Work At-home Agent Workforce Survey

The At-Home Workforce Survey Results Reported September 15, 2009

Use of At-Home Agents

Since respondents were registrants for an at-home webinar, numbers are higher than reported in general industry reports. From a similar survey in April, 45% were using at-home agents, and 35% “considering” so there has been some increase in interest.

“Overqualified” Agents

Estimate the percentage of your agents in each category who are “overqualified”

21%

At-Home Agents

24%

In-Center Agents

Given the typically reported demographics of at-home agents, this is somewhat surprising, but “overqualified” is subjective.

Retention Potential

The retention aspects of employing at-home agents seems to be reflected in respondents answers as almost 79% of at-home agents are likely or extremely likely to stay as compared to about 53% of incenter agents.

Agent Demographics

Demographic differences were less pronounced than other studies report. This is in part due to many of the respondents moving existing agents home rather than hiring for at-home. About 50% who answered a poll question said that was their method. Professional experience has the most variation between the two groups.

Challenges to Scale What is the primary challenge to scaling at-home agent programs? (Write-ins categorized as follows)

People

Process

Technology

“Cultivating loyalty and culture”

“Deploying New Hire Training to W@H”

“Infrastructure”

35%

35%

13%

Other

“Cost”

17%

Scaling appears to have different primary challenges than ramping up (as shown on slide 11). People factors were given as the most vexing problem with maintaining and growing an at-home workforce at this stage of the game.

Work At Home Training

At-home work is recognized as a much different environment, and the majority of respondents report preparing their agents formally for that.

Work At Home Tools

This even split happens in a lot of the research we do on at-home agents. We often wonder if it is due to the newness of the model that there are no clear-cut paths in many areas.

Job Expectations

Again, this might not be surprising if we factor in that 50% of the at-home agents used by these respondents were moved from the center to at-home.

Ramp Up Time In regards to ramp-up time between deciding to use at home agents and going live with a program, please select the timeframe that best matches what your organization was able to do or plans to do. From decision to go live:

These results were extremely surprising. In most large organizations, especially in a recessionary economy, very few projects can go live in 3 months. In a poll question, the majority of respondents indicated their business case was based on a 10-30% cost reduction. That may be the mystery catalyst in these decisions.

Ramp Up Challenges In reference to the question above, which element of ramping up took the longest? (Write-ins categorized as follows)

People

“Effectively manage employees”

6%

Process “Training – close to 14 weeks”

47%

Technology “Solving technical issues”

41%

Other

“Developing training materials”

6%

Process and technology take the spotlight in ramping up a program, in contrast to the answers to the challenges of scaling (slide 6), which had a lot to do with people issues.

More Resources on At-Home Agents

Request free white paper:

What’s Happening At Home Survey Webinar related to these results: A Shortcut Home: How a Non-Profit is Changing the At-Home Agent Game

Contact Debbie Dockery for more info: [email protected]

About Knowlagent For 14 years companies around the world have reduced labor costs with Knowlagent’s agent management software. Hiring Training Coaching

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About the Survey

At-Home Webinar registrants asked to participate Online survey Results originally shared during webinar 9/15/09 135 participants across industries