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| ROTATIONAL SHIFT |
| Use in Customer Service Call Centre |
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| Technical Support Team, FingerTec Worldwide |
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| The term "rotational shiftwork" covers a wide variety of work schedules and implies that shifts rotate or change according to a set schedule. These shifts can be either continuous, running 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, or semi-continuous, running 2 or 3 shifts per day with or without weekends. Workers take turns working on all shifts that are part of a particular system. |
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| These “shift workers” are often stereotyped as blue-collar manufacturing, mining or transportation employees. In fact, shift workers can now also be found in around-the-clock customer service call centers, retail establishments, information technology monitoring and support centers, hospitals, utilities, hotels, casinos, emergency response services, and 24-hour news operations. |
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| As the need for extended operating hours grows, more and more organizations are adopting work schedules that require longer and/or multiple shifts. HR Generalists are often asked to participate in efforts to develop and implement the new work schedules. This is the perfect opportunity for them to take on a leadership role, and ensure that the schedule satisfies both the business requirements and preferences of the workforce. |
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| Rotating shifts have the following advantages: |
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| • Skills are balanced on every shift. |
| Since all crews take equal turns at covering the undesirable shifts (weekends and nights), there is no incentive for all of the senior, more skilled workers to pool together on a single crew. |
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| • All workers are given equal exposure to day shift. |
| As crews rotate through their turn on day shift, they are exposed to managers, engineers, vendors and company support personnel. |
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| • Training assets can be consolidated. |
| Since all employees rotate through day shifts, there is no need to duplicate training efforts on the other shifts. |
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| • Product uniformity goes up. |
| As a result of equal training, equal exposure to support and management, and equal skills, all crews will perform in a much more uniform manner.
In the largest majority of call centers, it is very important to understand the historical pattern of caller demand as well as the growth expectations before developing the work schedule. First is the forecast of workload, then a forecast of the number of bodies in chairs is needed for each half-hour to meet the defined service level. This is the base upon which the schedules will be overlayed to determine whether the center is over staffed, under staffed, or right on for each period. And, of course, the patterns shift month to month if not week to week, making it essential to have the flexibility to change the shifts to match the patterns. |
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| By using the TCMS V2 software, you can easily assign the 24 hour work schedule for the employees which include daily schedule changes. This will also lessen the burden for the management in preparing the 24 hour work schedule and they no longer need to monitor the employees’ work schedule. Below is an example on how to configure the clocking schedules by using the TCMS V2 software: |
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| Step 1 – Create the daily schedule for Morning Shift |
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| Step 2 – Create the daily schedule for Evening Shift |
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| Step 3 – Create the daily schedule for Night Shift |
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| Step 4 – At the Group Duty Roster, assign the clocking schedule 1, 2 and 3 |
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| The sequence will be based on the effective date range. For example: If the effective date range is 01/01/2013 (Tuesday) and it will rotate continuously for the whole year. |
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| Sequence 1 as Tuesday |
| Sequence 2 as Wednesday |
| Sequence 3 as Thursday |
| Sequence 4 as Friday |
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