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Group and Team Development

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The Customer Services Team handles all inbound calls for the business (1000+ per day) and operates from 08:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday. There are fifteen team members two of which are Team Leaders. The Team is further divided into different sub-groups that deal with different business sectors such as Pharma, Telecommunications, e-commerce.
The main focus of the team is dealing with customer queries via inbound calls and managing corporate accounts in terms of providing daily reports and updates.
The Team Assessment and the group discussions would seem to indicate that this is a group of individuals that are operating in a very structured environment and while they are referred to as a team they do not actually operate as a team. Each member of the team has specifically assigned tasks which they focus on but these do not combine at a higher level. The team are therefore very task orientated and operate independently of each other. Communication within the team is also a fundamental issue but this may be driven by the task nature of the group which does not require a high level of communication to complete.
In assessing the results from the Team Assessment there are a number of areas that are presenting challenges for the team. The results of the assessment indicate that the core challenges for the team centre on interpersonal communication, respect, collaboration and styles. This is not atypical given that call centres can be a loud, fast paced and highly pressurised environment that presents limited opportunities for individuals to work together or operate as a team.
The business case for addressing the key issues within the Customer Service Team are both financial and performance related. In 2015 the team had a consistently high absence rate of between 12% to 18% month on month. The team attrition rate of 23% in that year also brought significant

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