August 'Wrap up' Topic

How’s the winter been treating your teams? It started very early this year and the cold weather hasn’t let up yet with 2 degrees in Auckland some mornings and plenty of snow throughout the country. This is great for the skiers but not so great for colds and flu and a call centre’s absence rate.

The call centre I manage usually has monthly sick leave at about 5% but July caught us and we jumped to 12% of our 160 staff off sick in the first week.

Some of this was due to people being overly cautious because of the Swine Flu outbreak and it has now settled down but could still potentially be a problem.

Our head office is in Perth where we’ve had 2 diagnosed cases of Swine Flu so have put in place the first stage of our business continuity plan. This includes restricted travel between floors of the building and other offices, any staff who are able to work form home are being encouraged to and we’re looking to increase the number of call centre reps working from home via our VPN.

We operate 4 sites across our virtual contact centre in Auckland, Sydney, Perth and Capetown so have good contingencies in place to ensure our customer service impact is minimal but for those companies with one call centre, this could be a major problem.

Steps we’ve taken at each site to minimise risk include:

- Sanitary wipes being distributed throughout the business
- Information on the difference between a cold and the flu being posted publicly 
- Instructions on proper hand washing posted in bathrooms
- Ensuring anyone with flu symptoms calls our Healthline and gets medical advice
- Sending home anyone we think causes a potential risk to other staff
-  Following up absences with a return to work interview to ensure staff are recovered and not a risk to others

Managing through a possible pandemic like the Swine Flu requires creative thinking so does your business have a continuity plan that will ensure your customers still receive service and the risk to your staff is minimised as much as possible? We think we’ve got it sorted but only time will tell.

Garry Jones

Contact Centre Manager
iiNet Ltd