Recently call center management software provider Knowlagent published a useful white paper dealing with the question of how to evaluate whether or not an at-home agent workforce is right for your business.

"First, you have to determine if a work-at-home program is even feasible for your organization," said Krystal Sautter, CEO of Moving Beyond the Bricks, a consulting firm specializing in home-based workforce implementations, who designed and implemented the at-home program at ConAgra Foods.

Then, she recommended, "consider all of the potential costs from office furnishings to supplies, technology, a customer satisfaction and workforce management tool, training, tech support, and any other elements needed to sustain an at-home program."

Other recommendations highlighted:

Calculate expected ROI. Calculate the expected return on your investment before you get started. First, understand your objective for deploying an at-home program. Do you need more space in your existing facility? Is it to increase employee loyalty and retention? Is it purely to reduce costs? Is it to mitigate risk?

Build a project team. Choose a cross-functional project team with representation from HR, IT, finance, legal, procurement and the call center. Include an executive champion of the program that not only fully supports the mission, but also has a clear understanding of the expectations and time commitment.

To pilot or not, that is the question. There have been enough successful implementations to prove the concept and overall success of work-at-home programs. But if you need to test the model on a small scale to prove the benefits and expected returns, pilots can be beneficial to validate the increased productivity and prove to reluctant stakeholders that employees really can be trusted to work from home.

Three words: Transition, transition, transition. Optimally, a program would roll out in phases to allow you to validate assumptions and lower the perceived risk. "The most successful implementations I have seen built that first phase of implementation with 20-25 percent of their proposed workforce and with a cross- section of performers," said Sautter.

Keys to scaling. Once companies have implemented an at-home workforce in a pilot or initial phase, they are challenged to scale the program. When the time comes to ramp up, processes must be solidified around some of the biggest challenges to mature programs, including who to hire or transition, how to keep these agents connected to the business and how to effectively manage agents remotely.

Selecting the right agents. Working from home is very different than working at an office. As in a bricks and mortar center, it is critical to select the right agents by not only assessing their ability to do the job, but also their ability to fit into your company's culture and work independently. Additionally, qualities such as resourcefulness, strong problem-solving and being a self-starter have been shown to increase an agent's ability to work independently.

To download a free copy of this informative white paper, click here.