Tardiness and absence policies

[Angel]

I'm the Team Manager in a call center. I am currently reviewing the tardiness and absence policies. I am wondering if anyone can help me with some ideas on what is "normal" for tardiness and absences.

Thanks
Angel

[deadriaw]

Angel,
Is this policy for call taking employees or for all general employees? "Schedule Adherence" is a policy that I have used personally and implemented to track employee tardiness and absenteeism. This method can be used for non call taking employees, however it really works best with employees that have some type of record showing their actual work time, such as a time clock or phone log.

[Angel]

This is for call taking agents. I have a policy in place which escalates to a verbal warning after 2 lates in 14 days, then if late again in the next 14 days to a written warning. The problem being that if the employees space out the lates we dont get to the 2nd, 3rd warnings. I would be interested in what you have in place or suggestions.

Thanks

[deadriaw]

14 days is a long time. In my current company agents are allowed 15 "free under fives" in a 30 day period, then everything else is counted as a warning. "Free under fives " are all lates under 5 minutes. All lates over 5 minutes are counted immediately. The only problem our supervisors have is issuing the warning fast enough, because two warnings can not be issued in the same day.

The out line is :

1. Verbal warning
2. Verbal warning
3. Verbal warning
4. Written Warning
5. Final Written warning
6. Termination

[ronald_jon]

In the call center's I have worked in 10 - 15% outage is normal. Schedule adherence is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome in a call center. Usually, only surpassed by retention. I've had to personally take all call in's at one point and try to sell them on coming in...

[wrenchboy]

The best way to gain control of attendance issues is to institute a point system for attendance.
1/2 point for tardiness
1 point for an unplanned personal day
2 points for a critical day (weekend or first business day after a holiday.
add 1 point for a no call no show.

This point systems works. We have a 3.5% absentee/tardy rate.
We also employ over 300 CSR'S

[cuelc001]

I work in operations in a call center. I was wondering, has anyone ever heard of allowing agents a 3 minute grace period to log in before they are late ?
I.E. - start time 8:00 am. Log in @ 8:03 and not be late.
Is this a normal trend in operations ?
W/B.
Chris.

[wrenchboy]

We used to have a 3 minute grace period. We no longer do however. We require that reps clock in no more than 7 minutes before the start of their shift.

[cuelc001]

Did removing the 3 min. grace period stop any of the tardies or did it remain the same ?

Originally posted by wrenchboy
We used to have a 3 minute grace period. We no longer do however. We require that reps clock in no more than 7 minutes before the start of their shift.

[cuelc001]

What are these points taken away from ?
3.5 % for shrinkage is great !
On our phone taking side, we have about 100 CSP's and have a 8% shrinkage avg.
....chris.....

Originally posted by wrenchboy
The best way to gain control of attendance issues is to institute a point system for attendance.
1/2 point for tardiness
1 point for an unplanned personal day
2 points for a critical day (weekend or first business day after a holiday.
add 1 point for a no call no show.

This point systems works. We have a 3.5% absentee/tardy rate.
We also employ over 300 CSR'S

[Gloria E]

wrenchboy....can you tell me more about your point system for absences and tardies?

Thanks.

[Shane]

I am an Operation manager of a fast growing call center in India with 90 employees and growing.The method we follow to reduce absenteeism is :
If they are absent for 2 days in a month and their salary is X. Then we deduct Rs.(X/22)*2 .... where 22 is the number of working days in a month. If they are absent for 3 days then we deduct 1 week's pay. For the 4th and the 5th day ... we deduct ..... 1weeks pay + (X/22)*1 , 1weeks pay + (X/22)*2 resp. For 6 days ... 2 weeks pay goes away... and so on.
Don't get we wrong we do give them paid leaves every year. :)

We have got the absenteeism down to almost 1%. Before the implementation of this plan it was 11%.

Shane

[paytonsmom]

This is specifically for Wrenchboy and Shane:

Both of these plans are interesting but I would like to know the following things:

What is your rate of productivity?
What is your turn over percentage?
What is your employee satisfaction?

My company has a plan very similar to the point plan that Wrenchboy's company utilizes but our turn over rate is upwards of 50% this year (the plan was adopted a year ago). Our employee satisfaction is poor at best however productivity is pretty high.

Our organization has gone thru much change in the last 1.5 years and the employees are still non-receptive to the attendance policy (hence the high turn).

[emmaly]

Hi,

I'm at a small (50 CSR) center. We take incoming calls for customer services.

Our average for absences (unplanned absences, like sick days) is 2.3 in a rolling 12 month period.

Tardy - average is 1 per rolling 3 month period. We allow 2 minutes late without counting it, because there can be a difference between system time and the time on the agent's phone. Since tardiness affects each month's scorecard and the opportunity for raises, bonuses, promotions etc. we don't want to penalize anyone unfairly. Anyone who consistently needs the use of this grace period gets an IT techie at their desk to make sure the phone is properly synchronized in the future:)

[manmeetsingh0902]

one of the best ways which has been implement and successfull is, Relate Incentives to attendence and tardiness, it helps.