How to Effectively Manage a Team Leader’s Time
Marc Carriere
Helping companies create amazing Team Leaders #teamleader #callcentre #contactcentre #customercontactcentre
Ask most Team Leaders at pretty much any call center in the world, how much time they spend developing their team with coaching and training and most of them will tell you not enough.
And, they’re quick to add how they wish they had enough time because most of their team really needs it!
The main reason they give for not providing training or coaching is that they just don’t have the time with all the different Admin, HR and Supervision tasks they have to do every day.
However, if your Team Leaders aren’t overburdened with too many tasks then you’re really dealing with an excuse, and that’s an easy fix.
Having managed call centers and consulted with small to large businesses around the world for 35 years and having owned a call center myself, I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a Team Leader say they didn’t have the time to coach or train their team members.
To be fair, some have a point when you look at all the different things they have to do each day and every week. If that’s the case in your center, have a look at what can be handled by admin rather than the Team Leader.
?After all, their number 1 priority should be reaching their team’s goals each week, right?
?To identify if any tasks need to be shifted elsewhere and make sure team leaders are spending their time and energy on the key result areas of their jobs like providing really effective coaching and training I created a simple tool called the Team Leader Scheduler…
that participants in my online and live courses Creating Amazing Team Leaders use to make sure their team leaders are spending the time they need to complete all their critical tasks each week.
Now before I explain how the tool works, I liked to talk about two resources in life that when spent you can never get them back and are gone forever – time and energy.
Everything else like money you can get back. It keeps recurring and coming back every week. You go to work and they pay you every week, and your money comes back.
But when you’ve spent the time or expended the energy on something… that time and energy are gone forever – you’ll never get them back!
You ever jokingly say: Well, there’s 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back? We’ve all said something like that at least once in our lives, haven’t we?
Now, we may be joking, but what we’re really doing is getting the point across that whatever it was that we spent our time on, it wasn’t worth it. That time is gone forever, and we’ll never get it back.
So obviously, we need to be very careful with how we spend our time and energy in not only our personal lives but definitely in our work lives too.
Especially when you consider most of us spend at about half of our lives working and the other half sleeping, having fun and spending money that keeps coming back every week!
We so often complain about how busy we are and that there isn’t enough time for everything. But what is it that you’re actually focusing on?
There is well-known inspiring story called Rocks, Pebbles and Sand will get you thinking about what you spend your time doing.
No one really knows where the story came from so it’s probably just a metaphor using a Philosophy Professor who was giving a lecture. In front of him, he had a big glass jar, a pile of rocks, a bag of small pebbles, a tub of sand and a bottle of water.
He started off by filling up the jar with the big rocks and when they reached the rim of the jar he held it up to the students and asked them if the jar was full. They all agreed, there was no more room to put the rocks in, so it was full.
He asked again: “Is it full?” Then he picked up the bag of small pebbles and poured these in jar. He shook the jar so that the pebbles filled the space around the big rocks. “Is the jar full now?” he asked.
The students looked around at each other and agreed that the jar was now completely full. “Is it really full?” he asked again.
Then he picked up the tub of sand and poured the sand in between the pebbles and the rocks and once again he held up the jar to his class and asked if it was full. And, once again they all agreed that the jar was full.
“Are you sure it’s full?” he asked and finally picked up a bottle of water and tipped the water into the jar until it soaked up in all the remaining space in the sand, and the students laughed.
The professor went on to explain that the jar of rocks, pebbles, sand and water represents everything that is in one's life. The jar represents your life. The rocks represent the most important things that have real value – your health, your family, your partner.
Those things that if everything else (the pebbles and the sand and water) was lost and only they remained, your life would still have meaning.
The pebbles represent the things in your life that matter, but you could live without. The pebbles are certainly things that give your life meaning like your job, house, hobbies and friendships, but they aren’t critical for you to have a meaningful life. These things often come and go, and aren’t permanent or essential to your overall well-being.
