Being on time

[Valerie Heimerich]

We have several call center agents who have a problem with being late - in every aspect of their lives. Does anyone know of any resources (books, videos, trainings, etc) for helping people master their personal tardiness tendencies?

[dlexmond]

How bad is the tardy problem? Do you measure tardiness in minutes or are we talking a lot longer than that?

I once ran a test in one of my call centers and let reps have flex time (15 minutes either way of their start time, so if a person was signed up to start at 8:30 am he or she could come in anywhere between 8:15 am and 8:45 am. The only exception to this rule were starters and closers - otherwise you could run the risk of no one being there when your site or queue opens up.

We monitored people's behavior very closely for some time to see what would happen. The result: the ratio of people coming in early and that of people coming in late was very close to 50/50! So there was not really a measurable impact on service levels, and my tardy problem went away.

The added benefit was that the reps thought this was something awesome for them: now, if they were stuck in traffic or had to drive around the parking lot a couple of extra times to find a space they did not have to fear for their job. If they had to leave a few minutes early one day to get to an appointment or day care they have the flexibility to do so.

Quite often we set draconian rules in the call center because it is so easy to measure everything. Perhaps that is not always a good thing. I suggest you try this approach and I believe that you will see benefits well beyond addressing some of your tardy issues.

[Steve Turton]

We do much the same..... giving the employee flex time of their own (within reason).... within 1/2 hour maximum making sure that not everyone comes in early, goes home early and reverse.

I had one employee telling me that even though he was coming in 1 hour later, he was staying 1 hour later. But the CC closed at 5PM.... I didn't need him after that. It was more important for me to have him in closer to opening..... more in line with our operating hours.

So you have to run your CC as a business unit. Not to sound like a hardhead, but the hours of operation must be stressed when hiring..... and reviewed during the employees annual review, if not before. You can be flexible to a point, but the business unit come first.

Check your CDR reports to see what effect this is having.

Steve
www.telax.com

[tarunpuri]

Hi,

Firstly, I agree with what Steve has mentioned here in his reply to your message.

This is a discipline issue and must be dealt with strongly, have some incentives for the most disciplined rep of the week / month / year...attach a $$$$ reward to it, certification can also be a good idea.

You could also set some examples by issuing warning letters etc. to reps coming in late often.

Also time management and the impact of reps being late should be stressed upon during the induction training of for every new joinee .

Being on time happens to be the most important point in the business, you could end up increasing your abandon% due to this....which am sure no client is going to be happy about.

Cheers,
Tarun Puri
Email : tpuri@rediffmail.com
Mobile : +91 98111 41111

[remy]

In our call center we have this rule that if you log in on time the whole year you'll be rewarded 1 extra day off. However the thing is that at the moment we barely check if people checked in at exactly the right minute or just before. So all of our agents are awarded this extra day.
Maybe it's an idea to stress that his or her tardiness is an extra burden to his her colleagues. They have to work harder if the other agents show up too late. You can maybe even give this example some hands and feet by giving only that person a busy skill to let them feel what tardiness is like for their colleagues.