EMPLOYEE RETENTION AND SELF-SERVICE TECHNOLOGY IN … · 2020. 5. 30. · Our suite of proprietary...

EMPLOYEE RETENTION AND SELF-SERVICE TECHNOLOGY IN THE CONTACT CENTER INDUSTRY

ABOUT LAIVLYLaivly is a division of 24-7 Intouch that specializes in emerging technology. Our team of data scientists, developers, and researchers is dedicated to creating industry-leading technology that pairs human

customer service with artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, and bot technology solutions for the world’s biggest brands.

Our suite of proprietary software and app technologies includes an employee engagement communications app, Superpunch, that is changing the way people work. Available on mobile and desktop, it helps streamline scheduling,

payroll, employee communications, and other common day-to-day tasks.

Superpunch has evolved into an engagement centerpiece that includes a number of different features to help push performance and culture, along with creating

better compliance to schedule, lower absenteeism, and higher tenured team members.

BENEFITS Improves communication with real-time push notification and schedule visibility

Provides instant performance management feedback

Increases engagement with tangible data collected through mood tracking

Helps members increase take home pay

Promotes fairness with Attendance Points

TECHNOLOGY THAT CARESArtificial Intelligence solutions for enhancing

the employee and customer experience.

©2020 LAIVLY | All Rights Reserved. This document is proprietary and confidential.No part of this document may be used in any manner by a third party without the prior written consent of Laivly.

KEY CHALLENGES IN THE BPO INDUSTRYThe national unemployment rate in the United States is at the lowest it has been since 1969. It’s a job-seeker’s market, with the employee “quit rate” standing at 2.4% (the highest it has been since 2001) signaling strong confidence among workers that they can find a better job elsewhere. In the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, some of the biggest drivers to the quit rate that 24-7 Intouch has experienced with their employees is schedule variance. On most programs, agents are scheduled differently from week to week, with minimal transparency to their hours worked and how that correlates to their pay each week.

Attrition rates among frontline agents are double, sometimes triple, that of other industries, averaging between 30% to 45%, compared to the U.S. average of 15.1%. Replacing employees is expensive, with recruiting, onboarding, training, and supporting new hires. According to an article published by The Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC), turnover costs about $10,000-$15,000 to replace a frontline employee. Now more than ever, companies are looking for new ways to retain their talent without increasing wages each year.

RECOMMENDATIONCompanies who are struggling with attrition in their workforce should invest in a technology platform that functions as an employee engagement center, providing self-service into their pay, performance, and experience to help drive retention, tenure, and performance quality as an alternative to wage increases.

This technology should promote fairness for employees by removing bias from coaching, measuring performance and absenteeism, and meeting the overall requirements of their job. It should also provide them the ability to assign themselves to different shifts or jobs, see and provide transparency in their schedule, hours worked, how much they will be paid at any given time, submit schedule and time card changes for approval, or even just the ability to ask questions and receive answers in a timely manner to decrease attrition and promote overall employee happiness.

18-34 35+Likely to quit a job with substandard tech

45% 25%

45% of Millennials will likely quit a job with sub-standard technology. 82% said that they are influenced by a company’s workplace tech when deciding to take a job. - Dell 2016 Future Workforce Study.


WAGE VS ATTRITION ANALYSISIt is a common misconception in the BPO industry that if you increase hourly wages among contact center agents, you will see an decrease in attrition.

Prior to the development of Superpunch in 2016, 24-7 Intouch analyzed its customer care programs across North America and compared the percentage of monthly attrition to hourly wages.

Findings indicated there was a slight improvement in attrition rates with respect to wages, but there was no correlation (r2=0.056). As shown in Figure 1A, some programs that were paying their agents $15/hr had slightly lower monthly attrition, but a program that was paying $12/hr had higher attrition than a $10/hr program. The highest topped at 33% was a mid-range, $13/hr program. It is

also worth noting that on most 24-7 Intouch programs, agents were (and still are) in fact paid higher than both industry and geographical minimum wage standards.

24-7 Intouch concluded, through both exit and engagement surveys, that wages are not the biggest driving factor in attrition for their contact center agents on all brand programs. Rather it was other environmental factors, such as lack of understanding of their performance, operational questions in their first 90 days of hire, career path, attendance implications, transparency of how they were paid per shift, and overall autonomy and need for more self-service opportunities.

