With the COVID-19 pandemic still continuing, a question that is quite relevant for both workers and companies around the world persists: Is work-from-home the new normal?
“In a special report published on September 22, Barclays equities analysts Ryan Preclaw in New York and Paul May in London wrote that working from home could reduce demand for office space by 10–20% in a post-Covid pandemic world,” stated a Forbes article, Is Working From Home Here to Stay?
“The first key piece of evidence is that both employers and employees like work from home, and both intend to have more work from home hours offered to employees in the future.
That doesn’t mean they won’t have a desk in Manhattan. It just means the need for 10 desks might be reduced by half if people can share spaces while working half-time from a home office, or their dining room table,” states the Forbes article.
“According to Barclays, half of the S&P Composite 1500 Index (yes, 1500 not 500) companies discussed working from home during their last earnings calls. Of those companies, 80% said it worked out fine for them as opposed to taking a “never again” view of working from home,” states the article.
So, what does this mean for the contact center industry? The answer is multi-faceted.
First, contact centers need to be able to support the business operations for their organization in a way that supports a work-from-home or hybrid in-office and WFH model. The simple way to do this is to implement a cloud strategy.
“Employees can work off of a single system allowing easy management of day-to-day tasks and operations. This allows the real focus to stay on the customer experience regardless of where employees are working from — whether that be a home office or a corporate one,” as stated in our Qubicles blog post, Remote Work Solutions for Contact Centers.
Also, with more employees working from home, supervisors and other members of management will need to address their communications style and avenues. In order to still feel available to remote contact center agents, supervisors may want to implement weekly team and one-on-one video calls. Also, adding an additional team communication avenue like Slack or Microsoft Teams can be highly beneficial to ensure and support open communication remotely. For more ideas on how to boost and ensure clear communication with a remote or hybrid team, take a look at Qubicles’ blog post 5 Tips for Communication with New Work-from-Home Contact Center Agents.
One of the great changes that moving to a more remote-friendly approach for a contact center is that hiring can now be done for more locations than just the surrounding area of the physical office. The pool of potential candidates can open up to nationally or even globally if you choose! This means that you can find candidates more easily that fit the qualifications your organization is seeking. For tips on hiring the right people for your organization to ensure customer satisfaction, check out our blog post and infographic at 4 Top Traits to Look for When Hiring Contact Center Agents.
