Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Is Telecommuting a Barrier to Job Success?
The merits of telecommuting – a practice Americans are increasingly growing to love – are regularly debated in the business media. For environmentally minded people, it saves gas and traffic congestion. For employers, it can save on infrastructure costs. For workers, it represents a way to work without turning one’s life over to an employer.
It’s been a particularly compelling model in the contact center. Schedule flexibility is critical for great customer support today, and nothing builds flexibility into a schedule like people who can pick up a headset at a moment’s notice and log in to begin working. It’s also a great way to expand the eligible labor pool: great contact center agents aren’t easy to find, and if you’re limited to commuting distance from a brick-and-mortar office, it becomes even more challenging.
So what are the cons to telecommuting? Some employers don’t like the idea of paying workers they can’t see. Though technology allows contact center managers to keep track of workers through performance management and workforce management solutions, and instant communications such as chat, some managers like to be able to see faces. Others believe that it hurts the social workplace when it comes to employee cohesion.
In a recent editorial for LinkedIn (News - Alert), former GE CEO Jack Welch writes that telecommuting could hurt career aspirations.
“Telecommuting sends another message, one that says you value lifestyle flexibility over career growth,” he wrote.
His argument is that while being at home may remove some day-to-day stress in workers’ lives, it robs them of the opportunity to show off their abilities to the people who may ultimately make the decisions about their future careers. It may affect their ability to climb the ladder to leadership.
“The facts are, even in this age of ubiquitous technology and open-mindedness toward flexible work arrangements, working remote still comes with a cost: diminished face time,” wrote Welch. “Sure, that won’t kill you in your early career. As long as you’re an individual contributor with enough talent, you can do almost any job from home—write code, analyze legal documents, design marketing materials, or sell financial services. The list goes on and on and gets longer every day.”
There is evidence, however, that works today – particularly younger workers – aren’t looking to become ruler of their own fiefdoms. They’re looking for work-life balance, and they’re finding it in telecommuting. Many people who accept contact center jobs aren’t doing it with a goal of becoming the VP of operations in the future. They simply want a career that will provide them with a salary while allowing them more time to care for their children, their house or their hobbies.
Will it ever work to make the entire contact center remote? There are companies that operate just in this way. They’re probably not hiring workers who one day want to run their own companies. But it’s important to note that things have changed since Welch’s day: remote working is becoming more collaborative, more visual and more inclusive. Companies today are building a new model of what it means to excel, and it won’t necessarily involve dressing up in a suit and saying, “Yes, sir” after every sentence.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi