Author: Brigitte - COO

I was recently featured as a guest on an episode of the CX Files podcast. You can follow the link to listen to the entire conversation, but I wanted to highlight one of the key points that I discussed.

I explained to the podcast host, Mark Hillary, that there has been an epiphany around work-from-home (WFH) in many boardrooms because of the Covid pandemic. In fact, it could be argued that there has been an epiphany both for corporate executives and the workers who needed to continue their normal tasks from home.

On the corporate side, many companies found that they could continue operating with an entirely remote team. This has opened many eyes in management because there is the potential to reduce real estate costs and also hire from anywhere – if the office no longer exists as a single hub for all employees then you no longer need to restrict hiring just to those within commuting distance.

On the personal and employee side, there has also been some thought and analysis around jobs and employers. Many people have been re-evaluating what they are doing with their life. The pandemic has taken millions of lives across the world – very few of us have been unaffected in some way by this tragedy. In the US they are already calling this period ‘The Great Resignation’ – over 4 million Americans quit their job in April this year and vowed to do something better.

Many employees are reconsidering where they live. If remote working is possible then why live in a city centre? Why not live somewhere cheaper or even somewhere nicer, but usually impossible as an option – such as living by the coast far from a major city.

WFH has also demonstrated to many people that a better work/life balance really is possible. There was always a lot of discussion before the pandemic on this subject from business school academics and wellness coaches, but millions of regular employees saw for themselves that if they could forget about the commute and adopt more flexible hours then work really could fit around their own life and commitments.

This has led to an interesting dynamic. Companies are now seeing that WFH can allow them to be more flexible, especially around resourcing during busy periods, and employees appreciate the flexibility so that builds a greater level of trust and loyalty into the relationship. Employees are now exploring how to maintain some of this flexibility as we gradually see the economy and workplaces return to something closer to normal.

At Sensée we can really sense that a change is taking place. We just announced 500 new jobs – all WFH positions. This is one of those nice business problems – we need to get hundreds of new people on our team as fast as possible.

More clients and prospective clients are asking about WFH customer care solutions and more people are interested in working in these positions because they have seen the flexibility that is possible and they want to maintain that lifestyle.

So what happens when companies just say that the UK restrictions are now over – everyone needs to get back into the office? I don’t think it’s possible to force your employees back any longer. They have experienced a different way of working that was productive both for the company and for the employees. Any change now needs to be in partnership with employees, rather than being a top-down decision.

Companies that start forcing old working practices on their employees will find that they force many of them out – they will search for new positions that allow them to earn a living and manage their commitments at home too. With so many WFH opportunities at Sensée right now their loss will certainly be our gain.

2020 was a challenge, even for those who didn’t face a healthcare emergency. For many people it not only involved an adjustment to working from home, but also a dramatic shift in social norms and values. Zoom has become a verb in the past year and virtual happy hours have been an unlikely respite from the crisis.

But what about 2021? Picture the situation, you’re trying to impress a new client, or you are on a review call with your boss, or even a job interview. But now that you are working from home (WFH) you are struggling to come across as the professional you want to be seen as.

Maybe your broadband keeps cutting in and out or your cat keeps walking in front of the camera? Your dog is barking because there is a delivery at the front door, or your kids are home-schooling and creating a lot more noise than studying kids should really be creating. Is your presentation affecting your chances of that new job or new contract?

These are unprecedented times. Values have been changing quickly, just look at how unusual it is to see anyone wearing a tie today. Everyone is aware of the difficulties of working from home, especially for those who have been suddenly forced into this situation by the pandemic.

But this will not always be the case. It is now more than a year since most office-based professionals needed to move into a WFH environment. The noisy kids and rogue cats were easily tolerated in May 2020, but by May 2021 everyone has had a long period to adjust.

As we exit the lockdowns many people will return to their office. Some will choose to continue in a WFH environment and some will be asked by their company to stay at home. There will be a change in attitude as some normality returns.

If you are migrating from the office to a permanent WFH environment then I doubt that people will always be so forgiving in future. It is no longer an emergency situation or something forced upon unwilling employees. If you are choosing to remain at home then you need to start considering what does an acceptable professional WFH environment really look like?

For important meetings, clients will not expect to see people in hoodies, at kitchen tables, with pets and poor connectivity. The flexibility and casualness that we all experienced during the midst of the pandemic will start to dissolve as we all have a choice to project a more professional image.

