Meet Majorel: The line between success and failure is very thin

Here at Majorel, we know our people are the heart of our business. Every quarter, we take some time to sit down with a member of our team who exemplifies the company’s values to learn more about their job, their department, their background, and what makes them tick.

Today, we’re speaking with Agnieszka Zagórska, the senior process manager in Majorel’s Continuous Process Improvement department who spearheaded our RISE initiative. Shortly after joining Majorel in 2018, Agnieszka was tasked with leading the company’s development of its global performance management tool .

Tell us a bit about your background.

I was born and raised in Poland, but I have lived in Germany for the last decade. It was my love of the German language—and my husband—that brought me here. I studied German at university in Heidelberg and Szczecin, then became a teacher. That was my initial passion.

Oh, wow! That seems like a very different career path. What brought you to Majorel?

You know, in some ways, it is — and, in other ways, the two jobs were very similar. While I was teaching, a colleague encouraged me to pick up some work in a local call center. I became a language trainer, so I got to use my background in teaching to get started and then fell in love with the industry from there.

I was fortunate to have mentors who helped me expand my expertise and explore new aspects of the job. Since breaking into the industry, I’ve become an expert in quality and training, a certified International Organization for Standardization (ISO) internal auditor, and a Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC) certified customer service performance leader.

What about your personal life? Do you have any pets? Favorite hobbies?

I do! I have two cats and two dogs: a French Bulldog and a Pug. I can’t deny that I love dogs with smushed faces. They’re just so sweet! As for hobbies, I like to read a lot. I also enjoy working in my garden when it’s nice out and cooking for family and friends.

What is your morning routine like?

I’m an early riser. I get up around 5 a.m. most days — before my husband, daughter, or the dogs wake up. It gives me time to have some tea or coffee and give my cats some attention without interruption. I also try to work out most mornings before starting my workday.

Can you tell us a bit about your roles and responsibilities at Majorel?

So, at Majorel, I work as a senior process manager, which means I’m responsible for supporting and optimizing clients’ performance, when requested, and building quality management systems and optimization in performance management processes. The goal is usually to improve clients’ customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, but that’s not the only aim. In the past two and a half years, my role has centered on developing Majorel’s RISE program, our first global performance management tool.

How did the idea for RISE come about? What pain points was it designed to solve?

It arose out of necessity. Despite Majorel’s global footprint, we’ve never had a standardized performance tool across regions and clients. Different offices and areas leveraged their own solutions, but that approach comes with a few key issues.

To start, it meant that the solutions offices were using before weren’t always polished, and they weren’t optimized for ease of use. The other problem, and the more significant issue we were out to solve, was the lack of comprehensive insight that comes with a fragmented approach to performance management. If every office uses different methodologies to assess performance, those metrics don’t mean much when compared to one another.

With RISE, our goal was to standardize our performance metrics to better understand what is working and where our teams are falling short. We wanted to give users a way to capture results, improve processes, sustain progress, and exceed expectations — or RISE — in the marketplace.

How did you get involved with the project?

I was tapped to join the RISE team because of my extensive experience in process management and evaluation. When developing a program like RISE, understanding the ways clients and team leaders will leverage its features is as important as knowing software development, and that’s what I brought to the table. I had first-hand experience with all the challenges we were tasked with addressing — they were my day-to-day pain points, too!

What part of RISE are you most proud of?

Our timeline. It was really ambitious by software development standards. We managed to deploy our initial build in just one year. I’m also particularly proud of the program’s module-based build, which allows users to tailor their dashboard to their needs, picking and choosing the metrics that are important to their business. It’s a really flexible program that can be configured to track just about any aspect of performance. It’s limited only by what the user can imagine.

Of course, I’m also proud of the response to the program. It’s been overwhelmingly positive. Clients are thrilled to know that such a robust, reliable program is being used to manage their teams. They’re excited to see what we will add to the program when the full version rolls out next year.

It sounds like you’ve seen a lot of success with RISE. What’s your definition of success in your work?

It’s always been my opinion that the line between success and failure is very thin. All undertakings come with a risk of failure, and you must accept that failure is a possible outcome if you are to overcome it. My measure of success isn’t about getting it right the first time; it’s about completing your purpose in spite of obstacles that impede the way. It’s about identifying what needs to change and having the fortitude to keep going.

OK. Last but not least: What is your favorite part about working at Majorel?

I love the diversity at Majorel, both when it comes to the people I interact with and my responsibilities. To start, I get to be creative every single day. My job is to solve problems, and no two have the same solution. Every day is different from the last, so I’m always learning and growing.
I also work with people from all over the world, with different cultural backgrounds and life experiences and it’s very cool to see how the different departments work together in more streamlined ways.

To learn more about the ways Majorel helps businesses optimize their processes, visit our CX Consulting landing page. To keep up with Agnieszka’s work, you can follow her on LinkedIn.

Keep an eye out for the next installment of our Meet Majorel series, where we’ll get to know another Majorel team member!