I was right.
Many people got a shock when in late January/early February, I followed through on my promise to run numbers and remove non producers. A lot of people, former top performers, were removed. Understandably, there was a lot of upset due to the fact that many that were removed had been producing record high numbers just the month before. Life happened. People got sick. Holidays caught up with some. And others were just flat out burned out after producing as much as they had, or were working for another provider in addition to our team, and chose to work their queries instead of our own.
It truly pained me to do it, but I also knew our team was at stake here. I knew a team was going to be removed. (I still believe it was our team that was supposed to be removed from the project.) I had two choices. Kick start the team, or sit back and watch as the disaster unfolded before our eyes.
First I removed the non producers. Now, any member of my family can tell you how badly I am affected when I have to remove even 1 person, let alone over 400. I removed, then hired what I could. This worked. We started producing double, and sometimes triple, of what we were producing each day before the removals.
Then, the next pay period, I did another very radical thing that truly had me worried for my status as a provider. I, with the help of a few others, removed nearly 6000 queries from our lists. In total, from the entire batch of RT type queries we had, over 8000 were marked as unanswerable. I knew, deep down, this was not what the client wanted. Yet, these queries had been through the ringer several times and it was either do this, or just sit and watch as they did not get completed.
Both moves were very risky. The first, just about trashed my reputation as a fair leader. For me, reputation is everything. A worker will put forth 10 times the effort for a leader they can trust and believe in. Our numbers now reflect that I need to rebuild that trust and reputation.
The second, well it puts the trust of our client at risk. If they can't trust we'll get all of the work done in a timely manner with high quality, we just won't get anymore.
I was truly shocked to my core when on Monday, we received a new link to work on. I can't help but feel that this is another test of our abilities. If we finish first or at least, in the same time frame as the other team, we keep our work. If not, well, I fear we will suffer the same fate as the third team that was working the RT type queries.
Last year, a third team was brought in. I did my best to give their provider awesome training. They worked some normal batches, and some RT type batches. I had this awful feeling that I was training my replacement. They worked very hard, and produced great quality results. Their team lead didn't want to mark unanswerables unless he absolutely had to. For this reason, his team finished last.
Now, there are only two teams working this newest batch. I don't feel this was fair to him, because well, he was new and finding his way around. Add in to that the fact that all three teams shared so many experts that they were all just one huge team working on one huge batch, and well, one of us was bound to finish last. Him being the newest at this, had the most likelihood of it.
I feel badly, but at the same time, deep down I feel that it was meant to be our team that got the great axe of doom. What happened with the newest provider is just the way of the world. The clients don't care about reasons or excuses for productivity levels not being as high as they want them. They just want the work done. Period.
For all of you that were removed earlier in the year, and were very upset over it (rightly so,) I hope that you understand now why I did what I had to do. Every single batch that we get is a test of our abilities. While the seperate teams are part of one huge team, we are also in great competition at all times to outdo each other. In this way, we give great quality in short periods of time, and earn the ability to get more work in.
Decisions like the ones I made don't come easily. They aren't fun. Especially when one considers the holiday period had just ended and many were struggling to pay their holiday debts. It is one though, that is sometimes necessary.
It is my hope that there is another batch of work in the third provider's near future. I also hope it's not at the cost of our workload disappearing.
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