Carol Smalley
Managing Editor, CRMGuru
Member
Posted 19-Aug-2003 05:23 AM
Posted by Carol Smalley (Editor) on behalf of Nathan Kenyon [[email protected]]
I have been stuggling with call center attendance for some time now. I currently manage a call center that consists of approximately 100 representatives. I am looking for ideas on an actual attendance policy, i.e at what point does attendance including tardies warrant a warning. At the same time our representatives are also backed by a union, which makes coming up with actual attendance guidelines somewhat difficult. Any ideas or processes that you currently have in place would be appreciated.
Carol Parenzan Smalley
Managing Editor
www.CRMGuru.com
[email protected]
Sandeep
Member
Posted 22-Aug-2003 03:00 AM
Hi Nathan,
I have been studying the Call Center Attendance Scenario for sometime now—some of the call centers have a policy called NCNS ( No Call No Show )( the names differ ).
If an employee does not turn up for a couple of days ( no show ) or does not inform his superiors ( no call ), he is liable to be terminated ( or warned, based on the level of tolerance ).
This will help you to discipline the Chronic Offenders and improve the attendance.
I hope this helps you. Please do let me know. All the best!!
EricCarlson
Member
Posted 25-May-2004 11:41 PM
Often times setting a disciplinary policy in a call center environment is difficult. The most difficult aspect of thepolicy however is enforcing it; you have to stick to the policy!
Here are some suggestions on a policy that I wrote for a Call Center in Los Angeles, CA. I will start with the dicsiplinary policy that we used to help you better understand the whole thing.
Disciplinary Action
1) First occurrance earns verbal warning that is noted in the employees folder with the date/time of the discussion. Another occurrance within 30 days earns a First Warning Written Corrective Action. If no events of the same kind occur in the 30 days this warning is on file, it is essentially “removed” from the employees file.
2) Second occurrance earns 1st Warning Written Corrective Action issued to and signed by the employee, witnessed by another supervisor and put into the employees folder. Another occurrance within 90 days (three months) earns a Second Corrective Action. If no events of the same kind occur in the 90 days following this warning, the “counter” is set back to zero, and the discpilinary process starts all over. This written counseling step stays on permenant record in the employees file.
3) Third occurrance earns 2nd Warning Written Corrective Action issued to and signed by the employee, witnessed by another supervisor and put into the employees folder. Another occurrance within 120 days (six months) earns a Final Warning Corrective Action. If no events of the same kind occur in the 120 days following this warning, the “counter” is set back to zero, and the discpilinary process starts all over. This written counseling step stays on permenant record in the employees file.
4) Fourth occurrance earns Final Warning Written Corrective Action issued to and signed by the employee, witnessed by another supervisor and put into the employees folder. Another occurrance within 12 Months (one year) earns a Termination/Dismissal. If no events of the same kind occur in the 1 year following this warning, the “counter” is set back to zero, and the discpilinary process starts all over. This written counseling step stays on permenant record in the employees file.
5) If the employee commits a 5th violation after all of these attempts to correct his/her behavior, you should have no problem terminating them. Out with the bad, in with the better. Hopefully.
Tardiness
1) No more than 5 tardies in a rolling 90 day period.
Absenteeism
1) No more than 3 unexcused absenses in a rolling 6 month period.
The hardest part of this program is sticking to it. Once you start terminating people for excessive absenteeism and tardiness, people will straighten up and fly right, or they will be out of a job. Remember that there is really nothing unreasonable about these attendence and disciplinary policies. They are fair and equitable allowing the employee to get back on track and show that they are there for the company that pays thier salary.
Best of luck!
Eric Carlson
[email protected]
John Holt
June 19, 2010
Call Center Attendance Policy
I understand SLA levels but it is not fair to not have the same policy throughout company wide. Lets say ABC Company sells clothing, has a warehouse, has a call center, distribution center, office with account managers, buyers, etc… This is not fair to have such a strict policy on just the call center part and not for the rest of the company. If your going to say an employee is disciplined for having 3 occurances within a 6 month period, then this should be for EVERYONE in the company. As far as being sick and you have a doctors note this is really insane to let this count as an occurance at all. What do you want people to do, come in sick and INFECT the whole call center. GROW UP people this isn’t High School. Where I work if your so much as ONE minute late from lunch, clocking in for the day or whatever, this counts as an occurance. I try to set my watch to literally the exact second of the time clock to keep from punching out for lunch and then it changing to the next minute on me right then making you a minute late. If we choose the wrong DND code this counts as an occurance, if you have a low score on a phone call, this counts as an occurance, every little thing you do is an occurance. I have pretty much always been in retail management my whole life, in that environment I was just happy the people showed up to work. Going into the call center which is a different ball game I will agree. To sum it up, as a rep I go to work when I am sick, fever, strep, whatever and if everyone else get is then so be it, I am at my desk 30 min.. early every day ready to punch in, I haven’t had a low score a phone call in over a year and literally one of their best reps as they tell me all the time, but sometimes the stress isn’t worth this much aggrivation and I am just biding my time to get promoted out of the robot land, I mean the call center. Until then, even if there is a death in the family, I promise I will be there and just explain to my family that business is business.
outsourcing tech support
June 21, 2010
Attendance incentives
I think that it would be a good idea to offer incentives to call center agents who have perfect attendance records. Also, perhaps team-building activities can encourage agents to come to work regularly and on time.
