How To Favor The Schedule Flexibility Of The Agents Of A Call Center?

High turnover is a pain point for call centers. Although this did not increase notably in contact centers during “The Great Renunciation” (rates have remained stable at 42% per year, according to the WEM 2022 Global Survey), it is estimated that customer service centers spend an average of 13 weeks onboarding a new employee, at a cost of $12,500 per new employee.

Despite the high rate and cost of employee attrition, 36% of respondents to the 2022 WEM Global Survey say their organization is investing little or no effort in retention. To reduce job resignations, call center leaders report that they focus primarily on team building initiatives, while the survey continues to show that what has the greatest impact for the agent is better compensation, a clear plan for the career growth and more flexible scheduling options.

In this environment, schedule flexibility becomes an important differentiator. In fact, across all industries, employees who don’t have enough flexibility are four times less likely to become a retention risk, according to a report from Quantum Workplace. And retention, of course, is tied to higher-performing agents and higher customer satisfaction ratings.

How To Favor The Schedule Flexbility Of The Agents Of A Call Center?

While flexible scheduling is a cost-effective method of attracting and retaining talent, it has traditionally not been feasible to allow agents to choose their schedules, especially if they don’t align with business needs. Also, the fact is that not all employees are going to know in January what they will want or need from a scheduling and revenue standpoint in October, for example.

Many well-intentioned call centers have attempted to rely solely on agent preference programming practices. However, if not considered against a myriad of other factors and backed up with a flexible scheduling tool, agent preference alone can do more harm than good.

The Importance Of Workforce Management (WFM)

While there is no “perfect” contact center schedule, features like Workforce Management (WFM) can help. For example, by assigning availability points, supervisors define each day’s interval with a unique numerical value and set rules that agents must meet to complete their availability. This may include:

• Require approval if availability does not meet all rules.
• Require a minimum amount of available time.
• Require a minimum number of points each week.
• Require a minimum number of hours and/or days per week.

Rules are defined by the agent data value and all rules are optional. Once the parameters are established, the agent must provide its availability according to the rules of the business. In this way, availability points gamify the scheduling process and encourage agents to commit to their availability based on business needs. This drives engagement while providing opportunities to further reduce absenteeism.

As “The Great Resignation” continues to challenge hiring managers and work environments evolve with the adoption of new hybrid models, call center leaders should listen to three out of four agents who cite flextime as a employment requirement.

In this sense, solutions like Enreach Contact make flexible hours a reality while meeting the needs of business staff and increasing both employee engagement and customer experience (CX). Therefore, leaders who innovate in the flexible scheduling space will establish a valuable differentiator in the ongoing fight for agent retention.

What is “The Great Resignation”?

The Great Resignation, a term coined in May 2021, describes the record number of people who have left their jobs since the start of the pandemic. After an extended period of working from home without commuting, many people have decided that work-life balance has become more important to them.

This revolution in the world of work appears to be continuing apace, with one in five workers globally planning to quit by 2022. That’s the key finding of consultancy PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey over 52,000 workers in 44 countries and territories conducted in March 2022. Says unsurprisingly, pay is the number one factor in people wanting to change jobs, with 71% citing it as a key reason.