What is the role of an FLM in any industry?

The role of the first line manager in the ITES sector.

Once you get promoted from an FLA or a member of a support function like being a subject matter expert to a first line manager your job role changes.

The following are the additional skills that you need to be a manager according to the AON Hewitt FLM certification . I am very thankful to  Mr ANAND who took the training and did the certification. I would like to follow him on linked in.

1.  Role Clarity.

The role of an individual contributor like an FLA or an sme(who has the additional responsibility as process and product knowledge advisor to the team)  is to take calls. Keep an eye on the performance metrics. Keep their product and process knowledge up to date. Become spocs for a variety of functions like transport, HR, Admin, Quality etc. Become senior buddies for junior agents to participate in the FISH BOWLING PROCES so that the new hires feel at home. This is also called the OJT process in some organisations.

The role of an FLM would be quite different. The main job role would be to monitor individual contributors. Control unscheduled absenteeism. Creating and maintaining incident report. Managing breaks for the FLAs effectively.

·  Case study.

Mac had been currently promoted as an FLM. He was an excellent FLA. He had the practice of going out with his old friends who were still FLAs  during breaks and was not open to the new members of his team. During a skip the new members complained that  Sam was biased.

2.  Performance analysis & management

The role of the FLM is to convert data about the FLAs  into processed data that is information and turn it into valuable information for the top and middle level management . An example would be a Pareto analysis of the agents performance. The management wants to know how to fix% of the problem that was affecting% of the performance and bringing down the scores. Making the floor red. If this issue is fixed the floor would be green.

·  Pareto Analysis.

You are the ops manager and the error count( Quality non compliance score)in the production floor is running very high. You need to identify the bottom% of the team members who are contributing to% of the total error count leading to low csat and net promoter score. If we focus on this% team members we can solve% of the problem and make the scores green again.

·  Root cause analysis.

Here we analyse the real cause the whys of the low nps scopre. Is it controllable in the short, medium, long term. The process is each time the why questions is answered  ask  why again to go to the root cause. The brain storming process where every member is supposed to give his/her own idea about solving the problem.

·  Fish bone analysis.

List the problems issues to be studied as the head of the fish.

Identify the bones. The means to go to the head. The means to solve the problem. Could be a combination of4mslike methods , machines, material and manpower. Or the4ps. Place , procedure, people, policies.

3.  Forecasting future workload.

The annual, quarterly , monthly and daily work arrival pattern. This would have a link to the clients service level and we need to use statistical tools like regression analysis and time series.

·  Case study.

A data process gets documents an hour. They need to turn around these documents in4 hours. How many associates would they need if each associate has a productivity to process documents per hour.

Answer. An associate can process documents in4 hours. The no associates required would be/ = associates.

4.  Controlling absenteeism and attrition. 

As the employees in the Indian BPO sector mostly serve customers in North America with some supporting British and Australian processes the major advantage is supposed to be the hours time difference. The employees can avoid rush hours in suburban trains and take the advantage of less crowded streets in the morning. Most of them reach home before9Am in the morning before rush hour starts. But doing the graveyard shift on a daily basis ,taking the pressure of call taking and the fear of a non  promoter survey which works like a knife cutting away your earnings even if you can manage the feedback from your supervisor , all adds up to absenteeism  in the short run and attrition in the long run.

·  They say employees do not leave a job or an organisation but they leave a bad manager.

·  Being an FLM you should lead from the front. You should not leave the office bypm when your team takes calls upto6-8am in the morning. Also you cannot afford to put your head down even if you have slept only for2 hours during the day when your team is supporting customers, miles away burning the midnight oil. And you loose the moral right to tell them how your sleeping on the floor could adversely affect our customer centric reputation and bring the NPS scores from green to red.

·  Only then you would have the moral right to face your subordinates and explain to them how absenteeism affects the earning capacity of the co (how the client levies penalties for not meeting the service level)and how it affects the agents earnings and his/her own job security. As if the client pulls out there would be no work and how client deals are fought and won in the competitive  market where India is loosing out to Philippines which has a great work culture.

·  The total cost of attrition is very high in the ITES sector. It includes

·  Cost of recruitment , training,ojt  cost & lost revenue during the ramp up process.

5.  Time management. Should delegate all the work that is not important . Do any adhoc  supervisors job breaking the normal work schedule. This is how very important work that have the immediate time line has to be managed.

6.  Once you have made yourself comfortable in the job think long term. Groom each of your subordinates  in accordance with his inclination. The more managers you create the higher you grow up and the more known people you have in your organisation the easier it is to work with your subordinates.