The Sanford Berenberg Experience: A little levity for a stressful work life

Good Morning,

It’s been a busy year, apologies for all the silence on the Sanford Berenberg Experience front. While I have not been writing as much, I have been learning, reading and absorbing experience after experience this past year making it one of the most interesting I have had in many years. Work has become more intense, which is an increasingly common facet of our ‘do more with less’ environment.

In finding ways to combat the increased stress, we have tried many programs and activities. Those that take a lot of time to set up and maintain can easily fall to the wayside, so finding those activities which take little time investment, yet provide some benefit are the gems we look for.

At my office we announce our different statistics on a daily basis to all the staff so they can see how well they did, or in some cases, didn’t do. Statistics, though, are by their very nature, boring. Having an Average Speed of Answer or ASA (the average amount of time it takes for someone to answer a phone call) of 22 Seconds when your goal is under 30 Seconds is a great performance, but 22 and 30 are kind of boring in and of themselves. Even a 5 second ASA, with its thrilling accomplishment will soon fade into the performance hall of records next to Davy Jones’ locker (not the one from Pirates of the Caribbean movie).

So we decide to lighten up the mood a bit with some of our statistics. One in particular is customer satisfaction or CSat. We love our CSat statistic. There are few things in the workplace more rewarding then a customer sharing with you how much they appreciated our efforts. Sadly those compliments are often few and far between.

One way we found to increase the number of responses is to regularly promote the surveys after each call. Yeah, it can be tedious to have each call end with an offer for a survey, but it does work. Yet, that too can grow very boring. So to combat that, I make the daily report full of humor. We choose a sport each month to promote the daily statistics and try to announce the top performers’ accomplishments in a way befitting the sport. We have already used March Madness, the NBA Finals, the Masters, and even the Iditarod (you know the sled race started after Balto, the dog, saved those sick kids in Nome, Alaska).

This month, we chose (okay, I chose) a new exciting sport, Extreme Ironing.

I am not sure what the performance metrics are for Extreme Ironing, like touchdowns, strikes, or baskets, but hey it’s fun. Who knows what will be the sport for next month. Maybe you all could suggest one.

Another fun thing we do to help keep our folks engaged is sharing some fun facts about some of our leaders.

Any by fun fact, I am saying ‘tall tale’. Something over the top, delivered in a deadpan manner. Something like ‘Sanford reads so many books that he has been known to complete a few volumes simply by stepping into a local bookstore.’ Or ‘Fred the supervisor is so physically fit, he has been getting calls from the World’s Strongest Man competition for fitness ideas to help improve their athletes.’

Sure it is goofy, and sure not everyone is going to get it. There is, though a growing number of people who look forward to seeing those little quips of humor each day. They enjoy the sports references, or at least the fun pictures.

Anyway, a little levity can help us get through the day, especially a stressful day.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.learnandgrowdaily.com

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/