While it is vitally important to every call center to offer quality service to customers, that cannot happen unless your employees arrive at work promptly, and when they are scheduled. Even if you use scheduling software, many small adjustments need to be made on an almost daily basis as employee needs change. Many times these small changes can be forgotten, leaving employees feeling as though their managers do not care about their schedules, which can lead to employees coming in late to work or not at all. To keep up your employee satisfaction, and therefore customer satisfaction, you may want to consider a few small tips to help create the most effective schedule.

Make Notes

Depending on how well you know your employees, you may find that many schedule requests are casual in nature. Many times your employees will come up to you and ask personally for time off, or to exchange shifts with another employee, or to change scheduled times. Of course, these casual requests can be easily forgotten, particularly if you are working on other projects during the day. However, employees will often feel as though their requests have not been heard if you don’t remember to change their schedules slightly. It’s handy to keep a notepad on your person, or immediately write down their requests to look into later. This will help you to remember, and give your employees confidence that you will help them with their scheduling requests.

Reminders

Most schedules go through large variations, whether in accordance with holidays, seasons like summer and winter breaks, or semesters if your company employs students. Remind your employees repeatedly both in person and through bulletins to change their schedules if they need to at least a month in advance. Assume that your employees will forget about your reminders over the course of the month, and make sure to keep up the notifications even if it seems irritating. This will cut down on awkward overlap weeks in between schedule changes where some employees suddenly aren’t able to make scheduled days, or need to adjust to new activities.

Exchange Numbers

Your employees might assume that you will find people to cover shifts they cannot take. This will put a lot of extra work on your shoulders, and is usually unnecessary. Encourage your employees to exchange phone numbers or become Facebook friends so they can find someone to cover their shifts on their own, rather than relying on you for the changes. Occasionally you may need to call employees to cover sudden shift absences, but talking up employees’ swapping shifts on their own will cut down on how much you need to do so, and create friendly interactions between employees.

When making or adjusting schedules, always remember if you wouldn’t want to work it, don’t schedule it. Obviously there are going to be some shifts that just seem unpleasant, like ten hours shifts several days a week, but bear in mind that some scheduling can really be a bit much. You want to do as much as you can to keep your employees in a relatively stress free environment. Don’t schedule someone to close the office and then come in for an opening shift the next day. Creating schedules that make sense is the best way to be sure that your employees will be willing to come into work.

To make your scheduling even easier, check out our Verint Media Recorder Workforce Optimization and Management Software. This software will allow you to create the perfect schedule from the beginning, so you have to do less adjusting on a day to day level.