Carole Linton Email & Phone Number

Melbourne, Vic, Au

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Leading, consulting and coaching across portfolios to understand and influence change sequencing, saturation and congestion to increase adoption. Supporting transformational strategy to elevate organisational capabilities and release value frequently for customers, advisors, partners and our people. Lead, design and deliver Program Change Management strategies for Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestments

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Plan, execute and manage the change roadmap for the portfolio, ensuring alignment to the strategic direction of the portfolio and the enterprise. Working together with leadership groups to build a culture focused on optimising processes, systems and people structures to embed organisational change, adapting to changing demands and priorities in the business landscape.Lead, manage and execute change through client group engagement with focus on team leadership, management and collaboration. Develop and support change and optimisation governance as part of a centralised leadership practice.

Melbourne, Australia

Leadership of nine change resources across multiple projects and programs elevating customer and organisational fundamentals to ensure initiatives deliver a change in a measurable, sustainable and considered manner.Working with the EOCM leadership team to build, implement and support an enabling, fit for purpose change framework to ensure the organisation can embed and sustain change while meeting the challenging industry landscape and growing the customer base.Engaging with senior stakeholders and executives to determine the appropriate roadmap to deliver uplift in digital capability for IB, Mobile App and Live Chat interactions whilst enhancing functionality across Pega applications and HR systems to improve employee experience and develop customer focused product delivery across core offerings in cards, deposits and home loans. Contributing to effective change reporting capability to size change impacts and determine release priorities considering impacted user groups imperatives.Working with a cross practice ideation team to develop change leadership across the organisation to drive leader capability and advocacy. Providing guidance to the team to formulate a planned approach to complement existing programs.

Hobart

Assigned to review and assess current organisational capability to deliver against new Tasmanian State Government ICT strategy. Evaluated core resourcing against ITIL and SIAM capability assumptions to identity gaps and recommend future organisational structure to meet emerging requirements. Recommendations paper to be ratified by formal government authority.  Developed critical assessment of department factoring resourcing, capability and organisational requirements across contract management, project management, incident management and IT management strategies and disciplines. External and internal insight gathering layered across data points to form existing view to be overlaid with new objectives and imperatives. Designed artefacts include change impact assessment, transition plan, capability modelling and training plan.

Melbourne, Australia

Successful collaboration with the business owners to position for relevant change across multiple business units in challenging economic climates. Positioning a customised learning plan to activate sustainable change. Liaising, with legal guidance, to meet regulatory requirements with customer and staff impacts considered and articulated. Provide consultancy across a range of projects to ensure effective and consistent change management strategies are inplace to deliver sustainable change adding value to customers and bankers whilst delivering operational efficiencies. A core member of Enterprise Organisational Change Management forum setting approach and contributing to project delivery framework standards. Development of an on-boarding program and ongoing training syllabus to build core capabilities and create a career pathway through project based roles. Redesigned and enhanced local recruitment processes to ensure more robust outcomes could be achieved; incorporating key attributes and competencies into SHL psychometric testing and bespoke role plays.  Investigated high profile customer and frontline staff pain points impacting customer service excellence to shape strategy for operational design. Collaborated on an agreed blueprint which was subsequently adopted by dedicated task force for the development of process, policy and capability changes to address service interactions. Working in dedicated multiple discipline team as central change resource to to define, design and improve the process end to end from a customer, banker and bank perspective for Commercial Lending. Leveraging Scrum approach and using Human Centre Design, Lean and Agile to co-design solutions that meet the organisational long term objective without adversely disrupting the existing process due to short term or narrow solutions. Designed and commenced testing for digital signing solution for Retail and Commercial Lending.

