In the fast-paced environment of contact centers, balancing operational efficiency with employee satisfaction is a constant challenge. Agents often struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance due to rigid and unpredictable schedules. A couple of months ago, we discussed this exciting topic in one of our blogs, explaining the importance of respecting the bio-cycle requirements of agents when making schedules. Today, we will continue to focus on improving the work-life balance by considering the “free-wish” of agents.
Imagine James, a father who works tirelessly at his contact center job. Because of his inflexible and unpredictable schedule, he has had to miss some important family events. He couldn’t be there for his daughter’s kindergarten graduation, a milestone he looked forward to. These missed moments have made James feel out of touch with his family and frustrated at work as he tries to juggle his work commitments with his role in his family.
And then there is Sarah, a young woman eager to advance her career through higher education. Sarah balances her busy job as an agent with her demanding academic schedule. However, her class times often clash with her work shifts, making it difficult for her to attend lectures and complete assignments on time. This ongoing conflict between her work and studies has been quite stressful for Sarah, as she tries to keep up with her academic goals while performing well at her job.
Agents can, of course, request time off, and once this request is approved, they are guaranteed not to be scheduled to work during that period. However, we all understand how valuable the limited paid leave hours are. An ideal way is to allow agents to propose these preferred times and plan the shifts to satisfy these requests as much as possible without deteriorating the system’s performance. In this blog, we will discuss the added value of allowing agents to request free-wish, what exactly constitutes a free-wish request, and how we can handle it from the planners’ perspective.
Why Having Agents’ Preferences is Important
The abovementioned cases may seem exaggerated, but overall, these cases occur and can lead to agents’ stress. This is one of the reasons why it is crucial to consider agents’ preferences when creating schedules. More reasons are listed below:
1. Enhancing Work-Life Balance
Allowing agents to request specific time off for personal needs greatly enhances their work-life balance. Job satisfaction increases when agents feel that their personal lives are respected and accommodated. For James, attending those important family events meant feeling more fulfilled, leading to a happier, more engaged presence at home and work. It is more than just making time for important events; it is about having control over your life.
2. Increasing Productivity and Efficiency
By integrating agents’ preferences for time off into the scheduling process, agents can better manage their time. For instance, a system that allows Sarah to request specific days off for her studies would significantly ease her burden. By reducing the stress of juggling work and education, Sarah can avoid burnout and maintain a healthier work-life balance. This flexibility helps her stay engaged and productive, ultimately benefiting both her and the contact center. Moreover, a better work-life balance also reduces sickness and attrition rates, leading to lower recruitment and training costs, ultimately benefiting both an agent and the contact center.
3. Boosting Commitment and Customer Satisfaction
Prioritizing agents’ preferences not only respect their personal needs but also boosts their commitment to the organization, leading to a more motivated, productive, and positive workforce. Consequently, happier agents tend to have higher quality interactions with customers. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, reduced customer churn, and ultimately lower marketing costs, as satisfied customers are more likely to remain loyal and recommend the service to others.
What is a Free-Wish Request, and How Should It Be Handled?
Now, let’s look at free-wish from the planners’ perspective. Free-wish is neither unavailability nor time off. Unavailability is a hard constraint that describes the time when agents should not and cannot be scheduled to work. It is usually predefined based on their contracts. Some contact centers can have more flexible and dynamic unavailability requests, but a certain ratio of unavailability should be limited to give planners enough flexibility to schedule the agents at the right times to achieve the service level targets.
On the other hand, agents request time off when they are not able to work during periods outside their predefined unavailability. If a shift is scheduled during their approved time off, the agents won’t work, and their scheduled hours will be deducted from their time off allowance. Free-wish is more flexible than time off. It is a preference. As the name suggests, agents would like to avoid shifts during this time if possible. But if a shift is scheduled anyway, the agents should still work: the free-wish is not fulfilled.
Criteria for Approving Free-Wish Requests
The criterion for planners to approve/reject free-wish requests should be whether the performance targets (such as service level or abandonment) can still be met without scheduling a shift during the free-wish period. Especially for the skills that only a few agents can cover, planners should carefully check whether there are still enough agents scheduled. Moreover, fairness among agents should also be considered. This can relate to the reasons behind the free-wish requests and their frequency.
We have discussed the long-term benefits of allowing agents to request free-wish for the contact center. But does this also add value for planners or improve the efficiency of the operational process? After all, creating a good schedule while balancing workload, workforce, business rules, and various contract types is already quite challenging. The answer is yes! If free-wish requests are not considered during scheduling, agents rely on shift swaps to fulfil their wishes after the schedule is published. These swap requests are also very tricky, requiring many performance comparisons and checking. Introducing free-wish requests can significantly reduce the need for shift swaps, thus decreasing the workload of planners and communication costs.
The “Free-Wish” Feature in CCschedule
Managing and remembering all agents’ requests can be challenging, especially when it involves approving or rejecting requests by checking performance with or without them, requiring numerous manual adjustments. To ease the lives of both agents and planners, we have introduced a “free-wish” feature in our scheduling tool, CCschedule.
How the Feature Works
Agents can first plan a free-wish with comments directly in the agents’ app, which planners can then view alongside the schedules. The scheduling engine will automatically check whether the targets can still be met without scheduling shifts during the free-wish period. If not, a shift will still be planned around the free-wish. Planners can then review the shifts, finalize the schedules, and notify agents directly whether their free-wish requests have been approved. If needed, a comment related to the request can also be attached. This approach makes communication between planners and agents smoother and more simplified than email or message-based methods.
Benefits of the Feature
All in all, we believe that considering agents’ preferences can greatly enhance workflow efficiency. This added flexibility reduces stress and helps prevent burnout, contributing to a healthier and more supportive work environment and, thus, better customer service. For planners, the “free-wish” feature simplifies the complex task of scheduling by consolidating all requests in one place, making it easier to meet agents’ needs while maintaining optimal staffing levels. This benefits individual agents and contributes to the long-term success and efficiency of the contact center.