How To Facilitate The Labor Flexibility Of Agents In Call Centers?

Flexibility in call centers means making life easier for agents, allowing them to achieve work-life balance. It can also be applied to automated technology that streamlines work.

More recently, another meaning has emerged centered on the growing trend for companies to increase their agility through the introduction of flexible or short-time work contracts.

Flexible work contracts are particularly attractive for industries with seasonal peaks and troughs or in sectors such as insurance, financial planning, and even purchasing channels, where periodic spikes in weather, stock market surges, or demand of products promoted in short bursts are uncontrollable and often unpredictable.

How To Introduce The Right Flexibility Strategy If You Don’t Know How Volatile Your Demand Is?

1) Understanding The Psychology Of Work

Employees like to perform a job knowing that they are providing a valuable service that company manager’s value. Otherwise, they would rather be anywhere but in the office, even if they don’t get paid.

In this regard, the biggest challenge for call center leaders seems to be losing top performers and how to attract the best new talent if they can’t offer a permanent, full-time contract. This is where guaranteed minimum hours contracts can help.

2) Taking The Average Term And Including Unpaid Time Off

Following the middle ground can mitigate the risks of flexible working and short-hour contracts. This is particularly relevant in environments where demand can be highly unpredictable, for example in charity campaigns, advertising of special offers or 24-hour shopping channels.

In call centers of this type, the demand depends on a number of factors, such as viewing figures and demographics, the popularity of a campaign and the demand for different products.

One option to maintain flexibility but reduce costs is to introduce minimum hour contracts that offer a fixed but flexible number of working hours per week, e.g. 12-20, combined with ‘Paid Time Off’. Although it may seem strange, this option can be very popular. Why? It’s a win-win situation because managers can better control staffing costs and meet customer demand, while agents, while not being paid for time off when they don’t need it, are guaranteed an income and the opportunity to devote more time to your home and social life without having to ask for it.

3) Looking Beyond Programming

The introduction of flexible work contracts is definitely an important step forward, but it does not fully solve the problem of enabling schedules to accommodate these new contracts. To maximize flexibility, Workforce Management (WFM) can help agents update their availability to work at certain times/days in advance.

A well thought out flexibility strategy combined with technical innovation offers a better work-life balance for agents on minimum hour contracts. How can this option be implemented?

• Sending email or SMS notifications to people with the right skills to see if they can work at short notice to fill any gaps.
• Supervising compliance with agent schedules.
• Warning when schedules are in danger of being broken with automatic alarms.
• Offering real-time data, updated in seconds, to enable rapid decision-making and action.

In conclusion this new form of flexible working needs to take into account an understanding of the psychology of work and then and then use this knowledge to introduce technology-supported flexible work contracts that go beyond simple agent scheduling.