It’s Been One Year

The day that I have been on this post was like — really?!? I already got in to this department? I rock!!!

Now, it’s been one hell of a year! I can’t imagine it. I escalated two agents from being a fraud, because they are, to the management, and unfortunately for them, they got fired. We’ve handled one new successful account and they just renewed the contract for another year yippee [it means we'll still have another year for this job]. And my body clock is rumbled because every two months we’re changing our schedules. How’s that?

However, this one year is very fruitful. New experiences. New friends to connect with on my Facebook and Friendster, new acquiantances, new kind of escalations to me compared to when I was still an agent, new enemies [it's a common life when you are in the management side -- you are versus with the Operations ], new drinking buddies, new shopping mates but old friends still remains [I make sure of that], and most importantly, learning to balance my relationship with the management and the Operations.

So far, I got a nice feedback from the Operations. The friendly and nice WMS. And recently I just received a kudos from one of our managers hoorays!!! Yoohoo to me!!!

So for me and for the rest of us — Happy 1st year anniversary. We survived one rocking year hahaha

I am a Workforce Management Specialist !

Well .. I belong to the first level. In case you are interested to level up with just being a call center agent, here are my duties/responsibilities for this kind of job:

• Support the management of call center staffing by planning based on historical data and relevant assumptions, employing strong analytical skills.

• Actively monitor the progress of programs on a real time basis using the Avaya CMS Supervisor, TCS and RTA.

• Report any anomalies to the appropriate Operations Management and analyze data to identify any trends that may exist and offer solutions.

• Create, modify and delete employee and program information as requested.

• Create and modify both User and Agent information within the application, ensuring appropriate security restrictions are enforced.

• Maintain a good understanding of call routing and vectoring, assisting in decision making of routing requirements and suggest improvements to maximize performance of the program.

• Generate schedules that closely match the workload of program.

• Liaise with Team Leaders to ensure all program requirements are met.

• Maintain a good understanding of all factors that must be considered in the forecasting process and comprehensively explain these to our internal and external customers.

• Liaise with Operational and Client Solutions departments as well as the client to determine forecasted call volume and required staffing levels for each program.

As a call center agent, you might wonder why you are getting a lot more calls than your colleagues, why your team is scheduled in this very odd hour, why your team has been transferred to a different shift, why your days off need to be in split off, and among others..

Well .. it is US.  It is what we [I] do in our seat whenever we look at our two monitor stations. We make sure that the service level of the center is met always, always see to it that the agents are not just seeing idle / not doing anything because this is not profitable to the center you are currently working for, be vigilant on the agents that are just avoiding calls or releasing chat transcripts to be on AVAIL mode and among others — It’s US

So wanna be part of US?

Recalling Employees

Due to the recession wave, three supervisors were booted out of our company. So, we in the Workforce Management group thought this might have scared our other supervisors because some of them started applying for either the same job or higher position in a different company.

And our guess was right. Two supervisors resigned. One gave a notice and the other filed for an immediate resignation. These two supervisors were already tenured in our company so our management find it so hard to replace them with more deserving employee.

And what was the master plan after?

Recall the two employees they booted out of our company. And the two just happily accepted their comeback to the office.

Resignation Day

I am not going to resign — at least not yet. Not for now. I still have some things to attend to before I tender my resignation.

Just like any other companies, tendering resignations in a call center is just the same. But what makes the difference is being informed on how to formally resign from your company.

Rule #1: Don’t go on AWOL. Absence without leave because you decided to just resigned. What if you decided you still want to go back? Others just felt the heat of the moment, just got drained, felt bored but when all of these are over, they felt like coming back. You already have a bad record. This company would not “recall” you anymore. So why not try to apply for an “indefinite leave” while you are still thinking things over or trying to recharge your life?

Rule #2: Choose your “plan” of exit. Either immediate, 15 days or 30 days notice. Any of these three, back it up with a formal letter of resignation. Reasons can be personal, personal growth, career growth, undisclosed, migrating to a new location — be plain and simple in explaining. What’s important is that your exit to the company is formal and the company is informed on the details why you are leaving. We document every reasons why an employee resigned in our company. This helps us analyze how we can grow as a company and makes us understand better how we can keep our employees stay for years.

Rule #3: Be clear with your compensations/last pay. Before leaving the company, ask them what comes next after my last day in the office. These includes when are you going to get your last pay, computation of your backpay / separation pay [if there is], clearance, things you need to surrender before finally leaving the office, etc. When you are already out of the office, it’s already difficult to ask for these information as most of the time, the company is very busy for people who are no longer supplying them money hahahahaha

Rule #4: Keep your friends closer. Your friends are your access to the company if you need info. If you can’t get through your HR department because the line is always busy or the person you are looking is always not in the office, at least have some of your friends asked for the info you need.