As WFH becomes more of a choice than a necessity, and companies break down the barriers between office-based and WFH employees, I believe that expectations of WFH professionalism will unquestionably increase. And while it’s unlikely that companies will issue a rule book, WFH employees might want to review:

• What they wear
• Their video background
• Background noise
• Timekeeping
• Tone of communication
• Connectivity
• Privacy
• Health and safety
• Security
• Communications equipment

It’s great news that so many people are being vaccinated now and 2021 holds the promise of some normality. For those who choose to remain at home, just take a moment to think about how to project yourself because (hopefully) this crisis should now be in the past.

As we emerge from lockdown, it’s the perfect time for company boards to review their homeworking experiences and ask ‘What part will it play in the workplace of the future?’

No-one is claiming that homeworking is a panacea and it’s not for everyone. However, for many organisations with long term homeworking strategies, it’s delivered huge cost and productivity benefits, as well as massive employee benefits – such as the removal of travel-to-work costs and a better work-life-balance*.

So now is the time to have a practical debate about homeworking…. and it should start by assessing what form of homeworking, and what operating model, is best suited to your requirements. It’s not always just a choice between working 100% from home or 100% from the office.

Below are a number of recent market survey results that support this view of the efficacy of homeworking:

• 66% of all employed U.S. workers say they can be effective when working remotely, according to the LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index survey**. The same survey found that 85% of HR professionals say they can be effective with work from home (WFH).
• The 2020 UK HomeAgent Study*, the UK’s largest ever study into long term contact centre homeworking, revealed that more and more UK centres are turning to homeworking as they discover its financial and productivity benefits. When comparing work-at-home with office-based contact centres, 75 per cent of organisations responding to the survey said that Attrition is lower, 61 per cent said Productivity is better, and 54 per cent said Absenteeism is better. As well as delivering significant advantages to businesses, homeworking is also delivering huge benefits to contact centre ‘HomeAgents’. 74 per cent said that they have a better work-life-balance, 86 per cent that they have no travel-to-work costs, and 81 per cent that they have removed the time wasted travelling to work.
• A Glassdoor study*** showed that 60% of people feel they can perform effectively no matter how long they have to WFH. 50% say they are as, or more, productive remote working.
• An online poll of contact centre professionals**** revealed that 47 per cent of organisations that introduced homeworking in response to the Coronavirus crisis now see it as a long term strategy.

References:

* The 2020 UK HomeAgent Survey was conducted between November 2019 and the middle of March 2020, prior to the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK. It was managed/published by the UK Contact Centre Forum (UKCCF) and sponsored by Content Guru, Sensée and SYKES. 300 Managers/Directors and HomeAgents took part in the study

** June 2020. LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000+ U.S.-based members respond to each wave

*** COVID-19 & Employee Sentiment on Changing Workforce, March 2020

**** The poll was conducted by Sensée in conjunction with the UKCCF, South West Contact Centre Forum and Call North West in April, May and June 2020 amongst a total of 203 UK contact centre professionals

(Reprinted courtesy of Internet Retailing magazine)

Scaling up operations to meet seasonal retail peak is always a tricky task but especially so this year. When it comes to planning for Black Friday and the 2020 Festive Season, not only will retailers have to increase capacity to cope with greater online activity but also comply with social distancing regulations in-store as traffic volumes grow.

Ensuring people’s safety while securing much-needed sales growth will be a difficult balancing act, and not just for retail store owners. It’s going to be a major problem for retail contact centres too.

In the online space in particular, increased sales will necessitate extra support personnel who are experienced and trained in understanding the end-to-end customer journey. Their role in using digital customer experience tools to support customers and avoid abandoned online shopping baskets will be vital.  

Ensuring people’s safety while securing much-needed sales growth will be a difficult balancing act, and not just for retail store owners. It’s going to be a major problem for retail contact centres too.

The challenge for contact centre managers is how to acquire these additional heads. Because of the need for social distancing and staggered rotas, it won’t be possible to fit more people into existing retail contact centres. A different approach will be required.

In previous years, retailers often turned to third party ‘bricks and mortar’ service outsourcers to make up the numbers. For this Festive Season peak, however, even that could be tricky. Traditional outsourced contact centre operators are subject to the same social distancing regulations as retailers themselves, so rapidly scaling up numbers will be difficult.

The only realistic answer to this unprecedented customer service dilemma will be for retailers to hire homeworkers.    

Work-from-Home 

Work-from-home (or WFH) has become the new normal for customer service operators over the past few months with a massive 84% of contact centres mainly operating on a WFH basis according to industry research from ContactBabel/Channel Doctors in April 2020.

