SARAH BARROW WOKINGHAM DIRECT MANAGER WHAT IS SMART WORKING? - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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?

• 13th 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