Best practices for engaging and retaining part-time agents.
Part-time staff can be a valuable asset for meeting contact center staffing needs. Having a team of skilled, knowledgeable part-timers scheduled the during peak volume times provides a cost-effective approach for optimizing your workforce while providing great customer service.
Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to engage and retain part-time staff, given that they’re only onsite for a few hours each week. Many workers also string together multiple part-time jobs, making it difficult to establish a sense of loyalty to one employer or a commitment to driving its service vision.
It’s a definite concern for contact centers that put the time and effort into cultivating a customer-centric culture. “The biggest challenge is hiring part-time staff that have the same core values as our full-time staff,” says Craig Handley, CEO and co-founder of Listen Up Español, a leading bilingual call center for Spanish and English agent services. “For most of these agents, this is a second job and performing at a high level isn’t the priority. They’re just trying to make a little extra money. As far as values go, we’ve worked hard to uphold our standards during the hiring process with part-time staff and to make the part-time job as appealing as we can with incentives and recognition for going above and beyond.”
High turnover is another key issue with part-time staff. As Frank Carmody, assistant director of operations for Administration and Regulatory Affairs, City of Houston, explains: “We lose them, primarily, for two reasons: First, they find full-time jobs. And, even though we promote from within, many won’t wait for an opening. The second reason we lose them is simply the stress of the job. We try to give them a feel for the job by having them spend their first week of training sitting with and observing an experienced agent; but they sometimes find that watching a pro navigate the system and handle customers, some of whom are not particularly happy, and actually doing it themselves are two different things.” Carmody oversees Houston 311 Service Helpline, a 24/7 operation that handles approximately 2.1 million contacts per year, covering a wide range of issues—from reporting a pothole to inquiries about court hearings—270 different types of service requests, and 2,600 frequently asked questions.
In some cases, though, turnover among part-time staff is expected. Take, for instance, Indiana University’s UITS (University Information Technology Services) Support Center, which provides technical support for students, faculty and staff of Indiana University and Ivy Tech Community College. “A majority of our part-time staff are student employees,” says Support Center Assistant Manager Drew Hostetler. “This provides for a high turnover rate since many graduate and move on to their chosen careers, which may or may not even be in IT. With this in mind, I’d say our biggest challenge in managing part-time staff is the constant hiring and training to ensure that we exceed our customers’ expectations. Having a comprehensive training process is vital to ensure a consistently high level of customer service.”
Even though part-time agents may spend limited hours in the center, to customers, they are the organization. After all, customers don’t know whether they’re interacting with a full-time or part-time employee. So what can you do to ensure that you’re nurturing this critical resource so that part-timers are fully engaged and committed to delivering the same level of service as your full-time staff? We turned to a few seasoned contact center leaders whose operations successfully employ part-time staff for their advice. The following are the insights and best practices that they shared for the care and nurturing of part-time customer care staff.
Provide Opportunities for Coaching and Skills Development
Craig Handley
Listen Up Español
“We’ve learned that coaching is a mandatory part of the process of getting on the phones. Part-time agents are assigned to teams and managers. Prior to being allowed to take a call, there is a meeting to go over changes that occurred during the week, scripts, new products, new incentives and contests—anything that might motivate that person to be passionate.”
Nicole Lyon
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“Each part-time staff member is assigned a mentor, the purpose of which is twofold: The first is to communicate with them about their performance and to ensure that they are meeting the job expectations. It also allows us the opportunity to address and communicate any support initiative in a one-on-one setting.
“The second is to help guide them in their career path. This allows them to work with a full-time staff member who will offer guidance on how they can gain the skills they need as they pursue full-time opportunities—whether that is moving into a full-time position within or outside of the university.
“We want to provide them with every opportunity to excel and advance. We’ll provide feedback on their cover letters and resumes, conduct mock interviews and give feedback on how they can improve. If there is a skill that they want to develop, we’ll help them to find resources in that area, and we’ll get them involved in areas that interest them. Basically, we do whatever we can to help them achieve their goals and to give them the valuable experience that businesses look for in their candidates.”
Frank Carmody
Houston 311
“To address the turnover problem, we implemented a coaching program and changed the training program. Now, each new agent is assigned a coach, who is charged with helping the new agent feel comfortable in the call center environment. Coaches are assigned the day a new agent arrives. Once the new agent finishes his or her initial training, the coach spends a half-hour per day working with and coaching the new agent through calls.
“Before we changed our training program, an agent’s initial training lasted 14 weeks, and included a great deal of information. Ultimately, we determined that many of the new agents felt stressed because they had to remember too much information once they hit the floor, so we split their initial training into two sections. The first seven weeks now includes general city knowledge, customer service training and technical training. The second seven weeks is devoted to the court system, which represents 39% of our business and is decidedly more complicated than the other 61%. So, after the first seven weeks, new agents start taking calls, but these calls are relatively easy to handle and, so, less stressful.”
