Do your agents ever turn up to work late, on the wrong day or for the wrong shift?

Do they complain that it’s difficult to remember what shift they are supposed to be working or that changes have been made to their shift since they printed off a copy of their schedule?

How can you get around this problem?

Although we found that 76% of Australian Contact centres had implemented a workforce management solution only 54% of these had purchased the add-on tool to allow their agents to view their schedules online and even less of these had given their staff access to view their schedules from home.

This is a hot topic when I am interviewing agents on areas for improvement as many of them would like to have the ability to view their schedules, swap shifts and apply for leave from home. Although the functionality to enable staff to do this is available, many IT departments have not yet allowed this type of access to frontline staff which I think is a shame.

Hopefully the availability of new applications such as Nobile ShiftTrack Mobile which recently won Product of the Year 2011 by Communication Solutions Magazine will help to drive more companies towards giving staff access to their schedules from home.

The Nobile ShiftTrack Mobile, is a staff self service module, allowing staff to access key information including shift and meeting times via their smartphone. In addition, ShiftTrack Mobile allows staff to request shift swaps and leave applications.

By using a mobile phone application, staff and managers never have to worry about ...what is my shift next Friday? Am I working next Saturday? Is leave available on that day? Having this information instantly available means less time backwards and forwards between staff and management on administrative tasks and more time for work activities thus helping the centre to run more efficiently.

After spending the last month in Europe and New Zealand, I'm back in Sydney working on a number of both front and back office projects. While I was in Europe I spent some time with a number of organisations who are rolling out Workforce Management in back office and it's interesting to note the similarities that most of these organisations face, namely lack of accurate data. In front office, we've grown accustomed to the large number of reports recording everything our agents do but behind the scenes, in back office this is often not the case. Often the technology is out dated and in need of a serious upgrade or renewal in order to get anything of value for the capacity planning teams. As per my previous blog on back office, the cultural change and shift in attitudes towards scheduling and managing these teams is also significant. People don't want to be treated like a contact centre and many don't see the need for change as 'this is the way things have always been done.'

So where do you start?

Firstly, define what it is that you are trying to do and how you will know if you have succeeded. Spend time getting to know how people in the back office work; sit with the teams to get a better understanding of the processes and tasks that are involved and the challenges they face. Understand what is driving your customers to contact you and if any of the processes are increasing the number of customer touch points within your organisation. Which processes/tasks are wasting time? Do they need to happen? Take it one step at a time and don't go in expecting to change everything overnight. Find out which tasks are related to each process. What needs to be done before the next procedure can start? Document these processes and the tasks within them so that you have detailed process maps as this will help you understand the complexity of this environment. You then need to understand approximately how long it takes to complete each procedure? If no data is available conduct time in motion studies. Watch how staff deal with backlog. Can they cherry pick which piece of work they undertake? What is the service level goal? How often are service levels achieved? Is backlog measured? How is it measured?

Back office planning is different to inbound planning as the service levels are often greater than 24 hours. This means that back office has to deal with backlog and the work we do today will impact service levels for yesterday, today and tomorrow and the upcoming days. You may therefore need to increase your staffing requirements now to make sure you meet your service levels for days that have already passed and days that are several days in the future. It is not just a simple workload calculation.

In my last blog I wrote about attrition and different ways to analyse this in order to get a better understanding of why people are leaving. It's also important to work with your HR team to get some overall feedback on what people have been saying their reasons for leaving are in their exit interviews. This can help you understand if attrition is related to scheduling in any way. Communication between Workforce Planning and HR is therefore essential.

As a Workforce Planner part of your role should be to advise HR on the type of shift required so that new hires are recruited when and where the business actually needs them. It's also a good idea to provide HR with information around the benefits of different shift options so they can provide this information to candidates. When candidates go through the interview phase it is important that they understand the type of shift they will be working, the annual leave policies (they may need to work on public holidays) and what breaks, training, coaching etc they will typically have in their schedule before accepting the position.

