Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Part-time Work Matters, Even in the Call Center
It’s a great time to be in the workforce. I mean that without jesting. Okay, maybe salary freezes are still happening, and maybe we’re being asked to work harder while keeping costs low, but the transformations happening in today’s workforce are really revolutionary.
From no longer having to be present at a dedicated brick and mortar location to having the flexibility to choose varying work hours – and even sitting in smaller huddle rooms and working as a team versus being isolated in a cold, desolate, dark cubical for the day – there have been several vast improvements over the past few years.
One trend that’s seeing an increase today is the part-time workforce. A ScienceDirect article notes that, “nearly one in five workers in the United States currently works part-time.” There are many who dislike the option, saying it makes it harder to get higher pay and benefits, but there is also a level of flexibility for businesses and employees that comes with only being committed part-time to the job.
Companies can use these workers during peak volume times and help to minimize employee downtime during lulls in the workload, thus cutting costs and increasing efficiency.
Today’s employees, much like the empowered customers we hear so much about, are also coming to the workforce with some demands on how they’d like to work that employers cannot ignore. Flexible scheduling and smaller workspaces top the list.
In the call center specifically, a staffing roster can help with workforce optimization because it assists management with deciding how many agents to schedule for a given day or shift based on factors like skill-set to best achieve service goals.
Other factors a roster considers include scheduling based on an agent’s workload, availability and more.
Keep in mind that a call center roster should still be flexible enough to change quickly when unplanned occurrences pop up. Things like an agent calling out sick should not throw the whole plan off course, but easily allocate resources to fill the new need.
Edited by Alicia Young