5th Talent International recently interviewed 41 contact center leaders regarding their shift to a work at home model for their employees. These leaders represented more than 40,000 agents and supervisors across 11 different countries and 9 major industries. They shared the issues they are having with the work at home model and best practices for overcoming them. Below is a quick summary of the interviews and click here to read the full report.
Most Employees are Experiencing Work at Home Fatigue and it is Impacting Performance
Leaders said work at home fatigue is a wide-spread issue and most key performance indicators are trending downward to be at or below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. A negative trend with absenteeism and adherence may indicate a looming employee attrition issue.
Work at Home Employee Development Has Been Less Effective
Most managers and agents have not been trained to overcome the challenges of the work at home model. New hire training delivered virtually has been less effective.
Leaders are in a Holding Pattern Due to Uncertainty and a Lack of Resources
Uncertainty about the COVID-19 pandemic and depleted 2020 budgets have put most contact center leaders and their companies in a waiting mode rather than addressing the work at home fatigue issue.
Most Leaders are Not Allowing any Agents to Work in the Center, but Most Plan to Utilize a Mixed Home and Center Model in the Future
Although most leaders are operating a completely virtual work at home model today, they plan to provide access to a center after the pandemic.
Allowing Agents to Occasionally Work in the Center Appears to be the Most Impactful Best Practice to Reduce Work at Home Fatigue and Improve Performance
Other valuable best practices shared by leaders were to solicit feedback from their employees to understand their experiences, reduce reporting ratios, and training employees to overcome the inherent challenges of the work at home model.
5th Talent International would like to thank all the contact center leaders who participated in the research interviews. To find out more about what they shared click here to read the full report. These interviews provide an update to our earlier study in which we surveyed more than 4,000 agents and supervisors across 7 countries in May 2020. Please click here to read our original Contact Center Work at Home Study 2020. We will be repeating this study with agents and supervisors in December 2020 and January 2021 to determine if and how their experiences have changed. If you are interested in having your people participate in this next study to compare them to the industry, then please click here.