In 2021 we are seeing some shifts with people asking about certain functionality, as it relates to the work from home or situation. Yes we’ve always had work from home agents, they’ve been anywhere from 10%, 15%, maybe as high as 20% in most contact centers in terms of the overall work staff…but with the (pandemic) work environment, most agree we have never seen anything on this scale!
Trends and changes:
Split shifts – A few years ago, we started seeing shift bidding, where you could actually bid on shifts with the whole idea of giving more empowerment to the agent versus being dictated from the organization. And then we started to even see work like work grids, where it’s our work grid, and you as an agent (depending on your skill set, your qualifications, good standing, your quality scores, etc.) you get first preference to pick your block of hours that you would want to work.
Since the pandemic hit this concept of split shifts has grown. If everybody (or 80%+ of the staff) is working in-house, then it’s not really applicable. An agent gets up in the morning, commutes 20-30 minutes to the office, it’s highly unlikely that they are going to leave at noon, drive home, have lunch, spend a few hours and then come back at four o’clock and work from four to seven. So now it’s really kind of an Uber model.
Adherence – Adherence has always been a huge component of workforce management as everybody does forecasts and scheduling and adherence to some point. You had the workforce management, the analyst and the scheduling team doing their schedules doing their intraday management… looking at call volumes (who do we need? Do we have enough agents? Are we going to meet our service levels?, etc.). And then you have the supervisors who are managing the staff, they can see everybody…see when they’re on / when they’re in queue, doing wrap up, when they’re on break, when they are training.
But now with agents being remote, it’s somewhat like when an airline pilot lands the plane in heavy fog, its an instrument landing. Now WFM automation has become more important because you’re really using the technology to measure adherence, you can’t just look over your shoulder and see who’s at their desk taking calls. More and more people are asking “how do I maximize adherence?” and “how do we get to the levels that we’re wanting?”.
Attendance – How do you monitor for attendance? that. There are applications called automated schedule, attendance monitor that will tell us who is checked in? Who has called in sick? Who is late? Do we have enough staff? Are we ready to go? All through the technology.
These are some of the changes and challenges in WFM that are being addressed throughout this shift to WFH caused by (during and likely for some time after) the pandemic.
Roger Woolley is Chief Marketing Officer at CommunityWFM based in Dallas, TX. Roger is a Senior Marketing Leader with experience in building and leading product marketing, brand management, and analyst relations programs in both private and publicly traded technology companies in the U.S. and Europe.
