Staffing Question

[ronald_jon]

I work in a call center that uses a traditional staffing method. How many people do I actually need? This is based on forecasting and call stats. I hire that many.

I once heard of a place in which they overhire and have everyone show up each day waiting for a chair. Depending on call volume they can get a seat.

Does anyone use this method? What are the impacts to attrition? My center doesn't really have overhead for benifits so, It wouldn't cost us that much to have too many people. Any ideas on how to sell this to the hire ups? What analysis could I use to create a presentation?

[Bill_LumbergTPS]

Check out Furst Person.... www.furstperson.com. They will be able to help answer your questions and help with your staffing needs.

[ronald_jon]

Thank you for the suggestion, but it didn't really help, does anybody else have any suggestions?

[FastEddie]

I have found that Blue Pumpkin is the best software for forecasting scheduling. http://www.blue-pumpkin.com.

[Valerie Heimerich]

I don't think that having agents standing around waiting for a seat would create a positive environment. The agents who ARE working won't be pleased that the others are just standing around (even for a little while). Also, would you pay the un-needed agents for the shift or part of it, would they be sent home or just stay, etc? Seems like a lot of complications for little payoff.

Our 24/7 center experiences a LOT of call volume variability. We do hire & schedule more people than we may need at times, but never more than we have seats for. It is also helpful to have a few agents who are willing to be "on call" -- we call reach them if it gets busy.

There are obviously a lot of variables here. If this is the type of info you are looking for, feel free to contact me directly at bonini@amerigas.com.

[ronald_jon]

Excellent commentary, I appreciate your response. I think I'm looking for something different. My feeling is that based on the law or supply and demand, that if seats are in less supply then the demand for work will be greater. I'm thinking this will create a need for work and make the agents who get seats more appreciative of the work they get. Keep the comments coming.

[Alfred Kormen]

A work formce managment center could help you out with these issues, i remember that we used to have that same problem here.

We started with the volume of the calls, if you don't have a big volume of calls at one hour you don't need that many agents, by using the method you just sayd, you can work something out ( need and demand) also you can calculate by using this calculator how many agents you will need at each hour. http://www.erlang.com/calculator/call/
also this site could help you a lot, it sure helped me out, before i had BP.

Regards

[Tapan]

Hi,

I work at a Decision Tech company. I would really be interedted in addressing your staffing requirement problem.

If you need more details, please do feel free to contact me.

My Email id is tapan.s@gmail.com

Cheers!

Tapan Shah

[JoeB]

Ronald_Jon,

I am struggling to understand the logic behind the basic assumptions and the proposed implementation of this approach. Perhaps you could further describe what you envision. For example:

1. Is the purpose to make “agents who get seats more appreciative of the work they get” or do you envision other benefits? If the intent is to manage high variance in call load, then there are more cost effective ways…
2. What do agents who show up to work and do not get a seat do? Do they wait for call demand to increase? Do they get any compensation while not occupying a seat?
3. Do you see a risk in shifting the focus away from servicing customers to acquiring and protecting seats?

I hope that with this additional information would help clarify the proposed method and get additional feedback.

Joe

[Tapan]

We use an application called CenterBridge and it solves the staffing problem.

If you need more insight on it please visit our website

www.baybridgetech.com

I would be more than happy to help you solve your staffing problems.

Thanks

Tapan Shah
Data Analyst
Bay Bridge Decision Technology

[rdonnel]

Be careful about envoking the law of supply and demand in this manner. When Demand exceeds supply you may have people vying for seats, but most likely when they're in their seats they won't be doing your company and/or or client's company any justice.

Somebody in the industry once said "the relationship you have with your employees is equal to the relationship they will have with your customers."

Originally posted by ronald_jon
Excellent commentary, I appreciate your response. I think I'm looking for something different. My feeling is that based on the law or supply and demand, that if seats are in less supply then the demand for work will be greater. I'm thinking this will create a need for work and make the agents who get seats more appreciative of the work they get. Keep the comments coming.