This was fuelled by their sense of loss in terms of colleagues, and changes to the old structure of the company. As a result of this overload, Red decided to restructure and expand this section. Part of the restructure meant a relocation of the Customer Resolution Department to an Australian call centre; the formation of multiple work teams; multiskilling of team members; and the introduction of updated Team Leader roles. Management's rationale was that these changes would facilitate an environment of increased support, empowerment and innovative solutions for disgruntled Australian customers, which would in turn (it was positively believed) impact on the company, and perceptions of Red's service quality.

At the same time, a more comprehensive performance management system was implemented at Red. The new Team Leaders were asked to use call recordings and survey results from customers to give their team members evaluative performance feedback. This led to some discord and the feeling that the appraisal process was not conducted fairly or professionally.

3. Training Needs Analysis Findings

A number of training needs analysis (TNA) instruments were used to determine the training requirements needed to meet the identified skills gap, including:
1) feedback from performance reviews conducted with the Team Leaders
2) discussions with upper level managers and employees
3) self-reporting of Team Leaders through surveys
4) an analysis of critical incidents with employees
5) the nature of customer complaints; and
6) feedback from team members and overseas staff.

The position of the Team Leader was seen as a pivotal role in the Customer Resolution Department. The TNA relating to this role indicated that those currently employed in the Department lacked the required skill level to deal with: strategic internal changes, escalated complaints (i.e. customers forwarded to them after operators could not resolve their issues), tensions with overseas colleagues over customer service issues, and the resulting workplace communications. General results are outlined under Section 5. below.

4. Brief Outline of Client Trainee Group

The new Team Leader role within the Customer Resolution Department is seen to be central to the implementation of Red's change goals, due to their contact with clients, frontline employees, and global call centres. The role had resulted after the downsizing of the Supervisor role, previously positioned above this role. Some of the Team Leaders were recruited from existing Supervisors who felt that they had been demoted while still asked to perform some of their previous duties now incorporated into the new lower-level role. Others came through the ranks or from new external recruits. Prior to entering their new positions, new recruits were given a one-week induction into the role. Initially it was proposed that experienced managers would individually mentor each new recruit; however, this did not eventuate due to the managers' workloads.

5. Result Observations

- There was tension between the new recruits and the Team Leaders who had formally been Supervisors - the latter wanting to retain some of their old power and reluctant to share information.

- There had also been an overall replacement of older staff, mainly male, by both women and culturally diverse workers at each of the management, Team Leader and team member levels.

- Morale was found to be low amongst team members reporting to the Team Leaders, due to a sense of inappropriately delivered feedback gained from call monitoring and subsequent evaluations. Team members reported being stressed and nervous about their performance and their jobs. Team Leaders had tended to use a micro-managing approach with team members, even an autocratic style, to maintain the order they felt necessary to meet new strategic goals.

- Several team members complained about not receiving information or support from Team Leaders when dealing with disgruntled clients who were occasionally abusive. It appears Team Leaders sometimes avoided taking escalated cases - reportedly because they felt uneasy about their skills to resolve the customer's issues. They also felt the company did not support non-standard resolutions.

- Team meetings were reportedly disorganised and unfocused with poorly written agendas. Some long-term workers felt that their workload had increased and blamed the Team Leaders. They were reportedly resistant to changes implemented by the Team Leaders and with working with the new team members that the company had hired, which resulted in increased workplace incidents. Team Leaders found themselves sometimes unable to deal with these incidents, which tended to involve both new and long-term employees

- and were often about behavioural issues. Several of these had resulted in claims of bullying and sexual harassment.

- Much of the resistance among long-term workers was the result not just of the new work restructuring and the subsequent loss of peers, but of the increased electronic surveillance in the workplace and the extensive call monitoring with the shift to the call centre and the move to an appraisal-style performance management system. Team members felt that Team Leaders had apparently failed to give timely information about the process.

- Team Leaders felt that there was a lot to learn about the company product changes, policies and global changes. This sometimes affected their ability to make timely decisions for customers and employees.

- Team Leaders reported many other issues - including dealing with budgets and information software. They themselves felt that they had not been adequately prepared for their roles, especially the conducting of performance management and dealing with customer concerns, and were beginning to be resentful about being "shoved in it."

- Overall, the Customer Resolution Call Centre was deemed as a stressful place to work and suffered a high turnover of staff.

6. Improvement Interventions?

As a manager to whom the Team Leaders report, consider what HRD interventions are needed for this group.