If you need resources in writing resignation letters, check out this site:

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/sampleresignationletters/Resignation_Letter_Samples_Examples_of_Resignation_Letters.htm

AH1N1 Fever

Before I left the office, I’ve noticed that there is an employee who just signed in and signed out immediately afterwards. Tried to reach her supervisor but I’ve got no response. Since, it is already my restday and about to leave the office, I just thought that the supervisor would inform on our next shift what will happen.

But due to some unforeseen events, I stayed in the office for few hours more and it made me wonder why there are some teams who are wearing masks and there are alcohols everywhere and even one of the supervisors are spraying disinfectant liquid on the floor.

After asking my colleagues and my friend who is with me that time, we learned that one of the employees is suspected of having AH1N1. He said that he help a friend to go to the airport and the latter found out he has H1N1.

Scary yes. To think I got close to one of those who had contacts. But two days after, thank God, and that employee turned out to be negative with the virus.

After that, I became more extra careful. And so is our company. No one is going to enter/leave the office without putting alcogel/alcohol which is being served by our security guards.

Skill vs. Will

One of the hidden metrics in a call center is the skill and will. However, sometimes, it is referred to as category of an agent. There are actually four of these:

• High skill with High Will
• High Skill with Low Will
• Low Skill with High Will
• Low Skill with Low Skill

High Skill with High Will

In a technical support environment, you are forced to learn all the jargons most of all if you are not really tech savvy. As a result of this. some can easily follow because it is really their field of expertise and others cant. Because surprisingly, there are a lot of call center agents who became agents eventhough their skill does not match / suit what they are trying to support.

And when an agent who has a high will and still continues to improve his/her capabilities by adapting the new information that aught to him, they are now categorized as the first category: high skill agents with high will

These agents are the most likely to stay around for long in a call center industry

Lateral Transfer

You can’t say that a lateral transfer is a promotion. Why?

- Different post but same salary

- Additional workload but same salary

- Maybe a new center site, same post and still the same salary

- They will set your expectation that there will a salary increase but on a week before your much awaited day, they will say that there won’t be

- New learning experience but same salary

- A lot of wisdom words for you not to be demotivated but same salary

- Additional set of gimmicks [a.k.a expenses] but same salary

- Additional developmental trainings but same salary

- Longer hours of devoted working but still same salary

Salary Talk 1

To all the people who are just new in the call center industry!

You need to be reminded that not all job promotions would mean salary increase. Take my experience for example [well, it's just not me but a lot of us actually in our company]

The word is “lateral transfer” — related to being parallel. Same length, same width but different location of lines.

That’s us!

We got a new job in the company. Same company, same employment, different post but no salary increase. To take it bluntly, it’ just like they’ve transferred you to a different post and you should say to the management “thank you”.

But I find it hard to say “thank you”. That’s money we are talking about!

Before The Restday

Before the rest day is the day that we are so alive. Why not?!? When I was still an agent, that is the last day for me to be taking irate calls, minding other’s problem which does not really concerns me, and most of all a good day of sleep afterwards.

In call center, no matter what your plans to spend your rest day, sleeping will still be your number one choice. I think we all love it because that is the time we are not getting irate ourselves, the time our ears will be rested for shouting customers and the day that our mind will stop thinking on how we can solve all of our customer’s issue.

It’s all about just being with yourself. Or with your friends not talking about your work, just sharing a good laugh or indulging in a good / hearty conversation over Starbucks frappucino with cheesecake on the side.

Here is what usually goes in my mind before my rest days [which is by the way is a 3- day rest days]. This is not in a chronological order:

- sleep

- watch a movie in a mall

- eat out with my friends

- blast up my portable dvd’s by watching some reruns

- watching my favorite shows [like AI, House, etc ...]

- update my blog

- join my friends online in our favorite forum site

- a date with my bf

- update my friendster and facebook account

- spending my time with my biological family including my nieces

- listening to some nice tunes over the radio

- downloading songs and movies

- SLEEP again !!!

Recession: More To Come

I just came from a 4 days rest and as soon as I opened my emails, there I have seen it — a new batch of employees that was kicked out from our company. What is really so surprising is the fact that these persons are the “performers” [welll-except for one i hate her!) but they were still kicked out.

So, now, everyone is asking — what is really the reason behind the company’s decision to terminate an employee? Because we can’t see any pattern on these employees why they should be released. They don’t have an reliability issue or no any serious issue that was done to the company, etc …

And from what I’ve heard — there will be another wave of employees that will be ditched!!

Ohhhh recession !!!!