How to keep your operators on board? Invest in technology!
4 min read
The great resignation’ is the name given to the flood of voluntary resignations that started in early 2021. Most affected sectors cited are hospitality, healthcare and education, but we found that the control rooms sector is highly at risk as well. That is another very striking conclusion of Barco’s Global Control Room Report, in which we asked over 1000 control room professionals worldwide about their needs, aspirations and working conditions. Last week, we tackled the question of how much control rooms answer the needs of professionals. In this second blog, we elaborate on the results regarding staff retention, and the possible solutions.
#1 Daily stress pushes people away
Fasten your HR seatbelts: almost 4 out of 10 control room professionals have switching jobs in mind. Even in the very near future: for almost half of that group, it’s even very likely they will have a different company name on one of their next paychecks. This is well above average: a similar survey conducted by Barco amongst office professionals indicated that 1 out of 3 were considering leaving their current employers – which was already considered as high.
Stress seems to be the most important contributing factor to the urge to resign. In control rooms where no real challenges occur, 8 out of 10 people have no intention to leave at all. This gradually rises to 63% of staff looking for another job when more than 6 challenges a day occur.
#2 The seven nightmares of the control room staff
Let’s now have a look at the most important reported challenges for control room professionals. The top clearly relates to the human effort of information processing and of the current technology at hand. The most obvious way to solve these problems? Investing in state-of-the-art technology that really helps the operators with a clear overview of the sources, facilitates the info sharing and enables less stressful workflows!
Quite some control room professionals feel less productive than they could be, and this has its effect on their well-being. Our report clearly states that there is a distinct correlation between the two. The less productive control room professionals feel, the higher the odds of switching jobs. For people who rate their productivity as ‘poor’, the likeliness they will soon switch jobs rises to a staggering 81%. A clear red flag for all HR teams!
#3 Boosting productivity: a constant challenge
And why do people feel unproductive? There can be many reasons, but very important is technology. When people feel unproductive, they also rate their equipment and tools as 4 or less (out of 10). When the technology is excellent, then 88% feel productive. So, in order to keep staff on board, investments in technology are an important step.
The group most affected by underperforming technology are the control room operators. Good tools and equipment can reduce information overflow, operator fatigue and workflow complexity – factors that have a very high impact on their productivity.
The report also shows that things are not improving in this field. In the past 2 years, the mentioned challenges have become more important (just like cyber risks did). This means that many corporations are lagging when it comes to investments in technology.
Next week, we will have a look at new ways of working, and how they fit into control room environments.
Do you agree with the results above? Or do you have completely different view on resignations in the control rooms sector? Please let us know on our LinkedIn channel.