At a latest occasion, I spoke to a Chief Know-how Officer (CTO) about the way it was not untypical for him to have a day of 14 back-to-back half-hour conferences. He defined that this began throughout the early a part of the pandemic, and by 4 pm, he was completely exhausted and struggled to remain centered and concentrate. He added, nevertheless, that over time he received used to such a heavy schedule and was capable of handle his power and focus higher.
On listening to this story, I commented that whereas I usually hear tales like this from all types of executives at completely different companies, I’m usually left questioning how of us find yourself doing any work if they’re in back-to-back conferences all day.
I requested barely tongue-in-cheek how we had gotten to his level, provided that I might by no means seen a job description that contained any goal that required an individual to attend as many conferences as bodily attainable.
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This raised a number of smiles and fairly a number of nods.
While my remark was playful, it additionally contained a critical level and one which I’ve made to many executives about how they need to actively handle their time to create the area needed to essentially take into consideration and perceive the challenges they’re going through.
I used to be occupied with that dialog once more the opposite day once I got here throughout some research from Microsoft concerning the impression on our brains and emotional state when now we have back-to-back conferences.
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Utilizing an electroencephalography [EEG] cap, the Microsoft analysis group have been capable of monitor {the electrical} exercise within the mind of back-to-back assembly individuals. Unsurprisingly, they discovered that back-to-back digital conferences are disturbing, and a collection of conferences can lower your skill to focus and interact.
Nonetheless, the analysis additionally discovered that introducing brief breaks between conferences to permit folks to maneuver, stretch, collect their ideas or seize a glass of water can assist cut back the cumulative buildup of stress throughout a collection of conferences.
That is actually helpful perception, and I hope that extra executives and their groups embrace the introduction of those brief breaks between conferences to scale back stress, help well-being and preserve consideration ranges.
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However I’ve additionally been occupied with whether or not these analysis findings have a broader software.
Particularly, I have been occupied with whether or not the calls taken by customer support brokers could possibly be analogous to a collection of very brief, back-to-back conferences. If they’re, that has ramifications for the quantity of stress customer support representatives need to cope with. That is introduced into sharp focus when you think about that the typical customer support consultant is usually anticipated to be always on calls at some stage in an 8-hour shift aside from a 30-minute lunch break and two 15 min breaks, one within the morning and one within the afternoon.
So, is it any marvel that the contact heart trade faces perennial burnout and excessive ranges of employees churn?
Suppose we wish to construct a extra sustainable method to serving our prospects, notably over stay channels just like the cellphone or video. If we do, we have to assume extra clearly and empathetically about our brokers and what they undergo.
Now, I do know that expertise is evolving to assist with this problem and that’s nice. However we should not cease there. Constructing a extra engaging and sustainable contact heart mannequin would require us to rethink each contact heart operations and their economics.
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