We are starting to see some Workplace data points emerge that are interesting, and could be calls to action in WFH and hybrid environments both within and outside of contact centers. While the data is not at all specific to call centers (more the enterprise in its totality) we can safely draw some conclusions around the impact for CX functions.
1. Gauge employee engagement regularly. Once a month, ask 2-3 questions in the form of a pulse survey. Change the questions out, based on your business priorities and what's going on with your employees. Include things like quality of supervisor interactions, tools to do the job, customer feedback, professional development.
How much are you paying job boards to fill the top of your hiring funnel, and more importantly – why?
Rethinking Hiring in the WFH Era
Starbucks CEO Harold Schulz announced last week that they are “ordering” employees to return to the office a minimum of three days per week, after his earlier request fell short of 100% compliance. He also states that working from home is a “privilege.” Wow.
The pandemic period has proven something really important for contact centers, and that is that Work From Home on scale is a huge win. Separate from the impact that the health emergency itself had on overall service levels and customer experience, all in all the outcome of WFH for contact centers has been extremely positive. So much so that many organizations are now taking a very large stake in permanent work from home as a workplace strategy (see Contact Center Pipeline/WFHAlliance 2022 Benchmarking Survey Results).
Understanding what others are doing with hybrid work and work from home is more important now than ever before. For many, large populations of contact center employees and support staff will now be in office only a few days a month, or (for many organizations) will remain fully home-based. It was one thing to piece together the operating game plan during the health emergency, but now we need to think about long term strategy, and the road to getting there.
Organizations are working hard to support employee preferences while balancing business objectives and aligning company values and vision – by offering full time work...
WFH: Transitioning from a Staffing Strategy to a (How We) Work Strategy