Trading In Shift Bidding for Flexible Scheduling

By Michele Rowan, President, WFHAlliance.com

Most contact center organizations have used the process of “shift bidding” for a long, long time. Up to now, it has well served the need of filling required shifts with some sort of organization and ranking of people choosing them. Is it time to revisit the process? Should we perhaps refresh the old “shift bidding” thinking and routine for an approach to scheduling that is more representative of the world we now live in? I think the time has arrived, as we, for sure, are now living in a very different world.

Let’s start by defining what “Flexible Scheduling” means. To me, it means adding A LOT more flexibility options for employees to schedule their work time. Some people want fixed, standard schedules. Many others want to be able to make adjustments every month or so to suit their personal lives. Others like to make adjustments on the fly – with frequency. And many will now want options and accessibility to working from home. Does this cost the business more money? Maybe, because training costs could rise with additional part-time staff. But there are cost savings/labor savings when we better align staffing to volume during certain hours/day parts where we formerly carried extra full-time head count.

Considerations for Expanding and Defining Flexible Scheduling

  1. Pandemic Flexibility. From now through likely the fall (when we achieve herd immunity and in-person school is mostly on), employees are going to continue to require a lot of flexibility to manage their makeshift work and personal lives. The “unexpected” seems to continue to come at us, and will for the near term. As we know, this requires special adjustments at work for many. Opening up some flexible shifts that are built every two weeks or once a month does just that – it formally gives people tremendous opportunities to move their work schedules around to align with their in-flux personal life/family demands. And does it without the guilt of having to ask you (the employer) to make continued exceptions and adjustments.
  2. Post Pandemic – Long-Term Working, Many people have grown accustomed to being more involved in the day-to-day lives of their families, and they would like to maintain that. Many are interested in continuing to work from home for the long term. Some want to work full-time from home. Many want to work a few days at home and a few days in the office. And many may be interested in shifts that change, so that they can better balance and fully leverage personal and work demands.
  3. Variable Shifts. These varying shifts (for those who are interested) may be just as beneficial for your company. You can split shifts, compress work weeks, get some weekend hours filled, get very small time blocks filled (i.e., 2-3 hours) and get evening hours filled just when you need them most. You can accommodate your current employees, and make some adjustments in terms of building flexible work schedules with your new hires. The possibilities are vast.
  4. Labor Cost Savings.Scheduling people in smaller blocks that are much more closely aligned to the arrival patterns of your voice and non-voice work during the course of the day could save your company significant labor costs. You can make short shifts available when your customer demand spikes, and remove labor hours when customer demand enters slow periods.Now that so many people are home-based, there is new interest in working this way.

So how do you best explore these options?The first step is to ask your workforce.Advise them that you are considering opening up Flexible Scheduling for a portion of the workforce – to people that may be interested in it, and where it helps fill business needs as well.Ask people what day parts they would be interested in working, and if split shifts/microshifts are appealing, and if weekends or other times would work for them.Some people may work eight-hour shifts on days they are in office, and two four-hour shifts on days when they are at home.

There are tremendous possibilities with Flexible Scheduling. Can you better the lives of your employees, while shoring up your staffing efficiencies?

Michele Rowan is President of the Work From Home Alliance. She may be reached at michele@wfhalliance.com. For more information, please visit https://www.wfhalliance.com.

Most contact center organizations have used the process of “shift bidding” for a long, long time. Up to now, it has well served the need of filling required shifts with some sort of organization and ranking of people choosing them. Is it time to revisit the process? Should we perhaps refresh the old “shift bidding” thinking and routine for an approach to scheduling that is more representative of the world we now live in? I think the time has arrived, as we, for sure, are now living in a very different world.

Let’s start by defining what “Flexible Scheduling” means. To me, it means adding A LOT more flexibility options for employees to schedule their work time. Some people want fixed, standard schedules. Many others want to be able to make adjustments every month or so to suit their personal lives. Others like to make adjustments on the fly – with frequency. And many will now want options and accessibility to working from home. Does this cost the business more money? Maybe, because training costs could rise with additional part-time staff. But there are cost savings/labor savings when we better align staffing to volume during certain hours/day parts where we formerly carried extra full-time head count.

Considerations for Expanding and Defining Flexible Scheduling

  1. Pandemic Flexibility. From now through likely the fall (when we achieve herd immunity and in-person school is mostly on), employees are going to continue to require a lot of flexibility to manage their makeshift work and personal lives. The “unexpected” seems to continue to come at us, and will for the near term. As we know, this requires special adjustments at work for many. Opening up some flexible shifts that are built every two weeks or once a month does just that – it formally gives people tremendous opportunities to move their work schedules around to align with their in-flux personal life/family demands. And does it without the guilt of having to ask you (the employer) to make continued exceptions and adjustments.
  2. Post Pandemic – Long-Term Working, Many people have grown accustomed to being more involved in the day-to-day lives of their families, and they would like to maintain that. Many are interested in continuing to work from home for the long term. Some want to work full-time from home. Many want to work a few days at home and a few days in the office. And many may be interested in shifts that change, so that they can better balance and fully leverage personal and work demands.
  3. Variable Shifts. These varying shifts (for those who are interested) may be just as beneficial for your company. You can split shifts, compress work weeks, get some weekend hours filled, get very small time blocks filled (i.e., 2-3 hours) and get evening hours filled just when you need them most. You can accommodate your current employees, and make some adjustments in terms of building flexible work schedules with your new hires. The possibilities are vast.
  4. Labor Cost Savings.Scheduling people in smaller blocks that are much more closely aligned to the arrival patterns of your voice and non-voice work during the course of the day could save your company significant labor costs. You can make short shifts available when your customer demand spikes, and remove labor hours when customer demand enters slow periods.Now that so many people are home-based, there is new interest in working this way.

So how do you best explore these options?The first step is to ask your workforce.Advise them that you are considering opening up Flexible Scheduling for a portion of the workforce – to people that may be interested in it, and where it helps fill business needs as well.Ask people what day parts they would be interested in working, and if split shifts/microshifts are appealing, and if weekends or other times would work for them.Some people may work eight-hour shifts on days they are in office, and two four-hour shifts on days when they are at home.

There are tremendous possibilities with Flexible Scheduling. Can you better the lives of your employees, while shoring up your staffing efficiencies?

Michele Rowan is President of the Work From Home Alliance. She may be reached at michele@wfhalliance.com. For more information, please visit https://www.wfhalliance.com.