It’s not surprising that it did, because Microsoft’s findings – based on feedback from 20,000 people in 11 countries – highlighted a number of fascinating trends that home and hybrid working seems to have reinforced. The first of these is “productivity paranoia” 87% of employees reported that they were productive, but only 12% of their managers said that they were confident of their teams’ productivity. View Microsoft research here.

So, what are we to make of that?

Firstly, it might be that there has always been such a chasm in workers’ and bosses’ perceptions of their productivity, but that’s not what Microsoft conclude. So, at a minimum, the past couple of years has made managers less confident that they know what their teams are doing, how well they are doing it and how quickly. Microsoft thinks that a lot of that is due to managers lacking information, data and reporting that tells them about their employees’ performance.

That will still be at least partially true of some contact centre people working from home, but overall contact centre managers have far more employee performance data than their peers in just about any other type of business, pre or post Covid. But we know that there is still plenty of managerial “productivity paranoia” in home working and hybrid contact centres.

On the surface, contact centre managers’ “productivity paranoia” is surprising. We all know that one of the great strengths of contact centres is their ability to generate statistics. Unlike lots of areas of work, nearly all of which will have to a greater or lesser experienced a move towards full or partial home working over the past 2½ years, contact centre managers are knee-deep in management information about their employees’ performance.

However, most times the easiest stuff to measure is, arguably, the least important. We know about wait times, call durations and throughputs per hour, but far less easy to measure is experience, genuine resolution of queries and emotional engagement with customers. And that challenge isn’t much greater just because someone’s working at home than when they are sat in front of their boss.

A further complication is that the kind of contact centre activities which are very easy to define, target and measure are ideal candidates for automation and/or process improvement (most likely in your organisation’s digital self-service real estate and tools). So the challenge here is not to manage these activities more efficiently, but get rid of them altogether. In a sense, if you are wholly confident of your team’s base efficiency then you might just know a lot about the wrong things.

It looks like what Microsoft’s research crystalises is that the shift in working styles and locations has unearthed some hidden problems. Ones that have always been there but were easier to ignore when everyone was always in the same, shared location. However, the good news is that these are problems that contact centre managers should actually be closer to being able to address than their peers in other sectors.

If you’d like to discuss how different technologies and techniques can help you address some of these challenges and do your bit to banish “productivity paranoia”, just drop us a line.

PS As an aside, if you’re that rare exception to “productivity paranoia” and your boss is convinced that you are more productive than you actually are, then that’s a very different challenge. And anecdotal evidence suggests that having an idiot boss is more double-edged than you may at first think!

The long-awaited decision of the Supreme Court in the holiday entitlement and pay case of Harpur Trust v Brazel has now arrived. The facts are straightforward – Ms Brazel is a music teacher employed on a permanent zero hours basis and only required to work certain times in the year.

We do not like talking about money. That’s one of the key findings of Wagestream’s State of Financial Wellbeing 2022 research. Over two-thirds (68%) of UK employees with money worries do not tell their employer about their concerns. We must tackle this issue if we’re to make progress on financial wellbeing – as employers, and as a society.

Why do 68% of UK employees not want to tell their employer about their money worries? Most cite feelings of shame and embarrassment, or a cultural belief that you shouldn’t talk about your finances with others. Some cited a lack of trust in their employer – or a fear of discrimination or job loss once their issues had been divulged.

Although there’s still some way to go, we’ve made good progress on tackling the mental health stigma as a society – and it’s no surprise that, as a result, people are much more likely to talk about their mental health in the workplace. If we want to open the conversation so people can improve their financial wellbeing, we need to do the same with money.

3 ways employers can tackle the money stigma at work

1. Train money champions to signpost and be visible

There’s been progress on the mental health stigma and one of the reasons is the success of the Mental Health First Aiders and similar schemes. Without training, it can be hard for managers and colleagues to know what should and shouldn’t be said, but this type of training gives confidence that makes people approachable but also more likely to open a conversation.

2. Never waste an opportunity to talk about money

At certain times, macro-economic trends put money in everyone’s minds – in 2022 there’s been a convergence of several, including Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis. This is happening at the societal level and, since people have money on the mind, they’re more open to conversation openers from their employer.

It’s not only societal trends that offer opportunities to talk about money. Internal changes, such as promotions, are good opportunities to encourage employees to review their short-term and long-term financial goals. The same is true of external changes in an employee’s life: for example when people apply for mortgages they often talk to their HR department.

Don’t waste these opportunities to start a dialogue – it’s a great way to build trust with employees. In fact, nothing says you’re more open to having a conversation than by clearly showing you’re interested in starting one. If you have money champions, using them to start conversations within their departments or cohorts can be an easy way to take action at scale.

