Compliance with data privacy laws doesn’t stop when agents work from home. Using a compliant service provider, either on-premise or in the cloud, will help maintain customer data protection. You can also update internal policies to ensure employee information is anonymised at the time of entry.

For Calabrio Teleopti WFM customers who are using On-Premise version of our software, connecting to the VPN is needed for certain roles. Anyone who needs to access the Calabrio Teleopti WFM on-premise software will likely require VPN access, but it is important to talk to your local IT group for clarification.

For Calabrio Teleopti WFM customers who are using our cloud offering, VPN access is generally not needed to connect, but may be required in special circumstances. Again, it is recommended you discuss with your local IT for any considerations.

For on-premises deployments of Calabrio ONE, the specific recommendations and requirements for remote agent connectivity to Calabrio ONE will vary by customer. Connectivity requirements are dependent on the recording type and the customers technology components. Customers are encouraged to contact Calabrio Support with questions specific to their implementation.

For Calabrio ONE Cloud customers, there should be no changes required for an employee to access Calabrio ONE when moving from the office to remote.

In a non-Calabrio sense, VPN access may be required to access other critical systems, such as CRMs, billing systems, and other software needed to continue business. It is very likely that your company has put together guidelines that dictate who should use the VPN and who shouldn’t, to keep the bandwidth clear for critical uses.

At the very least, agents must have workstations with updated security patches, and antivirus programmes applied. Make sure agents restrict workstation usage to themselves only, limit any personal activity, and enforce reasonable time-outs for sensitive programmes. Software-as-a-service programmes would also help alleviate some of these manual actions.

You get more flexibility at home with micro-shifts. You don’t have that mid-day hump of overlap with day/night shifts, and you can spread things out better. You should see more efficiency in schedules. Also, take the lack of daily commutes into account. If your agents don’t need to spend 45 minutes in traffic each day, that’s more time available for work.

Allow agents to submit an absence request without validation (call out absence).
Build CRA SQL reports to understand what regions report more call out absences than others. To compensate for high absence, allow for more overtime. Consider loosening up internal policies around overtime, but make sure you’re not breaking any labour laws. Use auto approving overtime requests to be more flexible, no need for supervisors to manually review and approve!

You get more flexibility at home with micro-shifts. You don’t have that mid-day hump of overlap with day/night shifts, and you can spread things out better. You should see more efficiency in schedules. Also, take the lack of daily commutes into account. If your agents don’t need to spend 45 minutes in traffic each day, that’s more time available for work.

As agents transition to remote work, they are likely to have technical issue. Add a higher shrinkage to your forecast to compensate

Make sure you communicate. If you held huddles in person, maintain them if you can. Some people adjust faster than others. It’s okay to feel uncertain about this whole process. That team feeling is not going to go away. Also, make sure your agent calendars are up to date. You can’t just ask something across the room.

Utilise group chat tools, like WebEx, Skype or Microsoft Teams, throughout the day. In the office, you used to be able to turn around and talk to the whole team. Now you must leverage these tools for distance communication.

This is a time to be flexible. Using your workforce tools, like calendars, to manage schedules. If agents need to tend to family or home issues, build it into their schedule. You might have to give a little bit, but agents have more flexibility. Remove the stigma of kids, dogs and doorbells in the background. We’re all dealing with this together.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Any sort of creative scheduling is mandatory, because people aren’t working 9-to5 right now. Throw your current policy out the window and figure out what works best.