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A Reddit user recently asked contact center employees how to decrease turnover. Beyond the predictable call for higher salaries and more breaks, the most revealing answers went deeper, with comments such as ‘humane treatment,’ ‘tell us what we’re doing right’ and ‘not be screamed at or constantly criticized.’ This signifies a common mistake in many organizations: focussing on salaries, benefits and perks as retention strategies, while overlooking an important part of why employees stay or leave. At the end of the day, it’s rarely the size of the paycheck that makes someone go home smiling. It’s typically that one meaningful moment when they felt appreciated, heard, and seen by their manager.

 

Contact centers are notorious for having some of the highest turnover, with rates up to 100%. And once turnover starts, it snowballs: as morale dips, more agents follow their peers out the door. Reasons why they quit can vary from burnout to finding better pay elsewhere. However, companies who focus on providing good benefits, fair salaries, and throwing regular pizza parties are still seeing above average turnover rates. The solution may not be adding more benefits, but making internal changes that have high impact effects. 

 

According to Deloitte, “organizations with recognition programs had 31% lower voluntary turnover and were 12 times more likely to have strong business outcomes.” For contact center agents who handle high volumes of emotionally charged calls, the work can be draining: upset customers, rigid metrics, constant pressure. In those moments, a paycheck or bonus won’t ease the stress, but hearing “Great job today” just might. Recognition triggers positive emotional responses, helping to reduce stress hormones and strengthen connection to the workplace.

 

Beyond acknowledgement, kindness goes a long way. According to a study in the academic workplace, kindness at work can help alleviate stress, strengthen well-being and increase institutional identity. In the contact-centre environment, where stress and metrics loom large, the effect of recognition can help an employee shift from feeling like “just another number” to “a valued contributor.” Some ways managers can show increased compassion is to take the time to chat with their employees, social recognition and encouraging open communication. 

 

On the flip side, managers are often inexperienced or under-trained for the role. Supervising contact-centre agents demands a combination of empathy, performance coaching, and emotional intelligence. Many managers are promoted based on tenure or metrics, and not necessarily coaching skills. Without training even well-intentioned managers may struggle to recognize and reward employees effectively. As a result, the simple but powerful “thank you” conversation often never happens. To build a culture of appreciation, organizations need to better equip their managers with both training and tools.

 

AI tools such as Elvee.ai provide managers with insights they can’t get on their own. Elvee is the world's first AI platform that solves employee attrition by providing managers with analysis based on tens of thousands of diverse employee data points, ranging from performance metrics and work hours to traffic patterns and local events. They cut attrition by up to 50%, while monthly reductions have reached as high as 83%. Smart predictions identify top performers and flight risks 3 months ahead with 90% accuracy, sending risk notifications to managers. The tool also optimizes performance by personalizing development paths that align talent with business goals. Elvee recently achieved SOC 2 compliance, implementing rigorous security protocols to protect contact center data on their AI-powered attrition prediction platform. 

Tools such as Elvee can help managers overseeing a large group of employees prioritize which employees need extra attention and provide them with ideas on how they can address employee issues, from more flexible work schedules to increased training and support. 

 

It’s difficult for us to believe that a computer could know our employees better than us. We see and interact with them every day, and believe that intuition and experience will signal signs of disengagement to us. However that’s not always the case. One of our customers kept coming back to us, because a star employee was being flagged by the system as at risk of leaving. The manager had a good relationship with that particular employee, and kept reporting this error to us. Eventually, he approached him and found out that he was quitting because he had enrolled in university, and didn’t know how to break the news to him. Sometimes, AI notices changes in those closest to us that even we can’t tell.