As leader and champion, embarked on program to merge team into the mainstream operations in a way that communicated the team’s purpose, and prepared individuals for inevitable changes experienced in integration. Developed strategy to extend skills, migrate the group, identify training and support needs and expand rewards and remuneration models. ✔Identified process improvements, opportunities to improve the customer experience and built a more reflective performance measurement framework to support and drive the improvements. ✔ Engaged staff in understanding change and its impact on the business, customers and staff.✔ Increased customer satisfaction from 60% to 72% with no reductions in sales performance or retention levels. Identified critical elements in customer call flows and produced coaching that addressed gaps in knowledge and delivered consistent, predictable and replicable service to customers. ✔ Helped staff understand change, roles and measures of success and managed key messages to focus on customer metrics and maximising opportunities through a realignment of the Rewards and Recognition program. ✔Built awareness and increased activity in the online space that had failed to inspire customer connection. Transformed online team plagued with high absenteeism, poor performances, low levels of chat volumes and high abandonment rates, through a refresh and rejuvenation program that up-skilled staff, operationalised push and concurrent chats, and allowed access to performance-based pay. Live chat contacts were increased by 300% and improved opportunities for revenue generation.✔Eliminated the “us and them” mindset by demonstrating a renewed effort to team wellbeing including staff training, career progress, opportunities to earn more and excel. ✔Developed initiative that increased customer retention and became a standard model replicated across other workgroups.

Summary: Accountable for the delivery of sales, retention and acquisition strategy across 16 contact centres nationally (3000 seats, 10 million contacts annually, $890M revenues from inbound, call-to-action, and outbound contacts. Business lead on development of coaching platform to drive business returns.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Promotion increased authority and accountability for 1800 people to 3000 and from a single product to the total consumer product suite nationwide generating revenues of $890M annually. As a national stand-alone function, extended the sales performance across all groups to increase sales by 5% ($40M).✔ Increased revenues and sales volumes by encouraging higher value plans and cross-selling products with natural synergies. ✔ Developed a range of product hierarchies that formed a priority-selling approach to reduce “bill shock” through adoption of premium products. Partnered with marketing to identify best value/revenue combinations for driving higher revenues and secure customer base.✔ Implemented and adapted hierarchal and cross-selling approach to all sales teams and encouraged leaders to analyse and address shortfall in performance. Increased visibility refocused centre leadership teams on managing goals and became a defining moment in driving a cultural shift.✔ Reduced call volumes by ensuring customer issues were resolved on a single call, providing a positive customer experience.

★ Results: 107% to sales target, 101% retention target and 177% to non-access revenue target.★ Deployed dynamic knowledge management tool for front-of-house agents.★ Embedded shift to media content focus.Presided over end-to-end sales and retention programs for eight call centres nationwide—overseeing targets, performance-management framework, and productivity and morale raising programs that would extract best performances from teams. Led team to welcome and celebrate innovation, expand thinking, challenge mental models and deliver quality solutions.✔Confronted risk in retention function leading to possible exposure to local system failures, local holiday impact and lack of performance benchmarks. Reviewed business practices, diagnosed performances and conducted staff focus sessions to gain familiarity of culture and attitudes. ✔Established benchmarking that revealed groups were missing sales opportunities and implemented plan to split function across two sites in different states. Natural competitiveness prompted increased sales performance in tandem with an increase in the retention rate. ✔Co-developed and videotaped training program tailored to workgroups and underpinned by collateral and support tools. Sales penetration for the new broadband product increased from 5% at launch to 80% of all new sales across all contact types within four months of launch.✔ Balanced resource utilisation without compromising sales conversion rates as the product matured. Met with centre managers to assess the climate for embracing change and considered impact of performance-based pay for reassigned staff. Site continued to deliver high sales performance, demonstrated stronger sales alignment while reducing resource utilisation.✔ Drove new model across the workforce in tandem with communications program that reinforced the employee value proposition. Initiative prompted few issues and contributed to low attrition rates.

