According to a recent study work stress for managers is on the rise.  According to a survey done by administrative staffing agency OfficeTeam, 30 percent of managers say they are more stressed now than they were a year ago. Only 11 percent felt that their work stress had declined. Twenty-two percent also felt it was likely for their stress to increase over the course of the next year.

Call center managers are certainly no exception to stress, and with many call centers cutting back on personnel to save money overworked managers are always looking for extra time.

But for those call centers still using spreadsheets to schedule agents there’s an easy way to save managers time and worry. By adopting a workforce management solution like Monet Softwares’s Monet WFM Live call center managers can shave considerable time from spreadsheet scheduling.

When using a WFM tool to both monitor and schedule employees your managers will be able to reduce the time it to schedule agent by up to 25% compared with a spreadsheet. If your managers are working on schedules two hours a day – which is a conservative estimate—they’ll save two and half hours a week using software like Monet’s. Over the year, that will give them close to three weeks of extra time to attend to other responsibilities.

On top of the time being saved, the use of a workforce management system can also save your company a considerable sum of money. A white paper released from Monet earlier this year claimed that “when a call center with 200 agents and four managers switches from spreadsheets to Monet WFM Live, it can save up to $260,000 a year in operating costs.

Monet’s workforce management program eases the work load and attention that spreadsheet scheduling requires in a variety of ways. First of all the service uses predictive software to determine how many people you’ll need on a given day, no need to go digging through records only to find out your shorthanded on the busiest day of the year. The program also includes a fast scheduling suite that will generate a plan based on the parameters you specify. Perhaps most importantly the program track call volume and other parameters in real time, allowing you to make changes to the schedule intuitively and accurately as the day goes on. 

While most call centers have already adopted a WFM in some capacity, those that have yet to ditch the spreadsheets could easily save time, money and manager sanity by picking one up now.

Visit www.monetsoftware.com for more information.

Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master�s degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of Chris� articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Chris DiMarco