3. Celebrate Talk Money Week throughout your organisation

Talk Money Week is a yearly campaign aimed at encouraging conversations about money – it’s not limited to the workplace, but it’s an ideal existing initiative that organisations can use as a catalyst for their own plans. In 2022, Talk Money Week begins on November 7th. Spearheaded by the Money and Pensions Service, Talk Money Week offers a participation pack for employers looking to take part, that includes various useful materials and insight so you can get off to a good start. It’s a great way to start a conversation internally and provides a yearly date for your diary.

Financial wellbeing strategies should not only look at new support, but existing policies to ensure you’re not unwittingly making it expensive to come to work. How else should you support your employees through the cost-of-living crisis?

If you’d like to find out how Wagestream can help your business, contact us and we’ll put you in touch.

The intention is that where the fit note is certified, such as a hospital or GP surgery, will remain the same – but who can do this will be expanded to relieve the administrative burden on doctors and GPs, as they aim to tackle the COVID backlog and deliver an extra 50 million appointments by 2024.

The changes – which apply across England, Scotland and Wales – follow the rollout of digital fit notes back in April and are intended to further simplify the process of certifying sickness-related absences.

What are fit notes and how do they work?

Employees can usually self-certify for the first seven days of illness. Beyond that, they will normally need what’s known as a fit note.
The fit note is a healthcare professional’s assessment of a patient’s fitness for work. It may say one of two things: either the employee is not fit to work, or they may be fit to work subject to certain adjustments. It is not open to GPs or other medical professionals to confirm that the employee is fit for the job they do. Employers seeking such confirmation would have to involve the services of Occupational Health to get further guidance. If following assessment, the patient is considered fit for work, they don’t need a fit note, even if it is asked for.

Once a fit note runs out, if no further fit note is sought/provided, the employer can take it as read that the employee is fit to return. At this stage, a return to work meeting should help the employer uncover if there are any risks of allowing the employee back to work or if temporary measures are required. Of note, the advice in the fit note pertains to an employee’s fitness for work in general, and not specifically their current job role. This gives employers maximum flexibility to discuss possible changes to help the employee return to work, which may include changing their duties for a while. Using the fit note to its full potential helps employers to reduce sickness absence costs – for example, in relation to sick pay, staff cover and lost productivity – and minimises the disruption caused by employees being off sick unnecessarily.

How might the new rules impact employers?

For employers, there are concerns that easier access to fit notes could lead to more people being signed off sick, resulting in higher levels of absence. Indeed, employees who may have previously put off going to their GP for a fit note due to difficulties in getting an appointment may now be inclined to take the easier route of going to a pharmacist or other healthcare professional, increasing the likelihood that they will take time off work. That said, it won’t be as simple as walking into your nearest pharmacy to get a fit note. The idea is that the HCP certifying the fit note can only do so if they are integral to the patient’s health management. They may be doing this in combination with other HCPs and it might be that there is a combined approach to the individual’s care, whereby they see multiple HCPs.

The government guidance is clear that fit notes should only be certified following a full assessment of an individual’s fitness for work, and therefore should be provided by a clinician with a holistic oversight of the individual’s condition. This will hopefully lessen any disruption to employers. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, Chloe Smith MP, suggests the changes will be positive for both employees and their employers.
“The extension of fit note certification is fantastic news for patients, making it easier for them to get the support and advice they need from the right place, ensuring where possible that they can remain in work”, she said.

Another potential positive for employers is that by alleviating the practical difficulties in getting a fit note, employees should have less of a reason not to submit them. Sometimes, employees will use the excuse that they can’t provide a fit note because they are unable to get an appointment with their GP to get a fit note, and/or they don’t realise that fit notes are needed once SSP has stopped.

If an employee is past the stage of SSP, i.e. has been off work for longer than 28 weeks, employers will generally be in the realms of a capability process, but this does not mitigate the need for a fit note to evidence the genuineness of the employee’s continued sickness absence. The changes are a timely reminder that employers must continue to actively manage sickness absence, and gathering appropriate evidence plays a key part in that.

Ultimately, at this early stage, we can only speculate as to the impact of relaxed fit note rules. However, given ongoing staffing shortages and the numerous challenges businesses are currently experiencing around unexpected absences – due to factors such as COVID-19, flight delays, fuel costs and transport strikes – understandably employers may be concerned.

What should employers do now?

