Another consideration is how often start times should begin. For example, it should be decided whether schedules would start on the hour or every half-hour. Some call centers choose to define schedule start times on the quarter-hour. While more frequent start times may seem problematic in terms of managing the process, these frequent start times will likely result in a more efficient schedule mix.

For example, if 20 people are scheduled to start at 8:00am, it would be more efficient to have some start at 7:45, some at 8:00, some at 8:15.  Staggering these start times naturally staggers breaks and lunches later in the day, keeping coverage more consistent. In this example, only 18 people would be needed if start times are staggered because of the better coverage that carries over throughout the day.

Day of Week Options

Another part of the shift definition is the pattern and sequence of days on and off. The traditional arrangement is to work five days and have two days off. In the call center world, where many operate seven days a week, the day off arrangement has to be defined so that Saturdays and Sundays are covered too.

Some centers are open 6 days per week, closed on Sundays.  This makes the 2 days off together requirement especially difficult, as the only available combinations are Saturday/Sunday or Sunday/Monday.  With Monday being the busiest day of the week for many centers (and especially so for those closed on Sunday), requiring 2 days off together can exaggerate the challenge of providing consistent service across all days.  It may be surprising, but there are some associates who prefer having split days off to better coordinate with spouse, friends, or other commitments.

In some cases, full-time staff may be entitled to work Monday through Friday and have Saturday and Sunday off, with part-time staff covering the weekend days. In other centers, staff may be entitled to two days off in a row, but the days off will not necessarily be weekend days. Many call centers use a rotation approach to determine who works the weekend days, with staff perhaps responsible for weekend coverage once every four or five weeks. In some cases, the two days off may not necessarily be together, but might be Saturday and Tuesday, for example.

Lunch and Break Schedules

The lunch period may be 30-minutes, 45-minutes, or 60-minutes, depending upon the call center’s policies and perhaps associates’ preferences.

It is common in some call centers to allow one of the breaks during the day to be combined into a longer lunch period (to accommodate personal needs to run errands, go to the gym, etc.) for one or more of the days of the week. Again, just like with the part-time schedules outlined above, the more possibilities with break times, the more flexibility the scheduler has to create schedules to meet agent preferences as well as cover workload demand.

By offering a mix of 30, 45 and 60 minute lunch periods, the center can provide better coverage in the middle of the day and also match the desired lunch length for more of the associates.  In many centers, the very beginning of the day and the end of the day may be a bit overstaffed so that taking the extra 15-30 minutes off the ends of the shifts will tend to even out the staffing across all periods.

Another consideration in the definition of schedules is the frequency and duration of breaks. This definition should include how long an employee should work before a break is scheduled, how long the break should be, and how many breaks should be scheduled for a given shift length.

The common practice in defining breaks is to schedule the first break no sooner than 90 minutes after the start time, but no later than three hours after the scheduled start time. Defining this “window” of break time provides some flexibility in scheduling the break during the periods of most available staff.

Some centers allow three 10-minutes breaks in an 8-9 hour span instead of 2 15-minute breaks.  This can work to move the lunch period earlier or later than the precise middle of the shift.

Scheduling Off-Phone Activities

Scheduling team meetings is always a challenge in the contact center.  It’s important for staff to have regular meetings, yet it’s difficult to schedule a group of people off the phones for 60 minutes, or even 30 minutes, without negatively impacting speed of answer to callers.

Here are some creative things to allow for team meetings without negatively affecting service to customers:

1. Cross-train a few people from related departments to cover the phones during team meetings. You might also pull in staff who have recently left the center for other departments.
2. Rotate responsibility among one or two people within the team and catch those staff up after meeting.
3. Hold off-hour meetings with free meal.
4. Send calls to an outsource partner by either sending all calls during that hour to an outsourced answering service (who can page for critical calls),
5. Hold more meetings with shorter duration, like twice a week for only 30 minutes per session.

Vacation and Time-Off Planning

The final step involves establishing a vacation calendar and beginning the bidding process for scheduled time off.  You’ll need to determine bidding order. Usually this is by seniority, performance, or some combination of both. Many centers use seniority because it’s the easiest to defend but others use the vacation selection order as a major reward for performance.

There is typically a waiting list process. Chances are that if the week an associate wants isn’t available during the initial bid, it might open up before the week arrives. There are many things to consider when administering your waiting list.

In order to introduce another level of “fairness” into the process, you may want to consider dividing your bidding into two rounds. This prevents the people at the top of the bidding rank from taking all the “good” weeks and messing up other holiday weeks with single day selections.  In this case, people with more than a week of entitlement can only select one week in the first round and then after everyone has picked, they can select the additional weeks.

When you establish a vacation and time-off planning process, you also have to establish a process for managing change, both throughout the year and on an intra-day basis.

Figure out how you’re going handle cancellations. If someone held a week for a long time and canceled at the last minute, that’s not really fair for the people who were on the waiting list. Also, if you allow people to cancel without scheduling their time elsewhere, you may end up with a troubling carry-over issue.

Close all remaining slots by the week prior (at a minimum). In a flexible scheduling environment, schedules have the ability to move around vacations (basically, they optimize themselves). If you allow people to continue selecting vacation once the week has been generated, you’ll create holes in coverage. Eliminate this issue by identifying a day when remaining slots are closed and manage additional requests via the intraday process.

Summary

The process of moving from a forecast of workload to a schedule that will ensure people are in place as needed is challenging.  A clear and honest picture of the shrinkage loss is critical to ensuring enough total people to meet the service goals. Then creating schedules that balance the needs of all the stakeholders is a real juggling act that takes creativity and negotiating skills.  Thinking through the details and searching for ways to improve the process is a constant need, but one that is rewarded with happier customers, better budget control, and lower absenteeism and staff turnover.

Penny Reynolds was Co-Founder of The Call Center School and is a popular speaker and writer in the area of call center operations.  Recently retired, she serves as an Educational Advisor to SWPP, continuing to provide thought leadership and training to the workforce management community.  She can be reached at pennyreynolds00@gmail.com or at 615-812-8410.