Being more efficient, improving recruitment and retention,
and helping staff with their work-life balance: these were the
motivations for the AA when they first piloted their virtual
call centre in the Leeds area back in 1997.
All the AA’s call centres are UK-based and the homeworking
team are no different. In all there are 250 home-based staff
handling emergency breakdown calls, based around Newcastle,
Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff.
Kevin Horgan, the AA’s Head of Emergency Breakdown Call
Handling, is an enthusiast for the new way of working.
“We saw it as a way to expand the opportunities we were
offering to our people. Like any call centre we’re always
exploring new avenues to help deal with attrition and
retention. We consolidated our call centre operation in
Leeds a number of years ago, and then ran a pilot for
existing staff there to see if homeworking was a viable
option.
The benefits were manifold. It provided the business with
an opportunity to achieve productivity gains from people
working split shifts and it gave our employees the
opportunity to work in their own environment without the
cost and inconvenience of commuting. It works from
everyone’s point of view. ”
Achieving the benefits
The AA expanded on the pilot, and now virtual call centre
work has been mainstreamed. According to Kevin, there’s been no
reduction in the levels of service provided – quite the opposite
in fact - thanks to increased staffing levels at drive time:
“It’s enabled us to improve our management of peaks and
troughs of demand throughout the day and we’ve reduced
attrition. Our productivity has definitely increased with
the quality of customer service always high on the agenda.”
The AA provides all the furniture, technology and telephony,
replicating the facilities to be found in a call centre. The
automatic call distribution works in the same way across their
geographically dispersed workforce. The only thing a new recruit
needs to provide is a dedicated room in which to work.
“Before we recruit someone we carry out a thorough
assessment to make sure their home is suitable and they’ve
got a separate room,” says Kevin. “Psychologically that’s
important. You want to be able to shut the door.”
At the outset staff undergo a 10 week training and coaching
course, and there are regular get-togethers for briefing and
feedback.
“My challenge is to make sure that people who work from
home are not the forgotten people. They have regular contact
with their manager - it’s very much based on team work -
with audio conferencing and a lot of face to face contact.
We try to give people as much stability as possible as well
as flexibility. We roster 3 months in advance, so our
employees know well in advance what their shift pattern
looks like and what’s required of them. Work is flexible,
but it’s also highly structured as we have a demand to meet.
We manage performance in the same way as in the physical
call centre,” says Kevin.
“Working from home isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea
but it is appealing to more and more people. It particularly
appeals to those who want to be on hand to manage childcare
better, have some time flexibility and prefer to work in their
own environment. “
A recommended way to work
Home working in the virtual call centre is one of the range
of flexible working options offered by the AA. Kevin is
confident that this kind of working has many advantages and is
set to grow in the UK:
“There’s a massive untapped potential. We expect
homeworking to increase by 40% over the next 5 years. It’s a
fantastic opportunity for people who would like to explore
working from home. At the AA, we’re currently recruiting to
our homeworking team and we’re always on the lookout for
people who want to work this way. I’m sure that in the
future, we’ll see many other jobs carried out in this way
too.”
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