If you need to grow your management staff, hiring the wrong personnel will sink your ship quickly. You need management that knows how to hit the ground running and immediately impact agent performance. The hiring decision has lasting ramifications. New hires that aren’t successful today will only lead to more new hires tomorrow.Hire an experienced manager? Promote from within the organization? Facilitate fresh ideas from the outside? These are some of the many options senior executives must consider. But the science of understanding how to hire management isn’t complicated; you simply must analyze the level of a candidate’s desire in order to identify who will work best in the organization.

Desire is the one trait that separates world-class from mediocre management. A manager’s desire to meet goals, take the extra steps on behalf of agents, and think out of the box and create special training programs to increase productivity are what leads to success. The differences between candidates A and B may be very slim, but deep down one candidate has the extra motivation to treat the contact center as much more than just a place to work. This is the person you need to hire.
There are five traits that executives should consider when reviewing management candidates:
The manager must see the contact center as a place of creativity. If your candidate considers the contact center just another department within the organization, he may not be the right candidate. The contact center thrives on people and emotions to achieve its objectives. A leader who doesn’t understand this will fail to move the center to the next level.

The manager must want to accept responsibility for the team’s performance. Recruiters, trainers, team leaders, agents — there are any number of people in the contact center that can take responsibility for lack of performance. But only one person has true responsibility. If a manager fails to recognize that “the buck stops here,” then an “It’s not my fault!” mentality will affect your contact center’s performance and growth.

The manager must understand how valuable communication and feedback are to the operating culture. The right manager will recognize the strengths of open communication. Permanent channels with which agents are comfortable — and creative channels that encourage open feedback — build a powerful environment. The simple gesture of arranging a town hall-style meeting, for example, will introduce a culture of feedback that employees will cherish.

The manager must view his or her agents as participatory elements. Employees come first; peers, outside departments and extracurricular activities come second. Managers that forget how valuable their employees are to the big picture fail to create a smooth operating department. The way in which a prospective senior manager prioritizes his or her goals reveals what type of manager that candidate will be.

The manager must search for answers. Talented call center managers understand that growth comes from out-of-the-box ideas. Doing the same thing the same way every time will breed the same results. Your contact center’s leader must not be afraid to obtain assistance from other departments to assist in the creation of culture.
Hundreds of critical decisions are made each day in the contact center. Each decision begins with management. Your first objective in hiring a senior manager should be to recruit someone who exudes desire, values creativity, promotes communication, and has the passion and willingness to build a phenomenal culture. Once those traits have been discovered, the rest falls into place.