The sand and water represents everything else – the small stuff. Material possessions, chores and filler things you do like watching television or browsing the internet. These things don't mean much to your life as a whole and are likely only done to get small tasks accomplished or just to fill time.
The metaphor here is that if you start with putting sand into the jar, you will not have room for rocks or pebbles. This holds true with the things you let into your life. If you spend all of your time on the small and insignificant things, you will run out of room for the things that are actually important.
So, the lesson is to make room for what’s important. Take care of the Rocks first – the things that really matter and are critical to your long-term wellbeing and happiness.
If you deal with the big issues first by putting the rocks in the jar first, the small issues can still fall into place. However, the reverse is not true. Identify the important things in life by setting your priorities and the time you need to work on them.
This is where your focus should be in order to live a meaningful life (without over-obligating yourself). Then you can fill in the pebbles and sand, knowing its ok to procrastinate a little on these things because they aren't so important.
So, when think about the lesson of this metaphor and apply them to how Team Leaders fill their day and week with all the different tasks they have to do. Let’s ask ourselves… what are the Rocks, what are the Pebbles, Sand and Water?
When we think about the Rocks, they’re the most important things a Team Leader needs to be sure to do, and everything else that comes up are the Pebbles, Sand and Water, right?
As I mentioned earlier, the main reason most Team Leaders give for not providing on-the-job coaching or training is they just don’t have the time with all the different Administration, Human Resources and Supervision tasks they have to do every day.
Some have a point when you look at all the things they do each day and every week, because there are a lot of pebbles and sand they have to deal with. If this is the case in your center, you should have a look at which tasks can be handled by an Administrator or someone in Human Resources, rather than a Team Leader.
After all, a Team Leader’s primary focus should be on reaching their team’s goals each week, right? So, you need to make sure they have the time and energy to focus on really effective leadership and coaching.
When you look at a list of typical tasks Team Leaders are faced with each day and week, their time and energy levels are at a premium!
When you drill down with many Team Leaders their problem with coaching usually comes back to a couple simple challenges they face:
It’s essential you coach them on these critical areas and ensure they effectively manage their time, so they prioritize time for call monitoring, providing corrective feedback and on-the-job coaching to more quickly turn underperformers into consistently productive team members.
To make sure they’re using their time effectively, have them complete a Weekly Schedule every week and give you a copy. Review the schedule to make sure they’re particularly focused on the coaching tasks you want, and make any necessary amendments if needed, and their ‘No Time’ excuse goes away!
You also want to keep them accountable, so periodically check in with them throughout the week to make sure they’re doing their coaching tasks when scheduled!
When you add all these essential ingredients together, your Team Leaders will now have the time to help Team Members perform better because they are finally getting the coaching they need!
So let’s go through the best way I know how to have Team Leaders focus on their most important tasks and manage their time and energy as effectively as possible.
When people use this tool for the first time it will take a little while to pull it all together to really figure out which of the tasks and duties that need to be done are rocks, pebbles sand and water.
So, do this exercise the first time with your Team Leaders. After you’ve done this exercise with them they will be able to easily complete their upcoming weekly schedules by themselves.
To get started you simply make a list of all the tasks your Team Leaders deal with each day, every week and include those done infrequently, and specify specific dates if necessary.
And, to make sure Team Leaders energy levels are up to their peak when looking after the rocks, when is the best time to schedule these activities.
I set up different Task areas in 4 different groupings as you’ll see like:
Once you’ve pulled your list together assign each tasks with a Priority Rating - A for the Highest Priority, these are the rocks, B for Mid Priority and C for Low Priority - B and C tasks are the pebbles, sand and water tasks.
Then assign a priority level within each task rating on a scale of 1 for the highest and work your way down each task until you have every task assigned with a rating number.
This is really important, and whatever you do don’t skip it because doing this really establishes task priorities and their importance in relation to all the other tasks a team leader needs to do every day and every week.
Don’t be surprised when you see conflicts with different priorities that come up. It’s going to happen, and when they do trust your gut and make a decision on which task comes before the other.