Direct Reports: 7 (Leads of Innovation, Tactical, Inbound Contact Centre, Campaign Contact Centre, Retail, Operations and Business Support). Summary: Steered change for channels to increase adoption of initiatives to build sales capability and customer service~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Counteracted flaw in model that had restricted team success by developing a team format and consulting with frontline groups to champion a mindset that the customer was front-of-mind in group thinking, planning and communications. ✔ Saved $27M on the first call resolution project. Delivered customer roadshow to front- and back-of-house staff that highlighted key drivers for meeting customer needs and expectations—a substantial differentiation from the traditional approach. ✔ Won buy-in from senior influencers to communicate key messages---leading to a cultural shift that prompted tangible actions to be adopted by staff in all customer dealings. Result: rates of customer calls resolved in first instance were improved and repeat calls reduced.✔ Developed and delivered a data-driven strategy incorporating individual agent scorecards that could identify and address gaps in the customer experience. Real-time data influenced coaching for all customer-facing staff in inbound contact centres reflecting in improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs and better resource utilisation.✔ Presided over team with 100% retention, high emotional intelligence and participative in brainstorming approaches, sharing research and experiences and expanding ideas.

Summary: Led the design, development and deployment of initiatives to drive revenue, improve the consistency and quality of customer interactions, and generate customer loyalty through solution-based selling. Managed change for channels to adopt initiatives to build sales capability and customer focus.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Instrumental in delivering sales tools and models that remain to the present day. A highly visible role influencing all workgroups, the mission was to develop a sales strategy that would drive revenue through effective frameworks and sustainable coaching models. ✔ Identified opportunity to build a self-supporting model that accredited trainers to deliver content as the program matured.✔ Spokesperson for communicating staff cuts, many of whom were considered immune through being handpicked by the senior leadership team. Shared key messages, communicated next steps and assessed the reactions of the group to identify individuals needing support. ✔ Travelled to Townsville and Melbourne sites to work with staff facing redundancy and provided the tools to provide support and the information crucial to guide employees through the next stage.✔ Co-developed sales methodology used in contact centres for use in a retail environment with financial benefits set at $5.6M. Model featured sales staff monitoring by store manager during peak hours, and a workplace that embedded post-contact coaching as a standard feature. The new “concierge” role that met and assessed customers for channelling to expert staff, was highly successful and was delivered in tandem with a self-sustaining training model. Delivered on time and to $1.8M budget.

Focused on stakeholder management and change management execution, the challenge was to take a collection of development initiatives and win buy-in from channels. Steered deployment models, planned training, linked launches where natural synergies were credible and reinforced the importance of the business taking ownership of the initiatives following launch.✔ Led 100% success rate against target by deploying nine initiatives with projected benefits of $16.3M.✔ Cut management layers and increased productivity through the co-development of a sales excellence organisational structure.

Summary: Stimulated performance via rewards and recognition programs, introduced regional business plan for goal attainment that exceeded revenue targets and assumed role as Group Manager for an extended period. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Gained acknowledgement for surpassing revenue targets---delivering 120% to target following the development of a regional plan based on global best practice in service delivery. ✔ As Acting Group Manager for three months, took a key role in extricating company from a problematic supplier contract and presenting key messages to 300+ staff.

Summary: Optimised call centre staff performances through coaching and championing desire to deliver on all business metrics for increasing revenue and market share. Staff: Adelaide (185), Lismore (156), Hobart (120)~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Transformed a culture being undermined through lack of employee engagement.Introduced an innovative program of change designed to build capability and reduce apathy in the leadership team, and simultaneously analyse staff performances and reduce headcount for those unresponsive to change or incentives. Virtually overnight the team was transformed.✔ Grew workforce from 39 to 156 as an integral component of the optimisation program for the call centre. Training transitioned staff from “call takers” into service providers modelling the best of contemporary call and quality practices including rapid handling times.✔ Partnered with construction company to erect new site to accommodate larger call centre team numbers. Project was delivered on time, to budget and incorporated the type of workplace features consistent with employee satisfaction.

Prince2 Foundation/Practitioner | Change Management Foundation | Change Management Practitioner

Analytics & Reporting, Human Resource Management, Organisational Leadership, Performance Management

Frontline Management

Numerous Training Courses Including Business Acumen Program, Hs&E, Eeo.