Case Study J Learning and development opportunities

Aran is the Manager of a small team of customer service operatives, who work alongside the field sales team. He feels that he has a great group and things are going well in general but is experiencing one problem with a new employee. Sila is a customer service operative who is a likeable employee in many ways, but she struggles to do the job. She comes to work, but she doesn't seem to grasp (or to be able to perform) her role.

Aran completed Silas induction when she started seven months ago. She picked up certain parts of the job very easily. The part that seems to confuse and overwhelm Sila is dealing with customer complaints or the "Customer Focus" aspect of the job. Aran has not had an employee run into difficulty with that part of the job before. She can't remember her customer service script and does not take the initiative to be patient or take the appropriate steps to resolve the issue. She becomes snappy and appears to take the complaints personally. Her behaviour is affecting the customer retention scheme in the company and the rest of the team are having to pick up the pieces. Aran attempts to sit with her and go over her issues log every day, and even then, Sila seems to struggle.

Refer to Case Study J Learning and development opportunities

Taking the role of Aran, explain in your own words (approx. 100 words) how you would support Sila.

To help, consider the following points:

• What specific learning and development opportunities could you offer Sila?
• What support can be put in place for the team?
• What support can you put in place to support Sila?