Workforce Management Featured Article
Using Workforce Management to Lower Call Center Attrition
The call center has a dubious distinction in the business world: it’s least able to retain employees. In fact, according to a study by Talkdesk, inbound call center work ranks as one of the highest turnover jobs in the world. While the numbers vary from company to company, it’s generally believed that call centers have a turnover rate of between 30 and 45 percent. Compare this to the average employee turnover rate for all industries in the U.S. in 2013, which was just over 15 percent.
Companies and customers suffer from this high turnover, according to a recent article by Jason Sterns writing for Customer Think.
“When turnover runs rampant in the contact center, institutional knowledge is lost, productivity drops, the quality of service decreases, and employee engagement and morale go down,” wrote Sterns.
The reasons for the high turnover vary, but collectively add up to what many consider “dead-end job prospects.” The work is repetitive, it’s not particularly challenging, it offers few opportunities for career-growth, there is an excessive amount of pressure to meet key performance indicators, and current low employment means there is no risk to leaving for a new opportunity.
How To Improve Employee Attrition Rates
So how do you retain agents when they’re already primed to leave at the first hint of a better job? For starters, there is evidence that employees value a positive company culture. If your contact center is rife with bullying, autocracy, inflexibility, high pressure and no rewards, you’re providing zero incentive for workers to stick around. Employees value a positive work environment, so building one is critical for retention.
How Workforce Management Can Help
The repetitive nature of call center work is one of its biggest drawbacks. Using proper scheduling tools that are part of workforce management, you can automate some administrative tasks that suck the life out of employees, and ensure that employees are schedules for ample training and job growth activities, such as mentoring, one-on-one time with managers and trainers, and exercises that broaden their skill set, such as e-learning.
Finally, workforce management is also the core tool to provide something that agents value the most: schedule flexibility.
“The more an agent is able to adjust their hours to deal with personal issues or make their life outside the office more stable, the more likely they are to remain with a company that takes their personal needs into consideration,” according to a blog post by Monet Software (News - Alert).
Edited by Maurice Nagle
