Business case for part-timers

[Suziewan]

Hi all,

I'm responsible for WFM in an insurance call center. We primarily employ only fulltimers at the moment. Our recruiting/training takes roughly 12-16 weeks, so we cannot afford the usual turnover rates.

I'd like to ask your experience with the challenges of having part time staff, and also what are the greatest benefits you've seen?

Thank you!

Angie

[cjw17]

Part-timers generally can't do overtime & they have a longer learning curve. We are a financial services firm and we stopped hiring them a few years ago when we cut our hours of operation, but we're rethinking that right now because when we look at our most stable staff (8+ yrs of service), 81% of them were hired as parttimers. Some have subsequently gone full time. These people make up almost half our current phone staff.
My experience indicates we should hire parents who choose to work part time so they can be home when school is out. They can cover the lunch hours for the full time shifts. If we provide them with a decent working environment, they're not going to leave for a better career opportunity because their first priority is their children. They'll stay until their kids are old enough that they can work full time, and then they still might stay.

[Optif]

Hi Suzie

You could have a comparison Apples to Apples with the same amount of hours,SL,Occ,etc and hence be able to achieve a better coverage.

The benefits vary from center to center.This majorly depends on the info given by you and to what detail is the info available.

You could mail me at gauravs@optif.com

Gaurav

[Steve Turton]

Hello Susie:

Perhaps you could reduce your turn-over by offering the part timers the opportunity to 'work from home'.

They can easily be connected to your office using a Virtual/Hosted Call Center. And you as the Supervisor can easily see the activity of each Agent who has logged in.....by number of calls in Queue, number of Calls handled by each Agent, number of breaks, wrap-up time, etc.....and pull stat reports hourly, daily, weekly, etc.

The 'Home Workers' only need a computer and an internet connection. And either a simply telephone set or VoIP Softphones (no telephone needed).

Let me know if we can be of assistance to you.....

Best Regards,

Steve@teleax.com