Call Recording Featured Article

What does it cost a company to recruit, hire, train and retain employees? It’s not a secret that labor costs are most companies’ number one expense – about 70 percent of all costs – but what may be surprising is that this figure is on the rise, and has been every year since 2005. Many companies are struggling to keep up, and the smart companies are taking steps to find efficiencies wherever they can, often with workforce optimization solutions.

While workforce optimization suites – which include solutions such as workforce management, call recording, and performance management – are great ways to help keep labor costs under control, there is evidence that companies are not utilizing them to their fullest extent. According to research from IMS Research and Gartner (News - Alert), most companies are spending only between 1.5 and 3 percent of their enterprise software budgets on workforce management, which is perhaps the most prominent component of workforce optimization. According to an article by Marcello Sambartolo writing for the UK’s HR Magazine, this is far, far too little.

“What does it mean that the very systems designed to improve workforce utilization, to reduce labor expense and to curb absences and other inefficiencies, occupy such a narrow slice of many organizations’ technology budgets?” asked Sambartolo. “It suggests that most organizations have not yet tapped the potential of comprehensive workforce management. In short, it means most companies have a massive opportunity to significantly – and sustainably – improve business performance.”

In the contact center, where labor costs may chew up even more of operating expenses than in other types of organizations, optimal use of workforce management has many implications for the business. It’s not simply about getting the most out of the labor force, although that’s a big part of it. Workforce management in the contact center ensures that the right people with the right skills are on the right media at the right time, which helps improve the quality of the customer experience being offered, and helps customer-facing organizations win and retain customers, which leads directly to increased revenue.

“There is a direct correlation between optimizing workforce efficiency and customer satisfaction,” wrote Sambartolo. “According to Aberdeen (News - Alert) Group, organizations that are achieving best-in-class performance in workforce optimization are achieving an '18 percent year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction, versus nine percent for all other companies'. Efficient workforce management helps to advance brand equity, another component of sustainable growth.”

It can also offer a host of other benefits, including a boost to employee morale via perceptions of increased fairness and control over their own schedules (many workforce management solutions offer automated overtime and vacation bidding and schedule swapping features), the reduction of financial and non-compliance risks, and a boost to operational agility.

As 2015 begins, companies looking to find efficiencies, improve operations and reduce costs would be wise to examine their workforce optimization processes, with particular attention to workforce management. Chances are, there is a great deal of room for improvement.