20th Anniversary
Centre Celebrations
To all the centres who participated in the Theme Day Event on Thursday 20th August, on behalf of the ATA National Office, thank you for your enthusiasm and support to help celebrate the ATA’s 20th Anniversary. By focussing on health and wellbeing, you are helping to deliver benefits to your employees, which in turn delivers positive outcomes for your business and to the contact centre industry in Australia.
More than 30 centres around the country participated and a great day was had by all. Here is a snapshot of how some centres celebrated.
RAA of SA - Retail Contact Centre
The In & Outbound Sales team at the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia, led by event day organiser, Neil Buder, celebrated with an Active Life - Eat Well / Be Well themed day. Six teams were involved, about 70 people.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day?
Another opportunity to create a difference in the day - highlight the importance of being well & enjoying a level of activity and fitness in your lifestyle. A good opportunity to subtly promote our corporate counselling service that is provided free to all staff and their family.
Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We have some routine scheduled activity, but most often use an "Attitude climate barometer" (Team Leader perception!) to tell us when we need to do something to recognise outstanding success, as a thank you for dedication and focus to get us over a tough time (could be high call volume, flexibility to cover sickness or corporate training activity etc) or most importantly let people have FUN at work.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice??
It wasn't at all intrusive nor onerous for staff, so the majority participated and enjoyed the day, reality is they just like an opportunity to break the daily routines.. even the non-uniform component of any activity will get buy-in and participation.
What did we do?
Asked staff to wear clothes that reflected their sporting interest / participation or favourite team colours.
Provided morning tea with a focus on health and nutrition;
Displayed brochures and leaflets on healthy diet, healthy lifestyle and exercise;
Had a display from our exercise partners, Original Bootcamp who also provided vouchers for a free trial session and even better vouchers for a free Weekly trail (valued at $100!);
Poster display from the counselling service we provide for all staff & their family members - Access-Ocar Consulting;
And most popular was a neck & shoulder massage provided for all!
Kidney Health Australia
Kidney Health Australia (including Solution K), a fundraising and outsourcing centre in Adelaide, celebrated with running their own Olympics, focusing on healthy exercise, fun and games and light physical activity. Theme Day Event organisers were Team Leaders Anthony Schiavone, Julie Traino and Justin McDonald. More than 50 people were involved.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We regularly run theme days / dress up days and believe in having fun at work. This was a great excuse to have a fun day and focus on being healthy. The centre also have a team entered in the City to Bay fun run in Sept and has a ‘veggie garden’ on the balcony growing salads for the lunch room.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
Fantastic. They really got into the spirit and dressed up their work area for the day. They all participated in the games which included an egg and spoon race, tunnel ball and duck waddle as well as individual events based on sales with a high jump, 100 metres and marathon. It focused the team on balancing work and social life, having fun and not stressing and being active when they do a sedentary job.
There were also prizes for best ‘pod’ as each pod represented a country. Also plates of fresh fruit provided.
EO Financial Services Teleservices Team
EO Financial Services Teleservicing Team is a 20 seat outbound Teleservicing Centre, who contacts New and Existing Members of Accountants Super, Australian Enterprise Super and Recruitment Super members to conduct Welcome Calls and Yearly Service calls for the purposes of Super education, Services and features of the fund. They celebrated the Theme Day Event with a Health and Wellness week!
The "Events Taskforce" behind the Wellness week; Team Leader - Daniel D'Souza, Teleservicing Officers; Theresa Johnston, Beau Diegan, Declan Ziemek and Tegan Grace developed a calendar of events of activities to cover the Mind, Body and Spirit. Mon - Thurs, including meditation, 2 days of Boot Camp, a pedometer relay, finally Sporting attire and health food prepared by the Team at the Team meeting with a final presentation on healthy living. All "junk food" was also removed from the Teleservicing Centre.
How many people/centres/teams were involved? Between 12 - 15 Teleservicing Officers on any one day and The Teleservicing Manager and Team Leader.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
The ATA is a wonderful organisation that provides events and opportunities to network, develop skills, share idea's and experiences. And as a recent QLD Finalist, the ATA also knows how to throw a great Party. The ATA looks after the Industry and our Team wanted to give something back and show our support and appreciation. We generally have a couple of big events/team competitions throughout the year, balanced with smaller activities like, bingo, smaller theme days, prize events, we never miss the opportunity like this to take advantage of having some fun in the workplace or supporting a worthy cause.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/well-being benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
The Teleservicing team embraced the "Health and Wellness week" with gusto, participated in everything they could and become quite competitive with the pedometer relay. The principles of Health and Well-being were shared with the team around drinking water, eating well, managing stress and the power of laugh. We do our best as a Centre to act on these things every day by providing large water bottles, fruit, a supportive and fair working environment and plenty of activities that result in fun and laughter, oh and we squeeze in some work to!!
"Congratulations to the ATA on your 20th Anniversary, looking forward to your many events and developments in the next 20. The team loved this event so much we are going to put it into our annual activities calendar for next year."
Dept of Commerce, Consumer Protection - WA
Team Leaders Janelle Mawby and Therese O' Leary, registered for the event with a "Fruit Cakes" theme.
Team members were asked to choose a character to be for theme day. Some came as Fruit Cakes, Bananas, Strawberries, Mad Hatter 18yr olds, Sponge Cakes. The centre ran 3 competitons throughout the course of the day
A Fitness Exercise Competition
1. A sit up competition (for the most sit ups in 30 seconds)
2. A push up competition (for the most push ups in 30 seconds)
A Mind Gym Exercise Competition
A series of quizes throughout the course of the day.
The Fittest Funny Competition
1. The best joke of the day. (any appropriate jokes). We had a lot of laughs.
2. The silliest character performance for the day. (The best dressed character will be taken into consideration).
A winner was awarded for each competition with a healthy fruit and nut treat bag. The 3 competitions aimed at promoting healthy activities concerned with maintaining a healthy mind, body and keeping in good spirit.
Housing Direct - WA
Housing Direct - a Contact centre for the Department of Housing WA recording all maintenance items from tenants - entered a team of 20 for the Theme Day Event. Event organiser, Sheldon Paice arranged a Fruit Loop day, with a smoothie and fruit afternoon tea with a guess the watermelon weight and guess the exotic fruit/veg competition.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
Housing direct took its first calls in July 2009 and this is the first activity day we have planned.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
Staff enjoyed the day and we look forward to more interaction with future events, as this is the first time Housing Direct have been involved in this sort of activity.
Suncorp Banking Call Centre - Queensland
The Suncorp Banking Call Centre in Queensland created an entire wellness program. The Suncorp Banking Call Centre has 3 floors of staff (approx 300 employees) and the leadership team decided that the ATA theme day might be a great way for the staff to have some fun at work and the ATA Theme Day topic of “Health & Wellness” works well with the Banking Call Centre Wellness program.
The ATA theme day was seen to be a great opportunity to promote and raise peer awareness of the Suncorp Banking Call Centre.
The Banking Call Centre has a Wellness program that promotes healthy options for staff at work. This includes having some healthy food options in the vending machines, having fruit & juice days, Subway lunches and having a 2 minute mini massage at their work station.
A committee was formed with a staff member from each team to organise what would be done on the day. It was decided that each floor would have a subject within the ATA theme of Health & Wellness.
The first floor had a subject of “Partners & Charities”. This involved 6 teams of staff decorating their work area & dressing up to show their support for sporting & charity organisations that Suncorp is involved with. These organisations were;
Hear and Say Centre ~ Butterfly Day
Cancer Charities – Daffodil Day, Pink Ribbon Day & Sunwise
Heart Foundation ~ Bridge to Brisbane
Queensland Bulls & Australian Wallabies
The Suncorp Banking Call Centre has a fortnightly casual clothes day in which the staff all contribute $2 and these funds are donated to various charities throughout the year, along with that we also sell merchandise for charities such as the ones supported on the ATA theme day.
