SMART WORKING - DELIVERING A WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE SARAH BARROW WOKINGHAM DIRECT MANAGER
WHAT IS SMART WORKING? • ‘Smart Working’ is about using a flexible workforce, based in a wide variety of locations, to deliver your service. • Most commonly this is by using homeworkers – although it does not have to be exclusively so. • The clue is in the title! it is about using both your people and your resources in the most efficient way.
THE TRADITIONAL VIEW STAFF HAVE TO PHYSICALLY BE IN THE OFFICE TO BE MANAGED. STAFF WORKING AT HOME WILL BE LESS PRODUCTIVE. SET UP COSTS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE TO ALLOW STAFF TO WORK FROM HOME.
Why did Wokingham Direct choose to ignore tradition? • Need to rationalise office space – 2 staff to every 1 desk. • Requests from staff to work more flexibly. • Need for more resilience and contingencies for bad weather etc. • Ability to offer different shift patterns to meet both business and staff demands. • Chance to do something radical!
How did we start? • Pilot homeworking project with one Customer Service Advisor. • Analysed cost of set up vs office space requirements. • Looked at productivity rates before and after pilot. • Feedback from the advisor and key stakeholders within the council.
Our set up • Homeworkers are set up the same as in the office. • Monitoring via the service control suite is the same regardless of location. • Flexibility to come into the office if needed. • Paperless work environment - no disadvantage if advisor is at home.
Case study – Chris Morris
Benefits • Flexible and resilience workforce. • Work/Life balance. • Savings to accommodation costs. • Greater productivity from homeworkers. • Less attrition as able to fit hours/location around individuals’ needs. • Can be implemented with no change of service to the customer.
Disadvantages • Loss of ‘osmosis’ of knowledge gained in an office environment. • Homeworkers can feel ‘cut off’ from the rest of the team. • Homeworkers can be forgotten when new information is communicated. • Face to face meetings have to be planned in advance.
Where are we now? • 2 full time homeworkers with another 3 about to start. • 7 smart workers doing mixture of home and office. • Aim to have minimum of 20% of staff smart working by April 2011 with an ambition of 50% by end 2011.
What have we achieved? • 13 th in the 2010 Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service across all sectors. • Rated the No 1 council for both telephone and email contact. • No 1 in the public sector for email contact. • 100% of customers extremely or very satisfied with our service in last quarter.
Conclusion • Contact centre work lends itself to homeworking. • NewVoiceMedia set up is simple to adapt to either office or home environment. • Analysis has shown staff are more productive at home. • Improvements to work/life balance produce more committed staff.
The Wokingham Direct Team
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