Contact centers are facing some extreme changes in the current climate. Call center agents have been working with new technologies that improve ease of access to call logs, notes, and other data, but team leaders often suffer from a lack of transparency from above. This has become more evident as HR departments have started managing large remote workforces.
Human Resources Improvements
A robust HRIS infrastructure provides an elegant solution to this difficulty. HRIS, or Human Resources Information System, is an automated data storage solution that makes the managerial tasks associated with remote work feel like less of a headache and more of a diffused office. The main issue among HR managers and the team leaders that they work so closely with is the lack of free-flowing knowledge exchange. HRIS solves this problem by automating data collection and storage so that employee records, resumes, payroll system data, complaint files, hours, and much more are all placed in a central and secure location. The software collects the information and acts as a repository for these critical pieces of data by itself.
HRIS infrastructure gives call center managers the ability to track the output of their live agents and intervene if there appears to be a hold-up or an issue developing.
Maintaining Contact with Agents
At each level of management, there is the potential for a lacking of communication with call agents. As distances increase, these issues become more pronounced. As an example, an outbound call center might see an increased risk of fraying team morale, as they often require agents to make outbound calls to clients, and are more likely to field angry or combative people on the other end of the line. A strong human resource management system can help team leaders keep morale up in ways that don’t include the traditional talks between difficult calls. With this software in place, a manager is able to supervise and maintain top-notch communication with their team, in order to keep everyone focused on the task and feeling upbeat, even through the difficult calls. Contacting and gathering data on the calling agents can not only help you focus on the user experience and customer service side of improvements but also in boosting employee experience. This is particularly important at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent working from home initiatives have made hiring new staff difficult, if not impossible, for a lot of businesses.
Keeping your team as a tight-knit community is essential to making sure your business and targets stay on track. HR professionals and managers alike know the power of a team firing on all cylinders, and working together. But keeping your team cohesive and moving during these difficult times is easier said than done, especially without an analytics system in place to help negotiate trouble spots such as mix-ups in logged hours, particularly thorny calls with potential customers, or a hard to find document needed by one of your employees.
New Hires Made Easy
Finally, when your company ultimately begins to expand again, regardless of whether you are based in the United States or elsewhere, you will need to carefully manage applicant information. This is more important than ever, as with the trampled economy leaving millions of workers unemployed, you are likely to see a surge of applicants, unlike ever before. Keeping track of your best prospective hires, sending automated responses, and combing through data to produce hiring metrics that can help you identify the right candidates, is now essential in building your operations as we move into the future.
From telesales to telemarketing, inbound calls to outbound calls, remote work has proven effective for all business segments. It’s time to upgrade your office infrastructure to adapt accordingly. Employ a high powered Human Resources Information System in order to streamline your workflow and provide greater support to your agents, so they feel the team unity at home.