Going forward, the changes mean employers need to be aware that fit notes authorised by other healthcare professionals, not just doctors and GPs, will be accepted as evidence of incapacity. Organisations will need to update their absence policies to reflect this.
Additionally, employers must be aware that fit notes no longer need to be physically signed. They must, however, contain the name of the healthcare professional who has made the certification and their professional title, otherwise, they won’t be legally valid.

6 things to do when provided with a fit note:

1. Check whether your employee’s healthcare professional has assessed that they are not fit for work or maybe fit for work.
2. Check how long your employee’s fit note applies for, and whether they are expected to be fit for work when their fit note expires.
3. If your employee may be fit for work, discuss their fit note with them and see if you can agree on any changes to help them come back to work while it lasts.
4. If your employee is not fit for work, or if they may be fit for work but you can’t agree on any changes, use the fit note as evidence for your sick pay procedures.
5. Consider taking a copy of the fit note for your records (the employee should keep the original).
6. Take further advice from a workplace Occupational Health professional or your HR Team.

For advice on managing workplace sickness contact WorkNest at CCP@worknest.com

People have been so focused on whether they are working in the office or at home, that the ‘insource of partner operations’ as an industry concept seems to have gone quiet.

However, if client businesses have adopted a work from home model is there a missed opportunity here to utilise office space? To foster closer working relationships by having staff on-site provided and managed by organisations with specialist skills in the delivery of customer experience?

If both organisations work together to deliver hybrid models from a single site, then there are opportunities to create something really special. We have seen remote working delivered on an unprecedented scale throughout the pandemic and with the right systems and collaboration from IT teams to get the solution onto the agent desktop, then this could be an interesting way forward for some clients.

Savings on labour costs may not be as significant as they were in the past. However, for organisations looking to make a first step in getting support with servicing, whether that be sales or service based, there could be a golden opportunity here. Especially, if there is a lease on a site that means it would otherwise be practically empty, why not use that space as a hub for both an in-house and an insourced team?

What’s more, employees now have an all-around greater awareness of their employer’s responsibilities, as well as their own rights. And with the Great Resignation tipping the balance of power in their favour, employees may feel emboldened to take work issues further than they would have dared to previously.

With this in mind, here are five key policies all businesses should have in order to help them prevent and manage disputes effectively.

1. Grievance policy

All organisations should have a grievance policy and procedure, as this will help employees to understand the correct steps to follow when they have a concern, problem or complaint that they wish to raise with their employer that they feel they have been unable to resolve informally.

 2. Equality and diversity policy

Disputes are commonly raised around bullying and harassment, and issues of equality and fairness, especially in relation to employees with protected characteristics such as race, sex and disability. In order to show that equality and diversity are at the core of your business, it’s essential that you have a policy around it.

3. Pay and performance

Having a pay policy will help to ensure equal pay is given for work of equal value by setting out how you apply certain pay to certain roles. This in turn will reduce the potential for complaints of unfairness and potentially even equal pay claims. A pay policy will also help you to communicate pay principles, such as when you will pay overtime and how certain bonuses are awarded, thereby preventing disputes arising out of misunderstanding.

4. Disciplinary policy

A disciplinary policy is one of an organisation’s tools for managing disputes, and employers must not be afraid to use this policy in the right circumstances – in other words, once all informal problem-solving avenues have been explored, or where the performance or conduct warrants it.

5. COVID-19 policy

A lack of clear post-COVID policies emerged amongst the top three factors that would prompt an employee to raise a complaint or bring legal action, according to our Mind the Gap report. Simply put, people want to know how the organisation will deal with issues such as homeworking, vaccination and self-isolation, and this is best done through a COVID-19 policy. This list is not exhaustive, and it’s extremely valuable to have policies around all aspects of the employment relationship. After all, the number one factor that would prompt employees to bring a complaint according to our research? A lack of communication. The more employees understand the better; if things are communicated to them through policies and other means, the less likely you will be to end up with a dispute.

For advice on creating watertight HR policies or to enquire about fixed-fee support, contact WorkNest at CCP@worknest.com.

That’s a familiar piece of advice which is credited to John T Chambers, the former boss of Cisco. It’s a comforting mantra for your boss to repeat; it combines displaying respect for staff with a degree of humility.

In the old days, most leaders in the ‘customer world’ could not only say they would be ‘willing’ to do what they asked of their contact centre employees, they could do it too. Technically they might have been a bit slow, but when it came to understanding, empathy and the resolution of customer problems or commercial opportunities they would be confident of their ability to effectively engage with consumers.

That was then. What about now?

