Workforce planning and management FIT in call centers
| Date | 30 January 2020 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-02-2020-176 |
| Pages | 37-40 |
| Published date | 30 January 2020 |
| Author | Rafael E. Padilla-Vega,Cynthia Iris Sénquiz-Díaz,Angel Ojeda-Castro |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
E-HR
Workforce planning and management
FIT in call centers
Rafael E. Padilla-Vega, Cynthia Iris Sénquiz-Díaz and Angel Ojeda-Castro
One of the current challenges
human resources professionals
encounter in call centers is
workforce planning and
management. In this type of
industry, labor costs reach up to a
maximumof60percentofthe
budget. Besides, the daily
constraints in service levels
add to conflict augmentation
between essential business
functions.
Currently, jobs in call centers
have one of the highest labor jobs
turnovers with rates between 35
and 40 per cent (Hughes et al.,
2019), surpassing the average
rate of 15 per cent in other jobs
(National Retail Federation Report,
2018).
According to Hughes et al. (2019),
possible drivers for these situations
are as follows:
䊏dissatisfaction with labor force
and job scope;
䊏lack of challenges; and
䊏unrealistic employee expectations.
These issues may increase with the
significant levels of uncertainty
entrenched in high workloads and
peak demands at flexible working
schedules set by three common
scenarios:
1. Overstaffing: The workload level
may be lower than expected;
most employees become idle,
resulting in high costs.
2. Understaffing: The workload level
may be higher than expected,
leading to long and irregular
waiting times by the clients.
3. Staffing: The workload level may
be equal to expectations. Most
employees are busy enough,
leading to regular waiting times
by the clients.
Proper schemes solutions demand
knowledge on different factorsto
reduce opportunities for pitfalls,such
as:
䊏amount of customers to be
handled;
䊏workload expectations; and
䊏service-level efficiency.
Technology and workforce
management
The call center industry is known for
its labor-intensive structurethrough a
flexible working schedule. Therefore,
a reduction in labor costs will result in
considerable savings in total value.
Likewise, active working schedules
can lead to mutual satisfaction among
the management and the staff. In this
sense, the business relationship
should focus more on the effective
use of labor, which is the most
significant and valuable resource
(Tu
¨rker and Demiriz, 2018).
Data derived as a result of call
centers operations might provide
essential information to improve
Rafael E. Padilla-Vega,
Cynthia Iris Se
´nquiz-Dı
´az,and
Angel Ojeda-Castro are all based at the
School of Business and
Entrepreneurship, Ana G. Me
´ndez
University, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The authors declare there is no conflict of
interest.
DOI 10.1108/SHR-02-2020-176 VOL. 19 NO. 1 2020, pp. 37-39, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 jSTRATEGIC HR REVIEW jPAGE 37
To continue reading
Request your trial