How To Add Greater Value To The Hybrid Workforce In Call Centers?

The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly changed the way society viewed the workplace. In the call center environment, the adoption of remote work has resulted in a change in the work-life balance of employees.

While most of the world is back to normal, remote workers are resisting going back to the office. Gallup research shows that nine in 10 remote-capable employees prefer the flexibility of remote work in the future, and six in 10 indicate that they expect their company to adopt a hybrid work model.

Although agents prefer remote or hybrid work environments, they make workforce management increasingly difficult for contact center leadership. In addition, they demand a renewed focus on corporate culture and a new generation of tools to do their jobs and empower greater employee responsibility and autonomy.

What Are The First Three Steps For Call Center Leaders Looking To Upgrade or Establish a Hybrid Work Model?

1) Optimize Employee Face-To-Face Time

Connecting people must become a core capability of contact centers. This includes everything from hosting in-office events to personalized agent training.

Consider adopting tools that enable flexible, rotating scheduling where contact center leaders can create and apply rules to agent shifts from week to week. An agent assigned to a weekly rotating rule could get a different type of schedule each week, rotating between day and night shifts or between four and five day workweeks, all optimized to generate a higher ROI from working hours in the office.

As opportunities arise within a weekly, or even daily, schedule, call center leaders need to be able to make changes to schedules in real time to reassign staff and optimize time. Solutions such as Enreach Contact allow contact center leaders to guarantee remote work with options that adapt to all types of companies and budgets. In this way, employees can work from any place and device; communicate internally and externally by voice, chat and video through the WebRTC SoftPhone, the mobile APP and wireless or desktop IP terminals.

2) Maintain Agent Performance

In hybrid work environments, results become the true indicator of accountability. This represents an opportunity for the business, but only if performance results and metrics and targets are clearly defined and communicated.

Communications should be personalized by audience type (agent, supervisor, or administrator) with push notifications designed to signal key performance metrics (KPIs).

From there, allowing agents to take corrective action independently is an important element in building accountability. Solutions such as EEM alerts can be customized to enable continuous performance improvement, regardless of where the agent and their supervisor are physically working.

3) Strengthen The Autonomy Of Agents

In the call center environment, agent autonomy is essential. In fact, it has been shown to increase job satisfaction, foster employee engagement and drive innovation. Realizing the value of autonomy while maintaining or improving performance requires a solution to analyze staffing, identify shift change opportunities, communicate with agents, and implement intraday scheduling reviews.

From there, allowing agents to take corrective action independently is an important element in building accountability. Solutions such as EEM alerts can be customized to enable continuous performance improvement, regardless of where the agent and their supervisor are physically working.

According to a recent Gallup survey, 42% of employees have adopted a hybrid schedule and approximately 53% of them expect to do so in the future. Smart contact centers will seize this opportunity to redefine high performance and establish the protocols and resources to capture greater value through employee empowerment and responsibility.