From Burnout to Belonging: An Insider’s Account of Life and Leadership at Atender
BPO and customer service-center work has long been defined by “clock in, hit your numbers, clock out,” letting the human element disappear behind dashboards of SLA graphs, hourly targets, and hard KPIs. Former agent-turned-team-lead Chris lived that reality in operations across Europe for 14 years, and the dehumanizing, competitive work culture nearly made him quit the industry altogether – until he found Atender.
Beyond the Numbers: A People-First Philosophy in Outsourcing
Atender was born out of the need for something different.
“We saw a kind of brutal streamlining that came at the expense of almost everything else,” co-founder Andreas Helland explains. “So we built the company we could never find ourselves.”
In the traditional outsourcing world, pushing numbers and KPI’s are the sole focus in the industry, and often comes at the expense of everything else; Agents are expected to run like machines and are treated as such, too. The people become numbers, statistics on a dashboard, burning out one by one in high-pressure, competitive, number-driven environments. From our experience this leads to low performance and incredibly high employee turnover rates. Horror stories about the work environment in these workplaces are common, giving the BPO industry a terrible reputation but it doesn’t have to be like that.
The truth is, when you focus on the people, excellent results and success for the company are a natural outcome. While it might be easy to think that people are replaceable and quick results matter more than a healthy work environment, having a high work morale and low turnover, only has benefits: Low turnover means that your agents become experts in their fields, and there will be less resources spent on rehiring and training new agents. High work morale means people perform, not out of fear, but because they feel valued.
Our approach is grounded in the belief that when people thrive, performance follows. And we got the data that backs it up, better engagement, lower attrition, and stronger delivery metrics. We don’t choose between people and performance. We design for both.
Our company motto is - people are everything. This isn’t a feel-good slogan but a core value that drives the entire company. On a daily basis, this means happy, engaged support agents, which lead to happy customers and successful clients. This people-centric approach guides all of Atender’s decisions, turning the typical outsourcing model on its head.
A turning point for workers in the industry
Chris’s journey in the BPO industry highlights the stark difference Atender’s culture makes. While trust and empathy drive the work environment at Atender, Chris recalls that in his previous jobs, the work environment was closed off, and the leadership style feeling like a big steamroller, grinding through everything in its way to reach the goal whatever the cost, including the employees:
“You stay in your designated place in the hierarchy, and you keep quiet. I have always found it strange in companies where this is the norm. I have stood there thinking, ‘I can barely get permission to speak’, not to my team leaders or backup team leaders, let alone go all the way up the chain. People are not allowed to speak openly about their problems, needs or questions. There is simply no one to talk to.”
Open communication is one of Atender’s cornerstones, and this very quickly became evident to Chris when he started working as a customer-service agent. From day one, Chris recalls feeling truly seen and heard a dramatic change from his past jobs:
“What surprised me the most about Atender’s way of doing things was the atmosphere in the office and in my team. My new colleagues helped me a lot, no matter what. The level of open communication here is something I’ve never experienced before, and it’s great. Open and honest, going straight to the source. It really can’t get any better or easier than that.”
Instead of being thrown into a cubicle with a quota, Chris found himself in a team with a operative manager who coached him, held regular check-ins about his well-being and placed a genuine emphasis on personal growth. When he was promoted to Team leader himself, he once again felt the difference in leadership and work culture that set Atender apart from other companies in the industry. Trusting his abilities, Chris was tasked by co-founder Andreas Helland with starting a new project completely from scratch.
“I had been a Team leader previously, but in that role I took over a project that was already up and running, and that is a completely different experience from starting one from the ground up.” When asked about how he felt starting this new role, Chris explains how surprised he was at how the managers at Atender, and the people in general, collaborate and tackle tasks together: “What struck me most was how many of the existing Team leaders were truly willing to help me with any questions. A handful of people in management, and they know who they are – have been extremely helpful. They all had my back, and that feels really great.”
Comparing this to his experience in other companies, Chris explains that it was always “painfully clear that everything revolved around competition, sharp elbows, withheld information and a generally unhealthy environment.” He continues, “I have seen leaders pit colleagues on the same team against one another because they believed that was the best way to get results. To be completely honest, there came a point in my life when I thought I never wanted to do this job again. But by chance I ended up at Atender, and I am truly happy to be part of this company.”
When Employees Thrive, Everyone Wins
Chris’s experience with Atender underscores the idea that when you prioritize the well-being of your people, business performance follows. In an industry with a reputation once notorious for high turnover and “churn-and-burn” tactics, Atender’s approach delivers a refreshing contrast. The company has grown from just six employees in 2019 to close to 200 by 2025 without losing its cultural soul. Crucially, Atender measures its success through employee satisfaction as much as client metrics. In fact, employee satisfaction is the company’s ultimate KPI, and it’s something Chris explains is very important to co-founder Andreas Helland, who still tries to welcome everyone personally when they join the company.
“Working at Atender has been surprisingly positive from day one. Andreas, for instance, kicked things off by sharing a bit about the company and what our purpose is. It was a personal conversation and that created a relationship with him from day one. He even tries to learn everyone’s names – that’s certainly harder nowadays: when I joined in the autumn of 2023 we were about 40–50 people, and now there are more than three times as many, so if he still knows all the names, that is impressive. But that’s just who he is, and it’s a great way to get started, putting everyone on equal footing and letting you know that you can always talk to him."
From Chris’s perspective, Atender is showing the BPO industry that there’s a better way forward. By treating support agents as valued partners rather than interchangeable resources, it has unlocked a level of service quality and flexibility that pure metric-chasing could never achieve.
“When I started as a Team leader here, the first thing Andreas said to me was: ‘Make it yours. Take ownership and create a team you’ll be proud of.’ I still think about that from time to time – the trust he had in me. The Team leader’s most important task is to make sure the team members are happy, because happy colleagues do better work. And secondly, if they lack anything to reach a certain level or complete a task properly, the team leader guides them through it instead of simply leaning back, as I have seen in so many companies where the attitude is, ‘Well, they’ve had the introduction, so they can manage on their own.’ No – it’s not about carrying people through everything; it’s about open dialogue; let’s have an honest conversation about what you need so you feel better and more confident in your job. That is the culture Atender fosters.”
Intrigued?
Have a question?