The second floor had a subject of “Health & Nutrition”. The 3 teams focused on different areas of health & nutrition, these were; Medical Practice - the team looked at the importance of regular medical check ups; Hydration - they stressed the importance of water in the daily diet; and 2 Fruits & 5 Vegetables - the team completed research on the health benefits of a wide variety of fruit & vegetables and put together a collection of their favourite healthy recipes, some of which they made to have as morning tea on the day.
The third floor had a subject of “Exercise & Fitness”.
This gave the 3 teams an opportunity to look at the wide variety of ways to get exercise in your day and the sports that are available.
The staff enjoyed getting dressed up on the day and sharing their health & wellness advice with each other.
Salmat SalesForce - Victoria
Salmat SalesForce, in Victoria, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Salmat group, a unique Australian company. It services many of Australia’s biggest corporate names, who outsource part or all of their sales and customer service functions to Salmat SalesForce.
Theme Day Event organiser, Mandy Siegel chose a theme based on BCC 1989 (Before Contact Centre’s 1989). Staff could dress up in any era, style, genre or person that was before 1989. There was a competition to judge the ‘Best Costume’ and ‘Best Team’ and prizes we offered were $500 for the Best Team Costume and $100 to the Best individual costume
Approximately 4000 staff members involved on the day throughout all its Melbourne sites
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day?
We chose to participate in the ATA Theme day to educate our people that there is a contact centre world out there and that they are a part of it. We also wanted to create some awareness that it’s a substantial industry sector that they play a part in.
Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We take staff engagement very seriously at Salmat SalesForce .We believe that success in business is to create an environment where employees enjoy being at work. Throughout the year we conduct many events to build culture.
From a People and Culture perspective we run a 12 month calendar of events incorporating charities and health and wellbeing as well as general events.
Some events we have held this year are:
• Health and Wellbeing month ( which included 4 weeks of free events every Friday on offer to our staff ,including the ATA Theme Day I.E Yoga classes, boot camp classes, Meditation classes, Gym membership discounts and trainer’s in the foyers of our sites, Seminars on how to read food labels, Medibank Private staff on site for special deals, a facilitated discussion on ‘Becoming a Dad’ etc)
• 1940’s Glamour Gangster Mid Year Ball
• EBA Voting Day and BBQ
• Jump Rope For Heart Competition
• Rumble in the Park (a campaign vs campaign competition run over 5 weeks in the park whereby teams accrue points to win the esteemed Rumble cup and $500 prize money for their project)
Teams are also encouraged to motivate their people on a regular basis whereby they will have team meetings outside of the office each week as well as monthly activities for bonding and motivation.
There are numerous reward and recognition programs run continuously throughout each campaign to motivate teams as well.
What was the response of your staff?
The staff were engaged by People and Culture, their Team Leaders & Contact Centre Managers to get involved. This also meant that Team Leaders and Contact Centre Managers were dressed up as well. Some teams actually put on a performance whilst others simply enjoyed dressing up. It was a hugely successful day and everyone really enjoyed it.
Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
The fact that this day was a part of our Health and Wellbeing month was perfect and assisted in our holistic month of activities.
Thomson-Reuters Customer Support Asia - Sydney Team
The Thomson Reuters Customer Support Asia team in Sydney are the central point of contact for clients to resolve data, functionality and technical issues related to Thomson Reuters’ information services and products. We support 24 countries across Asia in 12 different languages.
