How Will ‘Undercover Boss’ Stay Undercover?
Will CBS be able to keep “Undercover Boss” undercover next season?
CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler told TheWrap the crew has some new tricks up its sleeve — but she won’t spill the beans until taping is completed.
“I’m not going to give away any secrets,” she told The Wrap.
At first she said the average employee in the field is too busy to be looking over their shoulder to see if the chief executive of the company has infiltrated their ranks. And then she said even if a camera is following a new employee, “If you hear hoof beats, you don’t necessarily see the horse.”
Then adding to the intrigue, she said, “The show has a very smart production team. I don’t think the employees will realize.”
When asked point blank if that meant hidden cameras, she paused and said, “I don’t want to give any secrets away, but it will be smartly done.”
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1 800 Flowers – Undercover Boss Draws Wrong Conclusions
The Productivity Goal
Chris McCann mentions that he wants to increase productivity in the plant from ten million pounds to 16 – 20 million pounds. Goals are set by management and the machines speed up. Contact centers are managed in much the same way by management coming up with targets for the number of calls taken in a day.
The whole idea of a prescription of how many calls a contact center should take, the allotted AHT per call, and the service level given are rooted in how contact centers can reduce costs. This prescription seems logical enough and most contact centers subscribe to this approach. The problem is that focusing on costs always increases costs.
This isn’t a matter of making workers part of setting the productivity goal as Chris McCann concludes. This is a matter of understanding targets drive dysfunctional behavior.
Incentives Will Make Things Worse
Chris McCann concludes not only that the problem is that of workers being involved in setting goals, but decides incentives will make employees happier and more productive. None of these things are true.
Working together on understanding customer purpose and demand and getting rid of systemic failure demand should be the appropriate response. New measures emerge that are associated with what customers want from service as these drive the lagging financial and productivity measures up.
Read the full story on Customer Management IQ
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