Later, if you find you need to make a change, no problem, make the change. In the first few weeks as Team Leaders are getting use to their schedule this will likely happen.
Just be sure that if that comes up it’s not just because it’s inconvenient. Amazing Team Leaders have the discipline to do what they need to do, when it needs to be done, not just when they feel like it!
Next, allocate the time it should typically take to complete the task effectively, so it’s not rushed. If you’re going to do something, you need to give it the time it takes to get it done right!
Especially, when you’re dealing with your top priorities, you’re ‘A’ list priorities, your Rocks.
After you’ve allocated the time needed, simply set the best day (or days) of the week to do them and the best time or times of the day to do them. When you do this consider their energy levels. Think about the task needs; make sure they will have the right energy level for that task, at that time of day.
For instance, responding to emails doesn’t take as much energy to bang out than listening and scoring recorded calls takes or preparing a feedback session or conducting a training session. Think about their natural energy flow throughout the day and take that into account.
Personally, I try not to do much coaching or training right after a lunch break because I know my energy levels are down because my metabolism is working on digesting my food, which makes me a little slower or lethargic. The same usually applies to those I’m working with too.
So, right after lunch isn’t the best time for me to give people the best of me. But you know sometimes you need to get back into training induction or something so, you just go with it and do the best you can.
When you have all your tasks listed, prioritized, and know the best days to do them, and the best times of the day to do them, all you have to do is put them into a schedule and see how it all fits.
Now, one thing we touched on a little, which I think is the first thing you should put in your schedule before anything else, and as counter intuitive as it may sound, is your breaks throughout the day, especially a meal break.
The way I look at is kind of like when you’re on a plane and they do the safety briefing before you take off. You’ve seen them plenty of times and I’m sure you remember them saying that in the event (don’t you love that term? that we experience cabin pressure breathing masks will drop down from the above panel, right?
They go on to say if you’re travelling with a small child be sure to put your mask on first before you put a mask on them. You’ve heard them say that in the safety demonstration right?
Now the reason why they tell you to do that first is to make sure that you’re in the best position to look after that child in case of an emergency.
You know if you put the mask on the child before yourself and you pass out, they’re not likely to be able to look after you or even themselves without your help.
That’s how I look at making sure they take your breaks throughout the day. Team Leaders need the time to let their mind relax and refresh to generate the energy needed to be at their best and look after their team.
Taking breaks are like putting your mask on first before you put one your child! So, put their daily breaks into their schedule first, and then start filling in the schedule with the rocks first starting with the A 1 task and follow that sequence all the way through until you’re finished, and voila you have their weekly schedule.
Oh, and make sure time is set aside in the weekly schedule on the best day and time to have your Team Leaders prepare their next week’s schedule.
When it’s completed be sure they give you a copy, so you know what they're supposed to be dong and where they’ll be if you need to find them.
And, have them pin their schedule up somewhere around their work area for anyone on their team to find them. Often when team members see what their Team Leader is doing they can make a decision about whether they have to interrupt or save what they wanted for later.
Now, some of you may find that you’ve input most everything in and still have some tasks left over. So, what do you do about that? Well, the first thing is think about whether or not that particular task is something they really should be doing and who else could be doing it instead.
As I mentioned earlier, we need to have our Team leaders focus on and spend their time and energy on the most important things that move the team closer to their goals and KPIs… those Rocks that move the needle towards where you want the team to go!
Is it really going to help if they try to jam in as many things as possible into their day, including non essential things?
Do you really want to dilute their time or energy coaching and training team members just to make way for something not as important? Of course, not!
If something has to give it shouldn’t be a top priority task. It has to be a lesser one, doesn’t it? So, see who else can do that less important task instead of your Team Leader.
Sometimes people ask me what happens when they’ve finished a task before the allotted time.
Well, that’s simple, now they’ve got a little extra time up their sleeve to catch up on something they may not have not had enough time for earlier. Now they have a little time to get ahead for another task coming up, or simply have more time to spend with their team being a cheerleader!
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