During the induction training, someone from Workforce Planning should conduct a session on Workforce Planning explaining what it is and the processes for applying for leave, swapping shifts, adhering to schedules etc. They should also conduct a Power of One activity to help make this easier for new hires to understand. Make sure you provide your agents with some documentation around your scheduling guidelines and frequently asked questions so that they can also refer to this later if necessary.

Approximately one month after being on the phones it's a good idea to schedule a feedback session with the new hires and key members of the leadership team, including HR. In this meeting, feedback can be gathered on their experience to date, including the recruitment process, training, and integration to the phones. Any further scheduling related questions or concerns can also be answered at this time and you can use the information gathered in this session to improve many of your processes and hopefully help to reduce attrition in the future.

I wanted to make sure that all Nice Customers are aware of their ANZ Customer Conference next week, 25th October at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney. This is a free event for all users of Nice products (including IEX and QM) and is a great way for you to find out about all the latest enhancements to their product range as well as ask questions about how you could improve the way you use some of the tools you have already implemented. It’s also a great way to network and meet other Nice users . For more information download the flyer here.

And now to the latest news off the press in terms of Workforce Management acquisitions is that Noble Systems Corporation, have announced the acquisition of locally owned Open Wave. The transaction includes all assets and intellectual property.

"Acquiring Open Wave's talent and technologies will enable us to offer the most dynamic and responsive WFM product in the global marketplace," said James K. Noble, Jr, President and CEO of Noble Systems. "We welcome Open Wave clients and partners from Australia and around the world and look forward to continued growth and success under the Noble Systems brand."

Noble Systems will offer Open Wave's ShiftTrack WFM platform to deliver enhanced scheduling, forecasting, resource management capabilities and more. The move also bolsters Noble Systems' presence in Australia, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. With an existing location in Sydney already in place, Noble Systems' employee and infrastructure footprint in Australia will more than double in size due to the transaction. Noble Systems will also take over Open Wave's EMEA headquarters in London and significant UK client roster with brands including National Express, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, TD Waterhouse and more.

With Open Wave, Noble Systems will add significant depth to its global WFM team, gaining more than 100 active client sites and a robust suite of offerings refined over the company's 20-year history of world-class service and industry-leading innovation. Over the coming months, Noble WFM and Open Wave clients will be notified of Noble Systems' global WFM roadmap, product upgrades and new features available as a result of the transaction.

"Noble Systems is the innovative, fast-growing, financially secure partner we needed to take Open Wave's groundbreaking WFM technologies to a broader global marketplace," said Nick Wagner, former Chief Technology Officer of Open Wave. "We look forward to joining a winning team and providing a seamless transition for our valuable staff and clientele."

Moving forward, Noble Systems' global WFM development will be led by Wagner. Noble Systems will maintain existing Open Wave office locations in Melbourne, London and Singapore and seeks to retain all current personnel. In addition to intellectual property and assets, Noble Systems will assume stewardship of Open Wave’s global client base of firms including Unisys, Qantas Holidays, Avon and many more.

Noble Systems Corporation is a contact center technology solutions provider based in Atlanta, GA. Noble solutions include advanced ACD and predictive dialing; unified contact processing for voice, email, and web; and integrated IVR, digital recording, messaging, quality control/monitoring systems, scripting, and real-time reporting and management tools.

I wonder who will be next…..

This week I was in Brisbane for the WFO Network Group where we spent the afternoon sharing different Workforce Planning ideas. We were about half way through the session when I suddenly spotted Marko Sekulic's T-shirt. Marko works for Suncorp where, a few years ago, they created a Workforce Planning T-shirt (in Black or Blue) for members of the Team. Brilliant! Check out Marko modeling the T-shirt below. Apparently there's a new version coming out soon so I've asked the team to send me a picture through when it's ready.

The Suncorp team also have a team calendar. If you'd like to create one for your organisation the Suncorp team recommend this website www.vistaprint.com.au.

Love it. Thanks for the photos!