 Middle managers play the most challenging role in any organisation. They are the vital link between top management and the other employees, the executers who get the work done, the pivot around whom all the functions revolve. And one of the biggest challenges facing the offshoring industry in many nascent destinations is the lack of leadership skills among this crucial layer. The global sourcing industry is expanding at breakneck speed, which leads to a high demand for trained and competent manpower at all levels. As such, the need for good quality middle level management is essential to supervise the ever-growing lower layers that actually perform the majority of the work required.
The Root Causes
The Legacy Syndrome
Many offshore vendors started life as something other than an offshore services company. Some were IT companies, others were utilities but very few were outsourcing centres. In their sudden growth and transition, most of these companies have not understood the fact that programmers and call centre agents are different and need to be managed differently. This kind of company simply doesn’t have the expertise to be able to transfer the required skills to its middle management.
The Dynamic Work Environment and Multiple Skill Requirements
Many people seem to think, “How hard can it be to manage people who make or receive a few telephone calls or do data entry or online research?” In reality, the middle manager in an offshore centre needs to manage a very dynamic work environment and many conflicting pressures such as the need to drive down costs, motivate staff and consistently improve quality. It takes years of experience to even understand these finely balanced issues, let alone manage them, and the fact that it all looks so easy has led many organisations into a false sense of security.
Lack of Prior Experience
In nascent offshoring destinations, there are countless experts in areas such as telephony or software, however the soft skills required to manage offshore centres effectively are in relatively short supply. This means that up-and-coming managers don’t have mentors to learn from. The common belief is that you can use someone else’s operation training manuals, which only show people what they need to do, not how to apply this knowledge.
Inadequate Training and Experience
The entry level in most offshoring organisations consists largely of inexperienced graduates. It is an unfortunate truth that many companies promote these people before they are ready to move up the next step in the hierarchy, which is due in large to rapid expansion, lack of a strong talent pipeline and to prevent their existing agents from being poached by the competition. Young graduates tend to lack life skills, which often make the difference between good and bad middle managers. They are promoted based on their performance measured only in terms of achieving quantitative targets, without actually giving weight to the people management skills they carry, their understanding of the business and operational intricacies, or their ability to apply themselves to non-routine tasks. These can only be instilled in an employee through a focused training and coaching program that deals with the specific needs of an individual identified through an understanding of his or her personality. This is totally ignored by most organisations today, and as a consequence the true potential of a majority of junior and middle managers remains untapped and prevents them from fully contributing towards a company.
The Solution
There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel. Building middle management capability must focus around the 4 Cs of performance management, namely:
Hewitt’s Perspective on Performance Management
Our recommendations focus on these 4 Cs and are built on the realities of the offshoring industry today.
“Organisations should use a 'cascading approach' to align goals and
objectives at the middle management level with those at the higher level and
clearly communicate key measures and results.”
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