Theme Day Event organiser Famona Rose organised a Boost, Balance, Breathe celebration. The event included:
• Red Cross Blood Donation - seminar on the benefits of giving blood and as an opportunity to support health for others
• Acupuncturist – free 10 minute health diagnose
• Living Well (local gym) – free health check-up including blood pressure, body fat percentage and metabolic age
• Chair Doctor –assisted in adjusting chairs to best suit requirements and also showed people ‘chair yoga’ moves
• Boost Juice - delivered to desks
• 3-Minute Angels – roamed the floor to give everyone 5-10 minute massages
• Health Tips – displayed health and wellbeing tips on TV screens and projectors around the floor (this is ongoing) as well as a competition to find the best tip from employees
How many people/centres/teams were involved?
Customer Support in the Sydney office which is approximately 150 people.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We have an Employee Engagement committee which regularly organises events and activities such as these. They thought a health and wellness day was a great idea and ran with it.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
The acupuncturist and Living Well health checks were very popular. The massages and juice brought many smiles to peoples’ faces. The chair doctor was very well utilised. Our follow-up is the continuing health and wellbeing tips on the screens as well as copies of the chair yoga exercises in circulation around the floor. Also, many people made appointments with the acupuncturist and signed up to the gym.
Great idea guys, we got a lot of fun out of it!
ATO - Moonee Ponds
ATO, Client Contact at Moonee Ponds resolves, educates and assists Tax Payers and their representatives with their taxation obligations and enquiries. And of Thursday 20th August...they also laughed all day. Theme Day Event organisers Kyriakos Fanartzis and Leannda Magnavacca created a theme day for their contact centre based on Laughter in the Workplace.
A tunnel of laughter was created, with a display of jokes, quotes and cartoons. Smiles were everywhere on the floor and prizes were given to those who entered the tunnel of laughter and made the Joker laugh!
The whole Moonee Ponds Site was involved.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We entered into the ATA Theme Day to promote wellbeing in the workplace. The centre on a regular basis has motivational activities such as:
* Morning teas
* Race around Client Contact
* Mooneeopoly
* 1 minute escapes
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
The response was very positive the staff enjoyed the prizes and the smiles everywhere but most of all the enjoyed the LAUGHTER.
They gained a number of Wellbeing benefits to have laughter in the workplace including:
* Boosting team morale
* breaks down social barriers
* Eliminates stress
* Re-energises
* Motivates
The Housing Contact Centre - NSW
The Housing Contact Centre provides a range of services to support Housing NSW and its clients. It also provides a limited range of services for external organisations on a fee for service basis. For the ATA theme day, Housing Contact Centre, gave a full centre wide involvement (8 teams of 20), all up about 120 staff participated on the day.
For the ATATheme Day, event organiser, Bronwyn Mathias created an entire “Health and Wellness Carnival”
Each team had an individual theme focus :
• Team Sports - Maintenance
• Lets get physical – CF&S
• Life be in it – Operations/Contractor
• Beauty & Laughter - Processing
• Good Sleep - AHTA
• Positive Thoughts – CFU/OCH
• Healthy Eating - GEL/AEL
• Stress Free/Relaxation - Outbound & Trainees
The day went something like this:
11.00-14.00 = Hand massages – Nutri-metics consultant
11.30-14.30 = Blood pressure tests
11.00-16.00 = Shoulder massages at desks of those who expressed interest
11.00-14.00 = Weight Watchers at work
11.00-14.30 = Wellness@Work DVD screenings
11.00-15.00 = Putt Putt tornament charity fund raising
Brochures available all day outside of meeting room 2.4 & 2.5 regarding quit smoking, dental care and various health issues.
½ hour team building sessions off site
FREE supply fruit bowls, strawberries etc for “afternoon tea” at 2.30pm
FREE “breakfast bar” – 05.00-11.00
• 5 different cereals
• Yoghurt
• 3x different breads with butter (supply your own spread)
• Canned fruit
• Fruit juice, milk
There was also a competition:
1. Team focus on the theme, General Manager to judge
2. Individual best “theme dressed” staff member, General Manager to judge
3. Best score on theme based quiz
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
Our General Manager thought this might be a nice distraction for staff after how busy we have been. We generally only have centre wide motivational activities once a year at Christmas, teams have regular monthly team sessions.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
• Staff enjoyed the day and all got involved
• People smiled all day
• The atmosphere was of relaxed, filled with fun and laughter
• “Facebook” is full of positive feedback and asking when we can do this again.