Last week a client shared with me some analysis they had done which showed that their frontline advisors were having to use 20 different systems, applications and third-party portals. 20.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1659441626817{padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]Just think about that for a moment. I’ll be honest, I’m not the world’s greatest multitasker – but even if I was, 20 applications would be about four times the number I’d be confident in using. So, in my client’s contact centre I know I couldn’t do an advisor’s job and if I was the boss I wouldn’t pretend that I’d be willing to either!

It’s a truism that contact centre agents’ jobs have steadily become more difficult over the years. The number of contact channels available and the range of activities undertaken have steadily increased. At the same time the emotional state of customers has often become more heightened either due to their frustration at failing to successfully self-serve or external environmental factors. We all know that the ‘cognitive load’ frontline staff work under seems to have steadily grown and the technology and processes they work with just make matters worse.

So, what can we do about it?

For one, we can start to acknowledge that our people are increasingly doing technically and emotionally challenging jobs that most of us couldn’t. Recognising this fact won’t change anyone’s reality, but it does show a degree of genuine understanding and empathy.

Secondly, we can ensure that the needs of the frontline are front and centre every time new tech, propositions and channels are being planned. There’s a direct line between employee experience and customer experience, so we need to start to make reinforcing that relationship – and helping our frontline people – a priority.

At the same time, Covid especially has driven significant growth in the demand for multilingual customer service as more and more firms have exploited to shift online to enter new overseas markets.

This is a trend which Contact Centre Panel has been acutely aware of over the past two years, both in the UK and globally. So, if you need to identify and recruit staff who can support customers in languages other than English what are the options available to you?

1. Employ people who are already here

Most multilingual contact centres are supporting European languages, so native language speakers originally from the EU are the most obvious candidates. EU residents who were in the UK by 2021 should have achieved Settled Status so can be employed just like any other resident. However, as nearly all contact centres are reporting massive recruitment and retention challenges, that’s far from easy.

2. Recruit new staff from the EU

This may help, but remember that to do so you will almost certainly have to take advantage of the Skilled Worker Visa Scheme which entails a lot of administration, being approved as an employer by the Home Office and meeting the minimum salary level of £25,600.

3. Recruit Remote Workers in the Country

With the widespread adoption of contact centre homeworking, employing foreign-language speakers to work for you remotely in their own country is now entirely technically feasible. However, the costs and complexity of doing so – especially if you don’t currently employ any staff outside of the EU – can be considerable.

4. Outsource

Outsourcing contact centre customer service isn’t always the right solution for every organisation. But as many of our clients have found, done the right way outsourcing can be a sustainable, affordable solution to the multilingual resourcing challenge.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any of these options.

From vaccination to workplace safety measures, the pandemic has introduced plenty of new potential sources of conflict, and in many cases, employers’ COVID response and their handling of COVID-related issues continue to be a source of resentment, which could lead to disputes in the workplace.

What’s more, employees now have an all-around greater awareness of their employer’s responsibilities, as well as their own rights. And with the Great Resignation tipping the balance of power in their favour, employees may feel emboldened to take work issues further than they would have dared to previously.

With this in mind, here are five key policies all businesses should have in order to help them prevent and manage disputes effectively.

1. Grievance policy

All organisations should have a grievance policy and procedure, as this will help employees to understand the correct steps to follow when they have a concern, problem or complaint that they wish to raise with their employer that they feel they have been unable to resolve informally.

 2. Equality and diversity policy

Disputes are commonly raised around bullying and harassment, and issues of equality and fairness, especially in relation to employees with protected characteristics such as race, sex and disability. In order to show that equality and diversity are at the core of your business, it’s essential that you have a policy around it.

3. Pay and performance

Having a pay policy will help to ensure equal pay is given for work of equal value by setting out how you apply certain pay to certain roles. This in turn will reduce the potential for complaints of unfairness and potentially even equal pay claims. A pay policy will also help you to communicate pay principles, such as when you will pay overtime and how certain bonuses are awarded, thereby preventing disputes arising out of misunderstanding.

4. Disciplinary policy

A disciplinary policy is one of an organisation’s tools for managing disputes, and employers must not be afraid to use this policy in the right circumstances – in other words, once all informal problem-solving avenues have been explored, or where the performance or conduct warrants it.

5. COVID-19 policy

A lack of clear post-COVID policies emerged amongst the top three factors that would prompt an employee to raise a complaint or bring legal action, according to our Mind the Gap report. Simply put, people want to know how the organisation will deal with issues such as homeworking, vaccination and self-isolation, and this is best done through a COVID-19 policy.

This list is not exhaustive, and it’s extremely valuable to have policies around all aspects of the employment relationship.

After all, the number one factor that would prompt employees to bring a complaint according to our research? A lack of communication. The more employees understand the better; if things are communicated to them through policies and other means, the less likely you will be to end up with a dispute.

