October 15, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed “Young Leaders in Contact Center” by inviting three professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.
This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Somruedee Songsaengrit, Distribution Manager, Roojai, Thailand. The second is Dian Ratna Furi, Operations Manager, VADS Indonesia. Then, the last one is Anne Purba, Corporate Secretary Vice President KAI Commuter, Indonesia.
Andi Anugrah as Chairman of ICCA Indonesia has led the discussion. The discussion started about the workstyle of young leaders can impact contact center operation. Somruedee said the impact is a consistently changing environment. It means one situation maybe work one way, but on the other hand, maybe can bring another huge problem.
Dian also said that so many young leaders would be born. They came up and bring new ideas and new perspectives, it is affected to contact center to leave all the traditional methods. Contact centers need to change and fast adapt to the condition.
Another opinion from Anne, she said that she has a work style urgency is efficiency. She needs to change the method from the traditional to the digital platform. She thinks that human touch and behavior change not about one or two years, but also every minute the technology is change.
The next discussion is regarding the capability that young leaders need. According to Somruedee, the young leader needs to get ready, be positive, and deal with a chance whatever is come. She also said that use skills and experience that learn from the past is necessary to apply. And to develop skills, Somruedee does from learning and practicing. She said that when she is learning, she is knowing, and then do coaching, especially when she led a contact center team.
For all young leaders, Dian said that we need to lead by example which contains the action to inspire. As a leader, she explains that we need to commit to the vision, mission, and even sharing the passion during coaching when meeting or individually. She also shared the experience when she got a big challenge for developing people who were older than her. She said that good communication is important to do.
Anne also agreed with Dian about how important communication is. Because make the expectation clear and with good communication, can also make it together even there is young people or old people.
In the middle of the discussion, there is some question from a participant regarding how to deal with the old and the young generation. Somruedee gives the opinion about how to deal with the old generation, she said that it’s a little bit difficult because they are experts in something and sometimes, they have more experience than the young generation. However, understand the older generation is needed and knowing them in person and make a good relationship is helpful.
Dian also explains that having good communication for dealing with elder people is very necessary. The young generation needs to understand their sensitivity during the works and their sensitivity about what they need when they aim in this organization. On the other hand, she found a millennial who likes to speak faster than action. Like she said before, the leader needs to give them an example containing action that can inspire them.
The Leaders Talk event closed with tips from all three speakers about how to be a good leader in the contact center, especially for the young, women, and old generation. Want to know more detail about their opinion? Check the newest article on the CC-APAC website. (ANF)