Schedule Noncompliance = Added Business Costs

One of my favorite work memories doesn’t have much to do with work at all.

It was when I was in my 20s working for a publisher out of Chicago. A bunch of us would gather regularly in the break room to eat lunch and play cards.

This boisterous group of all ages would fill up, crack up, and play Kings in the Corner. As the end of the lunch hour neared, we struggled to get ourselves back to our desks to finish out the day. And we’d sometimes drag our feet as we did so.

On the upside, these gatherings gave us the opportunity to get to know each other and have some fun. But it wasn’t particularly good for productivity.

Returning back from lunch a few minutes late probably doesn’t seem like a major infraction. But it can really add up, especially when it happens frequently and/or across a large number of workers.

If there are 300 agents and each one misses just 10 minutes of work each day, that adds up to more than a week of lost work per year per agent, Monet Software (News - Alert) says.

“When we calculate the amount in dollars, it becomes: 43.3 hours X 20 dollars = $866 per employee,” notes Monet Software. “Therefore, 300 employees X $866 = $259,800 lost each year. This is an astonishing amount of loss for an average size

contact center, and can be the difference between a company surviving or thriving. And this only considers the cost impact. Think about the potential Loss of revenues through periodic understaffing caused by ‘missing’ agents (no agents, no orders).”

Personally, I have no regrets about having fun with my workmates back in the day. I’ve been working from home for most of the years since then, so I like to think that I’ve made up for any lost time.

But if I were a business owner or contact center manager, I’d most certainly regret losses due to schedule non compliance. And I’d be thinking about what I could do to address that kind of thing.

As Monet Software explains in its recent white paper “Strategies for Improving Schedule Adherence”, workforce management solutions can help contact centers assess and address worker schedule noncompliance.

Edited by Maurice Nagle