• Staff have randomly approached the General Manager and said what a great day they had and how it was awesome be able to work and relax at the same time
• Our queues were managed answering 2,731 calls and during various periods through out the day the teams successfully managed the calls to zero waiting.
Smart Service Qld
Integrated Contact Centre, Smart Service Queensland, who are responsible for answering calls from the Queensland Public on a variety of queries across the Queensland Government, created a "Find your 35" theme. It refers to 30 Minutes of exercise & 5 Fruit & Veg per day.
Theme Day Event organiser, Renata Lee, said that they had 14 Teams with approx 160 staff participating on the day. Each team brought in healthy food & healthy recipes to share with other teams.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We like to get involved in ATA events and we regularly have team & motivational activities across our 2 sites.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
The staff enjoyed the day and were keen to promote the theme & general approach to a healthy life through sharing the healthy recipes & food with each other. It was a fun day had by all.
The Adelaide City Council Customer Service Centre
The Adelaide City Council Customer Service Centre put on a Health and Happyness Fair for the ATA 20th Anniversary Theme Day challenge.
The Adelaide City Council Customer Service Centre is the first point of contact for customers visiting, calling or emailing Adelaide City Council. It's role is to resolve 90% of contacts at that first meeting and ensure all issues are resolved in a timely accurate manner. It is also often the only “physical” contact a customer may have with council so we are truly Ambassadors for council and the Call Centre Industry.
Theme Day Event organiser Bronwyn Paolini, Customer Service Consultant, with helpers Stacey and Ashlyn held a ”Health and Happy-ness Fair”. They invited people to enjoy some “me” time.
They offered
• Massages
• Tarot Card readings
• Buy a Joke and have a laugh
• Turkish Coffee readings
• Crystal Ball and Palm Readings
• DIY massage with a massage chair
• Chill Out Zone
• Home made healthy snacks
• Reiki
• Home made Bath Salts
Competitions were also run
• How many Skip ropes in a minute
• The Tunnel of Wind Chimes can you get through with out chiming
• A healthy food cook off
All “services” goods and competition entries attracted a nominal charge 20c-$2.00. All monies raised have been donated to the Council’s next Corporate Casual Day fund raiser for The Flinders Medical Research Foundation.
In all they raised just over $102.00 and a lot of joy and laughs and even some spooky insights. They also took the opportunity to remind other members of staff that they have an award winning innovative Customer Centre as part of the face of the organisation. By highlighting statistics as well as Team & Individual Awards received and showing how proud we are of our work place.
How many people/centres/teams were involved?
The whole team of 20 ish got into the spirit of things, some offering their services, some entering the various competitions, dressing to theme others ensuring the Centre was operating without impact on our customers
An Invitation went out to our Business Unit as well, as we advertised in the lift foyers.We had approximately 50 people visit us which was a wonderful response.
Why did you decide to be involved with the ATA Theme Day? Do you regularly have team and /or motivational activities?
We are a strong supporter of the ATA and pride ourselves as being a high performer in the Industry. In Adelaide City Council we are recognised as significant drivers of Fun at Work Initiatives and how such events big or small help maintain a Healthy Happy Team which in turn means we provide the best Customer Service possible.
This also has the enormous benefit of building cross corporation relationships. It also provides an opportunity to remind other members of staff that they have an award winning innovative Customer Centre as part of the face of the organisation. Recently we have had a Winter Warmer recipe competition, A Bowls and Dinner night to name but two.
What was the response of your staff? Did they enjoy the day? Did they gain some health/wellbeing benefits that they can use in the daily work practice?
