Royal Canadian Mint – A Case for Performance Transparency
Best intentions only get you so far. Establishing clearly defined expectations of employees is a good start, but without precise measurement and transparent feedback, provided at regular intervals, companies won’t the positive performance momentum they seek.
Performance transparency is a powerful approach that marries focused employee target setting with responsive coaching to help them get there. It places results in the right people’s hands – the people who can do something to change them. Each employee, and their coaching leader, can easily see where they are successful and where there is opportunity for improvement against specific, personal performance targets that align with the company’s desired focus.
An internationally renowned supplier of Canadian collectibles, Royal Canadian Mint had the challenge of scaling up remote operations and enticing a new type of consumer to shop with them, with a revenue growth target of 10% but no incremental funding. Orbit was engaged to help them define a roadmap to success.
RCM’s Goal:
To build awareness of what’s important, and amplify contribution.
An assessment of current operations quickly uncovered some key opportunities to build employee awareness of what was most important, and amplify individual contribution:
- Clarify roles & responsibilities for each performer
- Define key performance indicators (KPI’s) so that each performer understood how success would be measured
- Communicate results regularly, establishing acceptable ranges of performance that enabled prioritization of opportunities to happen quickly and easily.
Implementation Process
The first step was to ensure people knew what was expected of them every day, and how these expectations contributed to the business goals and the customer experience, giving context to their effort. This structure helped individuals to better define their personal accountability and to take ownership. It eliminated confusion and overlap. And it created a key, collective mental shift towards enhancing the overall customer experience, rather than individuals being rewarded for solving recurring client problems again and again.
The next step was to define and implement KPI’s to measure performance. This forced the business to attain clarity on what was expected and to formalize a monthly planning process to maintain direction. Performance targets and tolerance thresholds were developed to support budget targets. The individual performer could then be recognized for their contribution to business success.
Compas™ dashboards were implemented to provide a unified view of performance, with specific focus on front line agents and managers. For the first time, in one place, everyone could see how they were performing against targets. Results could be reviewed with easily identifiable opportunities for improvement. And the executive team had the controls needed to direct the focus of their people in an immediate and impactful way.
Custom modules from Orbit’s Achieve 7™ coaching methodology were instituted along with Compas for a complete training and feedback system, focused on improving customer experiences and growing sales. The system ensured everyone not only understood their individual and corporate objectives, but had the help and training they needed to continually achieve them.
This first foray into Performance Transparency became a case study for the rest of the organization. Not only has the Orbit system been expanded into other contact centre departments, but the essential coaching methodologies and lessons learned are being applied outside of the contact centre environment as well.
- By instituting regular coaching, you quickly realize where the ‘choke points’ are
- Employees’ understanding of where their own performance lay versus their own peer group was particularly important in giving them a clear sense of what was truly achievable and how they were doing
- Structured conversations on an individual basis were critical for getting everyone pulling in the same direction against a common set of goals
- Changing the mentality of agents from order takers to engaged drivers of the business instilled a sense of pride that was highly visible and shifted the morale of the whole group, leading to continued performance improvements.
Results
The shift in morale with the implementation of the Orbit system was instrumental in achieving exceptional gains across all targets. The impact was immediate – employees controlled the outcomes they could, and sought support where they were not achieving targets. Royal Canadian Mint transformed their contact centre from a group of ‘drive-through’ order takers to a value-added sales organization that engaged customers and drove revenue growth.
- Revenues met and exceeded the 10% goal for year one and continue to exceed goals as the system spreads and develops through other parts of the organization
- 12% increase in Sales per Call
- 21% increase in Units per Order
- 33% increase in Agent sign-on hours
- Time to onboard new agents and get them meeting their targets has been significantly reduced, because the best methods for achieving targets are now systematized and repeatable across all agents.