Momi Ford
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“We provide staff with training opportunities and also pay for IT certification exams if they are interested in studying for and/or taking them. With a broad area of support issues that come to our frontline team, there are almost always opportunities to learn more in areas of interest.
“Our staff work hard and are the front door to our IT department. We are often a student’s first interaction with IT at IU so we take great pride in providing the best customer experience possible.”
Select the Right Supervisors to Lead Part-Time Staff
Cathy O’Bryan “When you select, nurture and retain supervisors of part-time staff, choose carefully those individuals who enjoy both the challenges and the opportunities (as they are the same) of developing entry-level staff in IT. Support centers are an excellent springboard for technical careers.
Those who manage part-time staff need to have empathy for their unique needs and appreciation of their unique talent. Part-time student staff bring a fresh voice, perspective and awareness of their generation’s usage of the digital realm. Like all good leaders, those who are intrinsically motivated by growing their people will be most successful.”
Use Multiple Methods of Communication
Drew Hostetler
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“Communication to part-time employees is very tricky. While you’d like for them to be as knowledgeable as their full-time counterparts, sometimes it feels like the more communication you do, the less they’re able to retain. Especially when dealing with part-time employees who are also students—they’re already inundated with other email communications which reduces the effectiveness of our emails.
“It’s best to take a multi-pronged approach: in-person discussions, messages on intranet websites, and even notes taped to monitors can nicely augment email communications.”
Compensate Them Fairly
Craig Handley
Listen Up Español
“We’ve had to set up compensation differently for part-time employees versus full-time employees. Our full-time employees receive a lot of calls, so their commissions are higher and the base is lower. For agents who are high-performers, this works heavily in their favor. But there is no guarantee that a part-time agent will receive enough calls, because they are usually behind the full-time people on the routing tree. We’ve had to change how they are paid to improve their effectiveness, and offer different incentives.
“While we’ve integrated the part-time staff into our family, we’ve had to set up a completely different structure. It’s like we have a company within the company.”
Help Them Prepare for a Full-Time Career
Nicole Lyon
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“Many of my part-time staff feel that their position gives them real-world practical working experience and provides them with an opportunity to put into practice what they are learning in the classroom. For many, this is their first foray into a professional working environment. Many of my former part-time staff who have moved on have let me know that working for us has helped prepare them as they transition into their full-time careers. This is experience that they can’t necessarily get in the classroom. The ability to be on the cusp of emerging technologies is a benefit, too.”
Momi Ford
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“The expectations of this team are high and, though some of the positions are part-time only, we do our best to provide our staff with opportunities to grow and to use their experience here as a springboard for their career.
“We don’t necessarily focus on retaining part-time staff since most are either going to graduatemove andor get promoted into full-time positions. In that sense we do try to ‘retain’ talented staff through promotion when full-time positions open in the Support Center, UITS (our department, University Information Technology Services) or departments within the University (e.g., as a departmental IT professionals). For those who are looking for a career in IT, working in the Support Center provides them with a wide range of knowledge and opportunities to learn.”
Actively Involve Them in Company Events and Recognition Programs
Momi Ford
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“The leadership in UITS shows appreciation for the phenomenal work of all our staff to provide a positive experience for our Indiana University community. Last year, we were awarded runner-up honors at the Annual Call Center Conference for Best in Class Call Center (under 200 employees) and also received press when we handled our 1 Millionth contact in our ticketing system. Last Fall, we had a BBQ for staff to celebrate their work and successes which we hope to turn into an annual event.”
Make Scheduling as Convenient as Possible
Nicole Lyon
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“One of the benefits to working in the Support Center for our part-time staff is that they are able to work and go to school on campus. Most of our part-time staff are students who are taking classes, and this allows them the flexibility of working around their class schedule, which is appealing to them and most appreciate it.
“The convenience for them is a big factor and what they look for in an on campus position. This does pose challenges with their availability as many undergraduate students have class during the daytime hours, but many graduate students have more evening classes that frees them up to cover daytime shifts.”
Drew Hostetler
Indiana University, UITS Support Center
“Scheduling is challenging for part-time student employees since you have to keep in mind that, first and foremost, they are here to get a degree. To get adequate coverage with students, you must hire a diverse group of part-time employees who are in various stages of their academic careers.
“For example, graduate-level students take fewer classes and typically have better availability during daytime shifts while undergraduate students frequently prefer evening and weekend shifts. Keeping a consistent schedule week to week really helps students maintain a healthy balance of studies and work. Without this delicate balance, students may abandon their job in favor of focusing only on their studies.”
Scheduling Tip: To get adequate coverage with part-time students, hire a diverse group who are in various stages of their academic careers.