Work At Home:
Will this hot trend work for our operations?
Bill Price President Driva Solutions
Co-Founder LimeBridge Global Alliance, Chair Global Operations Council
HDNW Seattle 17 January 2007
My work at home experience
• MCI ’90s – studied attempts to move agents at home
• Amazon ’99-01 – built Seattle telecommuters to 125; WTO
• Driva Solutions ’01- – supported numerous clients moving agents to
homes; authored articles (e.g. “A Double-Win”), addressed conferences
like HDP 2006 San Antonio
• Global Operations Council (GOC) ’02 - – chairing 29 leading US-based
companies sharing “best practices and worst experiences”, many with
agents at home
• Driva Automation ’06- -- building industry’s 1st database of contact
center tech vendors + 3rd-party outsourcing firms, 5 of which specialize
with their agents at home
• Today, I work from home, finally!
17 Jan 07
2
Agenda this afternoon
Work At Home – Will this hot trend work for our operations?
1.
2.
3.
17 Jan 07
Work at home costs and other advantages
Risks with mitigation
How to pitch work at home in your company
3
What are your desired takeaways?
__ Answers for my CEO who keeps talking about work at
home
__ I do work from home now
__ I want to work from home
__ Had to get out of the office/home after all of this crazy
weather
OR . . .
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What are your desired takeaways?
__ It’s getting too expensive to add more space
__ My techs don’t want to commute as much anymore
__ We need to cover more time zones
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Work at home factoids
• Jet Blue = “poster child” with all ~1200 reservation agents at home
• Many others moving part of workforce at home including IT help
desks, roadside assistance, nursing assistance
• Yankee Group, 8/05: 350 U.S. and Canadian call centers found that
24% of agents (672,000 workers) now based in their homes
• IDC: growth of home agents to increase 24% each year from 2006
through 2010
• Gartner: 70 to 80% of home-based agents have college degrees,
compared with 30 to 40% of workers in call centers; mostly older
than the average call center employee, often with management
experience
• Booz Allen Hamilton: 10% annual attrition vs. 50% call center
agents
• ITAC: $25K real estate savings for each work at home agent
• Herman Trend Alert: Americans average 100 hours/year commuting,
> vacations’ 80 hours/year
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17 Jan 07
1. Contact center cost index
North American brick & mortar operations
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
10% amortized ACD, IP servers, desktop PCs; licenses
10% buildings and buildout
10% telco access/egress, IP, routing/re-routing
70% agents, supervisors, management, support
staff, executives, dedicated/virtual teams in
IT/legal/other functions; base,
benefits, bonuses; hiring, training,
replacement hiring & training
brick & mortar
labor
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telecom
space
systems
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1. Contact center cost index
North American brick & mortar vs. work at home
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
=
-90%
+20%
-26%
brick & mortar
labor
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80
10%, flat – same systems
1% vs. 10% -- space only
for core management
12% vs. 10% -- telecom will
come down with VoIP
52% vs. 70% -- reduced
attrition, higher ratios
team leaders/techs, more
quality efforts
work at home
telecom
space
systems
8
1. Other advantages for work at home
• Greater focus, fewer distractions from cube-mates or classroom
training sessions
• Deliver solutions "through rain, snow, sleet, or hail, and the gloom
of night“
• Higher levels of productivity (proven +10%)
• Reduced absenteeism (but not zero!)
• Greater coverage by team leaders (typically 24-30:1 vs. 15-18:1)
• Greater satisfaction, translated (often) into higher quality
• Access (re)new(ed) work force, e.g. Moms or Dads at home,
handicapped, displaced call center agents
• Reduced turnover or attrition (some cases -80%)
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17 Jan 07
2. Risks and mitigations
Risks
Mitigations
1. knowledge access, like from
savvy cube mate
1. solid KB (Wikis, even?), online
training
2. can’t see affected units or
systems
2. provide clear graphics, online
access to details
3. news and break room chats
3. streaming news, 1 day/week in
the office, traveling team leads
4. distractions from kids, dogs,
doorbells, TV
4. firm schedules, defined spaces
and rules
5. drop off after “1st blush” over,
reduced productivity
5. increased rewards &
recognition, monitoring & help
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3. How to pitch work at home in your company
• Create 3-phase plan (see next pages)
• Harness IT, Finance, HR
• Emphasize “fit” with trends, employee preferences, flexibility
and other benefits
• Check the plan
• Test with “best agents” (as reward, to seed early wins)
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3. Phase I: Assessment
Define objectives and conduct needs analysis
Prepare winning business case
Perform detailed process mapping, systems review and costing
Identify and implement improvement opportunities
Determine outsourcing feasibility and approach
Create requirements document in preparation for RFX, if
appropriate
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3. Phase II: Implement work at home program
Assign full-time PM (project manager), and possible
outside consulting assistance
Complete outsourcing RFP if appropriate OR
Profile 1st wave of agents for home (3rd-party tools/advice), new
team leader and training roles, real time metrics/reporting
Prepare online training, remote monitoring, KB, streaming news,
alerts, etc
Conduct home office inspections
Start the program
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3. Phase III: Adjust work at home program
Coordinate implementation of detailed transition plan across all
departments (esp. HR, IT/telecom)
After 30 days and 90 days, conduct performance satisfaction review
with agents + via c-sat surveys
Assess progress real-time, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly with
tight metrics
Effect needed changes including bring-backs, growing, changing
scope/deal/roles
Celebrate early successes!
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Agenda this morning
Work At Home – Will this hot trend work for my operations?
1.
2.
3.
17 Jan 07
Work at home costs (-20%, maybe better) and other
advantages (increased quality, agent satisfaction)
Risks with mitigation (re distraction, knowledge access)
How to pitch work at home in your company (3-phase
plan + close cooperation)
15
Thank you!
Bill Price, Founder/President Driva Solutions
Co-founder LimeBridge Global Alliance
Chair Global Operations Council
Bellevue, Washington USA 1-206-321-0841
bill@drivasolutions.com
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