Customer Experience News & Trends

This may be why everyone’s taking sick days

If agents are calling out sick more these days, here’s one “illness” you can cure quickly.

Offer agents new challenges and tasks, and you’ll cure a major reason they use sick days: Boredom.

Turns out, workers are 2.5 times more likely to call out when they expect a light workload than on days they had a lot to do, according to researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

There’s a good and bad side to this. On the upside, employees are loyal and want to come in when there’s much to be accomplished. On the downside, there’s a possibility that their work isn’t fulfilling all of the time.

One way to prevent boredom in the contact center – where monotonous work is often the norm – is to cross-train. At slower times, offer agents opportunities to shadow in other areas and learn how to handle other responsibilities.

Another tip: Invite agents to regularly contribute to leading your training sessions. They can take charge on the topics in which they’re most skilled. Give them the go-ahead to address the subject in ways they’re most comfortable, rather than in the ways you’ve always done it.

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