The switch from bricks and mortar to virtual has not, however, been without its issues. When 156 UK contact centre professionals were asked about their biggest homeworking challenges in an April/May/June 2020 poll, 23 per cent said Pastoral Care (i.e. isolation/mental health), 23 per cent Motivation/Productivity, 20 per cent Telephony/Technology Services, 11 per cent Staff Management, and 10 per cent Communication with Remote Workers.  Training, IT Security, and Recruitment challenges were also identified.  Only 2 per cent of respondents thought that they Had Homeworking Nailed.  Despite these challenges, over 50 per cent of UK contact centres said that they were now looking at homeworking as part of their longer term strategy.      

So while homeworking is now a necessity it must be approached cautiously and managed effectively.  

For many people, switching to WFH during lockdown simply meant leaving the office with a computer and a phone and setting up from home.  Not so running a highly process-driven and team-oriented customer service operation.  To achieve excellence in running a WFH customer service team calls for a very different mindset that starts with learning how to recruit the right homeworkers and extends to creating a virtual mindset across everything from training, planning, managing and reporting…… within a technology ecosystem that is secure, robust and flexible enough to scale up and down with your business needs.

The pressure to find a practical service solution for the Festive Season retail peak is greater than ever.  Yet the skills required to effectively manage WFH teams can’t be learnt overnight.  The skills, advice and people resources of a professional and experienced WFH customer service operator may just be what is required. 

(Republished courtesy of disability magazine UCAN2 www.ucan2magazine.co.uk)

The current Coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis has brought homeworking into sharp reality for millions of office workers. But is it a viable route into the workplace for many living with a disability?

The idea of homeworking as an option for disabled people is nothing new. Scope, for example, provides extensive support and advice https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/homeworking/ on the topic.

What has changed recently are two key things. First, there’s now a massive focus on homeworking within the boardroom – both as a disaster recovery response (with the Coronavirus already closing down transport links and forcing some office closures), and as a longer term option on productivity/ cost grounds. Second, the homeworking industry has moved on……. with more effective homeworking models, and a realisation within Corporates that homeworking is a ‘proper’ job, where people can develop rewarding careers.

The contact centre sector is a case in point. 15 years ago, few companies considered it possible to run an effective operation using homeworkers because of a multitude of technology, HR and operational issues. With experience, many of these HR and operational issues have now been resolved, and specialist virtual workplace tools – with virtual training Homeworking advisorenvironments, specialist real-time communications, and real-time management – today provide managers with real-time visibility of homeworkers so they can support and collaborate as required.

Indeed we estimate that 18% of our colleagues have some form of disability, and a further 8% are carers to people with special needs.

In the past, homeworkers were frequently either managers and top performing employees offered homeworking ‘as a reward’ or self-employed people required to create their own limited companies before supplying services. Today, homeworkers are now more likely to choose to work from home and be more experienced.

Indeed, according to the 2016 UKCCF Contact Centre Homeworking Survey, 74 per cent of homeworkers are aged 35 or over, and 66% have over 10 years experience in customer contact roles.

They also come into homeworking for a wide variety of reasons – and our company is a good example. We currently have 700 fully-employed homeworkers who deliver services for Allianz, BUPA, Hastings Direct and others. Amongst our people are work-at-home mums, many who find working in an office stressful, and others that are excluded from the normal workplace. This includes people who live in rural areas or are simply too far from the office to commute, as well as many living with a disability. Indeed we estimate that 18% of our colleagues have some form of disability, and a further 8% are carers to people with special needs.

According to the UKCCF survey, 92 per cent of homeworkers say that they are happy (at least some of the time), and 72 per cent say they are proud to tell people where they work.

The secret to providing excellent work-from-home opportunities is to ensure that everyone is treated equally and fairly, and that engagement, community and socialisation is part and parcel of the homeworking experience. Technology plays a key role here too, ensuring that teams communicate and interact efficiently and that working from home isn’t a solitary experience (unless someone wants it to be!)

Implemented effectively and homeworking can provide not only a route back into the workplace but also a fulfilling career. According to the UKCCF survey, 92 per cent of homeworkers say that they are happy (at least some of the time), and 72 per cent say they are proud to tell people where they work. As for companies, 78 per cent of organisations employing homeworkers said they expected to increase numbers in the next 12 months.

