Hello All,

I currently plan for a centre that has no staffing flexiblity, ie everybody works a fixed shift.

We are looking to move away from this onto flexible contracts.

My question would be is there an optimum ratio of flexible:non-flexible staff?

Is the benefit of flexible working a diminishing one (ie big benefit for the first X% and smaller one seen after)? If so is there an easy way of working this out for our centre?

Hope someone can help a newbie to the forum!

Hi Barry

In answer to your question - it kinda depends........

I'm presuming that you have some service or coverage issues at the moment that has prompted this question so in direct answer a minimum of about 20% flexibility would be required in a call-centre where your forecasting is fairly accurate (less accurate the forecasting, the more flexibility you need from the agents)

What you don't need is 100% flexibility as 80% of the volume tends to always arrive when expected therefore you could fix 80% of your resource to meet it.

I'm ex-Capita myself, where are you based?

Eamon