Hi
I am looking for a bit feedback and help.
I currently manage a local authority contact centre, currently I have approx 75 FTE within a contact centre that operates 24/7/365.
The current problem I am facing is historically we always operated within the hours of 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday. As of March 2009, the local authorities out of hours service also integrated with us – effectively making us a 24/7/365 operation. We continued to run the two rotas in tandem i.e. 8am to 8pm of the contact centre and the back, day, night shift that the out of hours team had always operated in.
As of February this year we decided it would be a ‘good idea’ to combine the two rotas – where possible.
We took on 15 new members of staff and our performance analyst developed a ‘combined rota’ where an advisor will work approx 6 weeks between the hours of 8am and 8pm (7.2hrs per day) and additionally a block of back, day, night shift, then revert back to 8am and 8pm then back, day, night shift ……. This rota also has a ‘standby’ element within it (to cover out of hors in times of sick cover) that makes it completely in-flexible.
This now gives us the headache of 3 rotas with no funds for a WFM tool. We still have approx. 50 FTE on the 8am to 8pm rota, as that is their contract. We still have 10 FTE on the back, day, night shift out of hours rota and now 15 FTE on the combination of these too, as and when people leave either shift we intend move people onto the combined rota – this could take a lloonngggg while.
I am wondering based on your experience:
1. was this the right decision to make??
2. What are your own experiences running multiple rotas?
3. has anyone else any experience of trying to integrate rotas that are in with the bricks (especially in unionized Local government)
4. can anyone offer any suggestions for alternatives???
Many thanks
Lauren
