Shift Bids and NFL Drafts

[Norbert]

Hello,

I have been hearing of a trend in Call Centers that have had management "draft" their teams instead of shift "bidding", so that employees can stay with preferred leaders and providing the scheduling needs of the business. This also spreads talent so that certain shifts do not have better "payouts".

As we continue to find better ways to satisfy our business needs, I was wondering if anyone has successfully done a "draft" or have found any statistics on the implementation and/or impact of a draft?

[LeeFred]

Yes, We do a draft at my call center. (120 person, outbound). It goes over pretty well. It makes the callers feel like they were wanted by their team. It also helps provide the team with the "team" mentality.

The way we do it is just like the NFL draft. We have bi-weekly performance metrics. The team that has the worst performance metrics for the bi-weekly gets to draft first and we just go in that order. The key is selling it as management to the employees. My experience with call centers is that they are always resistant to change. But if you do a good job selling it (use it to institute a new team incentive program) then it should go over well.