Sensée is in regular contact with organisations that support the disabled community, is a Purple Member, supports the Armed Forces Covenant, is Disability Confident Committed, and is registered with Employers for Carers.

“Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others” said Boris Johnson on Monday (16th March) “and to stop all unnecessary travel. We need people to start working from home where they possibly can…. and avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues.” On 18th March, it was announced that all UK schools would be closed ‘until further notice’.

We are in dangerous and uncertain times and few would argue with the logic of the Prime Minister’s statement. However, there’s a lot more to homeworking than simply picking up a laptop and a phone from the office and setting up from home.

Homeworking advice

If you google flexible working tips or homeworking tips or even Coronavirus work-from-home tips you’ll find plenty of helpful advice.

On 11th March, for example, The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development issued a factsheet to help businesses support their operations and workforce. ACAS too offers plenty of useful advice, drilling down into much finer detail about what Employers should consider before embarking on their homeworking journey.

Both organisations are communicating a very similar message: that you need to plan for homeworking. In a section within its factsheet entitled Develop flexible resourcing plans the CIPD recommends developing “strategies to maximise the amount of home working to prevent the spread of infection”.

Similarly in the ACAS guidance, the author sounds a note of caution: “One of the first steps for an employer is to consider whether the job is suitable for homeworking or teleworking. Many roles may be, but others may not. And while homeworking can be seen as an attractive option, it will not suit everyone. A homeworker needs to be able to cope with working on their own with little supervision.”

Plan ahead

So having a homeworking strategy is essential. When considering whether a job is suitable for homeworking, ACAS asks Employers to consider whether the role needs “team working, face-to-face supervision, equipment (installed in the home) or equipment (which can only be in the organisation’s central base).” And it suggests homeworkers ideally need to be “able to spend long periods on their own, confident working without supervision, self-disciplined and self-motivated, and able to separate work from home life.”

Is this overkill when all we’re talking about here is people working at home for a few weeks until the Coronavirus sombrero is squashed? Absolutely not!

For certain job roles and functions, switching to homeworking and doing so with scalability and cost-efficiency is highly complex.

Front and Back Office Functions

Take back or front office functions, such as your customer contact centre. It’s highly unlikely that your office-based contact centre agents can just up sticks with a computer and a phone, set up from home and carry on business-as-usual.

The demands of contact centre working means that a complete 360 degree solution is required that provides full visibility, control, engagement, and of course information security. And if an organisation is looking to operate a 100% homeworking model in the longer term, it will need to master an even broader range of skills: from recruiting the right homeworkers, to adapting a virtual mindset when it comes to training, management, scheduling, security, communication and technology.   These are not skills that can be learnt overnight.

If used as a short-term measure in the contact centre, organisations won’t have the luxury of trialling concepts and refining their work-at-home model over time.  They may have time to turn to an experienced outsourcer that uses a home-based model, adopt some specialist technology tools, or seek the advice of a homeworking consultant – but any medium or long term planning really won’t be feasible.

Here are six things to consider if you are thinking of introducing contact centre homeworking in response to Coronavirus:

1. Communications: Pay attention to all aspects of communication. Not just company announcements but communication within teams, and real time support for advisors that may be experiencing difficulties (using virtual technologies, instant messaging etc.).
2. Team Managers: Don’t ignore the crucial role they play in providing support and guidance. If possible, use technology to enable and deploy a system of virtual floorwalkers.
3. Technology Support: If homeworkers are using company equipment (computers, phones), ensure you can support this equipment effectively.
4. Appropriate Office Space: Ensure homeworkers can work from a suitable office in the home. Working and making calls from the living room with kids playing in the background, or dogs barking, just isn’t acceptable!
5. Scheduling: Add greater flexibility into your planning schedules – such as split shifts and micro-shifts. This will enable homeworkers to fit work in around their other daily priorities (such as taking the kids to school or caring for a relative) while helping your organisation better match resources to daily peaks and troughs.
6. Security: Consider adding extra security measures – such as restricting homeworker access to certain customer data. Also ensure you are not breaching your obligations under FCA, GDPR and other regulations.  And ensure company equipment is adequately insured for home use.

With the Government strongly suggesting that people work from home it would be good to see more advice on how organisations can do so most effectively – and avoid the pitfalls. With the expertise available, and specialist technology tools that now exist, that advice could make all the difference.

As a response to the current crisis, homeworking can deliver a more dispersed workforce with a lower single point of failure, and hence a lower risk of cross infection.  This will enable contact centres to operate as normal even if other business functions need to close down.