My CUH Story - Jo Barnett

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I enjoy the interaction with my team, the support I am able to show them. The Contact Centre is an extremely busy environment and staffed 24 hours a day. It’s part of my job to ensure we have the correct numbers of staff in all the areas we need to cover, including the Main Reception and ATC reception, our Emergency Response desk, and on the phones manning the external, internal and Facilities Help Desk calls. I enjoy that every day is different, and a variety of challenges come our way, and we never quite know what will happen!

I joined CUH as a Contact Centre agent in July 2009 on the rotary shift working a variety of shift patterns, including 7 nights per month. I enjoyed the camaraderie and the strong team ethic from the very beginning, there is no such thing as a silly question in the Contact Centre! In 2018 I decided I would like a change of direction, and I applied for the role of shift leader. It was a big adjustment for me to go from one of the team, to a leader of the team. I enjoy supporting the existing agents in the Contact Centre, and watching new members grow in confidence and ability, and it’s part of my role to support the team in that, and ensure they are comfortable in all areas of their role.

What does a usual day look like?

I still work a variety of shifts, and a typical day can be quite frenetic. The first job is to check staffing, and make sure we have adequate cover, move people around if we have unexpected absence. My day could include meeting 1:1 with some of the agents, discussing feedback after listening to some of their calls, talking about any areas of development they would like to pursue. It could include testing our back up telephony systems for resilience, which we do weekly. It might include a team meeting, or a meeting with HR. I could be preparing a performance review to include call stats for the previous month, or I could be looking at yesterday’s call stats, and analysing where we may have had peaks or troughs in call traffic. I could be interviewing prospective new agents, or off boarding those that are moving on or drawing up next week’s rota.

The Contact Centre is pivotal in directing patients, assisting patients, listening to patients, and my role in the Contact Centre ensures continuity of service to our callers ringing the hospital for information, guidance and reassurance, and the visitors at the reception desks looking advice and directions. All our training and development, all our quality checks are designed to give our patients the very best of ourselves.

We also have fun at work with four celebration days per year in the Contact Centre - Easter, Summer, Halloween and Christmas. We decorate the office with themed decorations and arrange a fun day packed full of activities for everyone from Unified Communications to take part in and enjoy, quizzes, bake offs, crafting, games, a super-size buffet, fancy dress and so much more. I love to get involved in all the planning and preparation, although the days are very much a team event. It takes a village to build a Celebration Day in the Contact Centre.