For advice on creating watertight HR policies or to enquire about fixed-fee support, contact WorkNest at CCP@worknest.com.

The recruitment crisis has made headline news in recent times, with businesses being affected by labour shortages brought on by changes to both local and global economic conditions caused by the post-pandemic recovery and for UK based organisations, the aftereffects of Brexit.

In one sense it’s great that economies are experiencing a period of rapid growth after such a difficult 16 months but this has its challenges for many business owners, with recruitment and wage inflation becoming two of the biggest hurdles to expansion or in some cases survival.

According to figures recently released by Reed Recruitment, customer service has seen the highest overall salary increase of any sector (in the UK) with employee wages in 2021 up 32% compared with 2019. This wage inflation is adding huge pressure to both the ability to recruit and retain existing staff, within customer service and sales operations.

Add to this the increase in customer demand for query resolution and a return to business as usual from the consumer’s point of view, then the reality for many contact centres is that staffing is going to be difficult just as a period of peak demand, for many businesses, begins.

Challenges faced include:

• Resource shortages driven by macro and microeconomic conditions
• Post-pandemic recovery growth creating rapid expansion opportunities
• Increased customer demand putting pressure on customer service teams
• Outbound and inbound sales not being fulfilled due to resource shortage

What can you do to cope with staff shortages?

There are two alternatives to recruitment, which may work better for your business helping to save time and money, whilst improving your customer experience as well as increasing sales conversion and revenues.

These alternatives can both help to fix your short and longer-term resourcing issues and enable you to build a more sustainable business in the future, that can handle both foreseen and unforeseen demand fluctuations.

Outsource to cope with peak demand and recruitment transition periods

There is a wide choice of outsource contact centres, who provide a highly professional service, which presents itself to your customers as a seamless extension of your business. Choosing an outsourced partner to cope with your peak periods or to handle your less complex frequently dealt with enquiries, will free up your core teams to focus on areas that require higher levels of expertise such as complaint resolution and more complex sales conversion. This will enable your business to focus on the development of its higher skilled advisors and salespeople, resulting in greater loyalty, increased retention rates, higher customer satisfaction and increased revenues.

Outsourcing can also be used to meet customer contact requirements whilst your business is in recruitment mode. Measuring your recruitment needs can be difficult, as consumer demands fluctuate, and finding the ‘right’ people for your business can take time when the labour market has become so limited. Working with a partner while you rebuild your teams can help you to maintain customer satisfaction, reduce customer churn and protect revenues.

Identifying the right outsourcer for your business can be difficult if you do not have full visibility of the market or the skills to vet each outsourcer against your requirements. Working with the Contact Centre Panel team takes the pain away, making the process much simpler and ensuring you find the right match for your business.

Implement new technology to reduce demand on your teams

Implementing the ‘right’ technology solution can help your business to cope with demand fluctuations and improve how you handle enquiries in a more consistent and controlled way. Improvements in technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Bots are enabling contact centres to massively reduce the demand on agents by channelling low level enquiries away from expert advisors and resolving them. The cost of implementing new technologies is covered by a reduction in resourcing expenditure, improvements to working and process efficiency and increased sales revenues.

The key to implementing technologies successfully is to identify a solution that fits your current and future business requirements. With such a large choice of potential systems and providers, it can be difficult to make the right choice, particularly if you do not have full visibility of what is available and the appropriate level of technology expertise needed to accurately assess each solution.

Many businesses have, so far, chosen to wait in fear of making the wrong choice, either retaining dated legacy systems or delaying the adoption of new. When adopting new technologies mistakes can indeed be costly in terms of wasted time and expense, but if done correctly this can be the reverse. Successful businesses are now embracing the opportunity to streamline their operations and improve customer service delivery by implementing the latest contact centre technologies, guided by the right level of expertise.

Working alongside a trusted partner, such as Contact Centre Panel, to help you narrow down your options will help your business to adopt a measured, managed process to selecting the right technical solutions to improve and future-proof your operations.

Who can you talk to about the options?

Contact Centre Panel has built a network of over 140 contact centres and 50 technology providers. We’ve done this to find solutions to the greatest challenges facing the customer contact sector. Whether it’s staff resourcing to meet fluctuations in demand or to cover recruitment periods, or it’s choosing and implementing tools to improve customer interaction/experience and agent reliance, we can help.

We work closely with clients to understand their specific requirements before helping them to source the appropriate contact centre outsourcer or technology provider. We are entirely independent, so you know our recommendations are not driven by self-interest. Our selection process is managed by industry experts, so you will always be in safe hands.