(Figure 1A: Attrition as function of agent wages)


CREATION OF SUPERPUNCH IN 2016Superpunch was developed as a way to mitigate many of the environmental factors mentioned above that 24-7 Intouch agents were expressing that affected their job satisfaction and overall attrition. Within the platform, agents now have visibility to their scheduled shifts and have push notifications delivered (when enabled) that remind them up to 12 hours in advance when their shifts start. Agents also have the opportunity to pay themselves through the Express Pay feature once their qualifying shifts are completed, removing the two week pay cycle that is standard in most industries. This also provides transparency into how much their pay will be before they complete their posted schedule.

Since launching Superpunch across 24-7 Intouch’s North American operations, the company saw a decrease in agent attrition across all wage programs in just under three years. The biggest improvements were among the $11-$13/hr wage range (see Figure 1B).

This further indicates that if a BPO or program is able to control the non-monetary factors, such as leadership, schedules and engagement, that attrition can be reduced without increasing wages.

(Figure 1B)


CASE STUDY - HIGH PLATFORM ENGAGEMENT WITH HOSPITALITY BRAND Attrition ReductionOne of the fastest growing hospitality brands in the world was an early adopter of Superpunch, and remains the biggest to date, with approximately 880 distinct user licenses for their customer care workforce. In 2016, their monthly attrition ranged from a low of 10% all the way up 18% that year, with an average of 13%. Superpunch was implemented across their workforce in January, 2017. Within that first month, attrition fell to 8%. In the two years since, their monthly attrition has averaged 9.5%, which is a 33% reduction since implementing Superpunch (see Figure 2A).

What is also interesting to note, is the brand increased their wages from $12/hr to $14/hr in May 2019. This resulted in little to no dip in attrition lower than what they were seeing pre-wage increase with Superpunch. This indicates that by providing a solid employee engagement experience, we were able to achieve the same results than if we had increased agent wages at $2/hour.

(Figure 2A)

$14/hr

$12/hr

(Figure 2A)


THE FIRST 90 DAYS AND BEYONDOur results from this particular client user also indicate that Superpunch increases employee tenure, especially in those critical first 90 days of employment with the company.

Prior to implementing Superpunch in 2017, the brand lost an average of 25% of their newly hired employees within the first 30 days of employment (see Figure 2B). While this number is a little staggering, it is actually on par with a recent study by Jobvite, where almost 30% of job seekers have left a job within the first 90 days of starting. Of this group,

43% cited that their day-to-day role wasn’t what they expected. This could be caused by a number of environmental factors, such as lack of communication, transparency to pay, or job performance and attendance expectations.

(Figure 2B)


After launching Superpunch, the brand has seen almost a 50% reduction in attrition for new hired employees within their first days. They also saw attrition rates decrease across all tenure categories, with the exception of 2-3 years (See Figure 2C). The attrition results in this category can be tied to other factors, such as internal promotions to management-level salaried positions, rather than connected to job satisfaction.

(Figure 2C)

CONCLUSIONWe have concluded that wage increases do not correlate to decreases in attrition. As a contact center outsourcer, we have been able to keep our hourly agent wages controlled and competitive in the market, thus not passing that cost on to our brand partners. We have accomplished this by implementing a technology application that mitigates other identified environmental factors that contribute to decreased employee experience and engagement, which ultimately leads to increased attrition.


REFERENCES

https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2018_Job_Seeker_Nation_Study.pdf

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

https://qatc.org/winter-2015-connection/exploring-call-center-turnover-numbers/

https://blog.dell.com/en-us/future-workforce-study-provides-insights-into-global-workplace-trends/

APPENDIX

Figure 1A & B)Attrition calculation: Terms (in month) / (Headcount at start of the month + New Hires in month)

This is done on agent roles, and excludes any second level support (CSR2’s and Team Leads) as well as operational management (OM’s and up).

An agent counts as termed if they leave the company or get promoted to a non-agent role. All temporary agents are removed from the calculations in both headcount and terms.

Figure 2A)Attrition calculation: Terms (in month) / (Headcount at start of the month + New Hires in month)

This is done on agent roles, and excludes any second level support (CSR2’s and Team Leads) as well as operational management (OM’s and up).


Figure 2B & C)Attrition calculation: Terms (in month, of tenure category) / (Headcount + New Hires in tenure category). This provides the percentage of the tenure category that attrit in a given month.



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