Tag: WFH
I’ve Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now
In 1969, Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell released a folkie-sounding album called Clouds. Featured on the album was a song called “Both Sides, Now” that...
How to Make Work Work Again
It’s mind-numbing how much is being written about COVID-19. Too much to absorb, much less process. Yet amid the lockdowns, layoffs and reopenings, we’re...
Employee Engagement: 5 Lessons from a Pandemic
How engaged people are in their work depends on a myriad of factors from corporate culture to manager behavior, from daily tasks to what’s...
Change Your Work-at-Home Model to Fit Your Agents’ Needs
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid and global shift of moving contact center agents and supervisors to a work-at-home model, giving rise...
Seven Ways the Pandemic Affected My WFM Role
2020 has been an unbelievable year. We’ve experienced a worldwide pandemic, a huge cultural movement, universal economic collapse, home-schooling and a shortage of toilet...
Secure at Home: Protecting Ourselves, Our Brand, Business and Customers
During the summer of the COVID pandemic, sudden urgency emerged to get everyone home safely. Massive amounts of on-site agents were suddenly sent home...
Cloud-Based Communication Tools Key to Maintaining Contact Center Operations
When workforce operations are disrupted, the results can have a serious impact on your business. This is especially true if your customer service operations...
Tips for Onboarding New-Hires Remotely
I’m no stranger to remote work. I’ve been onboarded remotely and have onboarded remote employees before. But I have to say I’ve never been...
Coaching During Covid-19: Six Remote-Coaching Tips For Contact Centers
Now that call centers have transitioned to working from home, many managers and supervisors are finding coaching remotely to have its challenges. Managers often...
Leadership Insights: Rising Above COVID Challenges
More than six months ago, the world changed for everyone. In most places, people were sent home to work remotely. The contact center industry...
Home, Sings Me of Sweet Things
My blog series co-author, Paul Stockford, and I both lobbied to lead this one off. Paul, thanks for letting me set the stage—plus I...
Changes in Contact Center latitudes, Changes in AI Attitudes
In 1977, singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffet released his seventh studio album, entitled Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes. The album, which featured a song by...
Roll with the Changes
In 1978, the band REO Speedwagon released its seventh studio album. Called You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish, it was...
Rebooting Your Workforce Management Strategy
Our workforce management (WFM) landscape is changing at breakneck speed. Many organizations are now 100% work-from-home or have a workforce divided between brick-and-mortar and...
Preventing Contact Center Agent Burnout
Employees everywhere are struggling with severe increases in stress and anxiety brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Fear of being exposed to the virus...
Why the Call Center Was Already Collapsing—Even Before COVID-19
COVID-19 has made the fundamental flaws in phone-based support impossible to ignore. Overwhelmed and under-equipped reps are struggling, anxious customers are stuck on hold...
Three Things Seasoned Work-From-Home Leaders Always Get Right
I have the privilege of knowing dozens of seasoned U.S. work-from-home (WFH) leaders in financial services, health care, retail, travel, professional services and utilities...
Redefining the Work Experience
As companies realign their workforce during these disruptive times, work-from-home (WFH) is quickly redefining the concept of “business as usual.” Both companies and employees...
COVID-19 and the Contact Center: Horror, Heartache, Humanity and Hope
Has anyone besides me noticed how many contact center industry work-from-home (WFH) experts there suddenly are? I thought there was only one, really. That...
On-Trend: At-home Agents
You know something is pretty important or interesting these days if it’s referred to as being on-trend, or trending. It’s not the same as...