The team had a great day. They enjoyed having massages, Tarot card, Turkish coffee readings as well as some ‘dodgy’ crystal ball predictions. The centre was decorated which makes a nice change from the usual sight that greets us when we come to work. The buzz of such events generally takes a while to wear off and just smiling and being happy at work is always a plus.
Thank you for creating this opportunity to take time to have fun and spread the word about where we fit in the industry.
The City of Port Adelaide Enfield Customer Service Team
The City of Port Adelaide Enfield Customer Service Team provides a ‘one stop’ shop for Council where it resolves 80% of our calls.
On the day of its theme day event it had eight call centre staff and three counter staff on duty.
Theme Day event organisers Sally Hamilton & Maria Dean created a “Sun Smart” event. They were all dressed in appropriate attire for working out in the Sun. They wore some broad brimmed hats, long sleeve shirts, vests and sunscreen. They also had a display in the foyer representing our outside workforce with plenty of sun block, hats, safety gear, work equipment and lots of bollards and flashing lights.
"We had fun dressing up in some very oversized garments and learnt how much gear the outside staff had to put on before they could even go outside and begin work. (Thank goodness for our air-conditioned inside jobs!!!!!) We also had a good laugh clowning around and taking photos.
Thank you for inviting us to participate in the ATA Theme Day."
ING Direct - Sydney
ING Direct Sydney Team take predominantly inbound calls for new & existing clients. Theme Day organiser, Yasmin Keats Contact Centre Manager Sydney created a theme day event for staff to dress up as a sporting team, and decorate their pods to match their team dress up.
Activities for the 5o+ staff included:
Sporting Movies to be played on the wallboards – eg. Mighty Ducks
Wii sport available for staff to play throughout the day
Round Robin competition for table tennis
Chicken & salad rolls provided to all DA’s for lunch
Each team to choreograph and perform 1 minute exercise routine
Australian Cental - SA
Australian Central's contact centre is both an Inbound and Outbound centre that caters for Sales and Service. It also manages the Internet enquiries within the centre. It has 63 staff in the Contact Centre, made up of 6 teams, Contact Centre Manager, Coaching and Monitoring staff and our Sales Support team.
For the ATA Theme Day, the entire floor was involved in one or more of the activities. Event organiser, Anna Tripodi gives an account of the activities for the day and of the great involvement and fun had by all.
"What a fantastic day that our staff enjoyed on Thursday 20th August. The ATA celebrated 20 years and the theme was Health and Wellbeing.
Our staff were very involved in all the activities of the day and enjoyed some great healthy eating, along with some activities to assist their wellbeing.
Prior to the celebrations, I asked 15 of our consultants to put together some A4 Posters with phrases that relate to health and wellbeing. We ended up with over 30 posters. The competition for the day was to find all the posters and advise me of how many there were and to quote one of the phrases. We had 7 winners on the day and lots of discussion around the healthy/wellness phrases. These posters will now be used as a part of our OH&S display area.
Our centre’s social club provided a healthy morning and afternoon tea of Fruit, Nuts and Cheeses. All staff enjoyed the fresh, healthy spread.
We set up a Nintendo Wii Console in our Training Room and decorated the room for the day. Quite a few consultants enjoyed some exercise during tea breaks and their lunch period. One consultant even came in early for her shift so she could have some fun on the Wii before she started for the day.
Over the lunch period, I organised Walking Groups to walk around Adelaide’s beautiful parklands for 20 minute sessions. There were 3 groups and we all enjoyed the sunshine and exercise…..although, I was a little sore the next day after taking all 3 groups on the walks!!
There were quite a few comments made that consultants would like to continue these lunch time walks and we are currently in the process of organising Lunch Walks on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
As I mentioned, a day to remember in Australian Central’s National Contact Centre. We all felt healthier and fitter at the end of the day….as well as focussing on our wellness through our posters, which included Brain, eye, desk exercises and facts about how we can all improve our health."
Centre Celebrations