What Procedure do Contact Centers use for Agents Reporting Absences? (Member Request)

[Kathryn Jackson]

Member Request. What is the procedure agents use to report an absence? For example - do agents call into an attendance line or supervisor? Do larger call centers have a different procedure than smaller call centers?

Please help this customer service manager by sharing your experience / expertise.

Thanks.

[Robert F. Fuentes]

Hi Kathryn:
In our call center we use a centralized attendance line.
This centralized line enables our Workforce Management Team to review and modify staffing and telephone coverage requirements among our Teams, as well as advising the Team Supervisors of absences.
Thanks
Rob Fuentes

[Bryan Williamson]

Hi, we have set up automated absence lines for agents to call and put in their agent number and the number of days they are expecting to be absent. This is then available 24x7 and emails their supervisor with the information. The downside is that people are quite happy calling the automated system on a Monday morning. They might not have called their supervisor - they may have rather got up and gone to work. We have implemented this system on several customers on our ice contact centre platform which also has IVR capability.

[Charles Terzi]

We had the policy that a person calling in had to talk with their supervisor and, following that, report the absence to the Workforce Management folks (this last notice could be automated). For reasons that Biran indicated previously, we wanted folks to speak with their supervisors. That conversation also helped understand the cause and seriousness of the absence. A bit cumbersome for a large staff but it did add a bit of control for the process and a personal touch point.

[Dan Rickwalder]

I advise my clients to use a centralized line into the WFM area (or person) for any sized call center. But only with the caveat that whoever answers the line provides timely reporting to the supervisors so they know where their people are.

The big advantages to this are:
1. It allows supervisors to focus on their people and starting the day instead of answering their phones to see who is calling out sick.
2. It improves the timeliness of reporting the absence so that planners can stay ahead of the staffing situation and make adjustments faster.
3. Cuts down on "missing agents" that did not get reported because a supervisor was in a meeting or just forgot to report a call by removing the middle man.
4. A centralized call out line can also be used for disaster recovery/weather events and simplifies things for agents, trainers and supervisors by ensuring consistency of absenteeism handling.
5. Centralized data means improved absenteeism trend reporting. At a center I worked in, we were able to dramatically improve absenteeism by focusing on the supervisors who had the highest absenteeism (the initial analysis told us more about who was a good supervisor than any other metric we looked at). It is also invaluable for dealing with HR issues as the data is consistently collected for al agents.
6. It's a good excuse to buy refrigerator magnets for your staff :)

The biggest argument against a centralized line is that agents will be more likely to call in to an IVR/VM/ WFM person than to a supervisor who will hold them accountable. I've personally never seen this happen, and I vaguely remember someone did a study on it several years ago and found the same results.

But if you are interested in trying this and worried that agents will abuse it, you can easily do a test by calculating your baseline absenteeism, and then splitting your call center (either use some supervisors, a group of random agents, or a whole unit) and running a side by side comparison for a few months. What you should look for is relative changes in the results compared to your baseline. So if both groups had 6% absenteeism before, and this month your group doing it the old way has 8% absenteeism and the new group has 10% absenteeism, the call outr line did cause more absenteeism, but if they both have 8% absenteeism then it did not and it is successful.

I hope that helps!

[Dave Kielkucki]

Based on the size of the center I normally recommend that the agent call in process be handled in the Contact Center's Operation Center. The Operation Center is usually manned all the hours the center is open as they employees who work in that department view and manage call volumes, agent occupancy, breaks, etc.

A unique telephone number is assigned and given to employees for the call in process and the calls are answered by the Command Center Coordinators, they take the information from the employee, The Coordinators will call the employees supervisor and pass on the info. Some companies have the Supervisor call to the employee to ensure they are okay. The Coordinators may need to call in other employees as they know the total number of people not reporting to work so service levels are not impacted.

Regards,

Dave Kielkucki
Cell: 954-444-3668
Email: [e-mail]
www.sccservicesgroup.com

[Michael R. Slezak]

Our agents are required to call their immediate supervisor/team leader regarding their absence (especially if it is short notice). The supervisor/team leader then must report it to the scheduling supervisor to get a replacemnt to cover their projects/contracts.

[Rodney Baumgart]

We use an attendance line and have the voicemail sent to all of management's email inboxes. This ensures that someone will receive the message. If an agent leave's a message on only their supervisor's phone, and the supervisor is out for that day, no other member of the management team will know the agent has called in. That can put you in a precarious position when proceeding with disciplinary actions for a no call/no show occurrence.

[Amol Parab]

It is mandatory for our agents to call their supervisors to notify their absence and the supervisor in-turn informs the WFM who review and modify staffing among our teams to manage the SLAs. We insist on a phone call because it is more personal and gives us an ability to guage the cause and seriousness of the absence.

[Simon Priestley]

From experience there's 2 issues you need to cover with this process:
1. Fast and accurate recording of absence so you know how your call handling ability is affected today - particularly important if you use WFM products and have come to rely on their forecasting / service management capability
2. Managing the absence managerially - having the right conversation with the advisor to find out what is wrong, when they are expected back, and make sure they understand the implications of the ongoing absence (most companies have some kind of absence index which highlights those with poor absence records for performance management, and might also affect pay).
The 2 actions do not need to be the same person, and in mid to large centres it usually works better to split the two. Point 1 can be covered by a service desk, if you have any kind of service management / control team alongside resource planning thats the usual home. This gives a consistent point of contact across the day, and assurance of it being logged, not put on a post it and forgotten. You can also put the contact number on the switch so callers can queue to talk to the service desk. Such a team can then transfer the call to a manager to have the point 2 conversation.
Avoid allowing absence calls to be allowed to go to a managers voicemail or you won't know what is happening.
Simon

[Lynne Woolhiser]

Our call center has a central line that everyone calls and a team of people who answer the line during all business hours. Once the team has logged the absence in the system the call is transferred to that agent's supervisor if available or to another supervisor if not available so the person could be advised of how many issues they have had and what level of disciplinary action this will put them at if necessary.

We used to have an automated line where they could leave a message after entering their information, but we found they would call out more often than if they had to talk to a supervisor, so now during non-business hours they hear a message telling them to call during business hours.

With their status being available online to all Supervisors they can advise the agent, and still leave the decision to the agent without pressuring them to come in to work when they are sick. It seems to have cut down on non-sick absenteeism at this point.

Good luck.

Lynne
www.museumtour.com

[Terry Follmer]

Ours is a relatively small center, 130 support and sales agents in a 24x7 operation. We've outsourced our payroll system, which includes time tracking (online log-in/out), and a centralized attendance telephone line when reporting an absence. It seems to work well and generating attendance reports is relatively easy.

[Paul Mireles]

in smaller call centers it's usually calling the front line supervisor and as the organization grows and as queues are merged it is transfered over to a WFM group to ensure consistency and that queue coverage is maintianed,