For those in the hi-tech sector or the road warrior-types that have long had a hybrid of working from office and the office, the challenge of going remote has been mostly one of how to get work done with kids running around while on video calls. But for the most part, they have been preparing for this shift to become a bit more of the norm for some time.
However, for the vast majority of office workers, the concept of working from home is a foreign one.
Most have been used to the idea of shutting down their machines at the end of the day and leaving work at the office. So when COVID-19 hit in the Spring, the shift to working from home was not just a logistical challenge of figuring out how to equip everyone with the tools to continue working as close to normal as possible. It was also a cultural shift as well.
Thankfully, people have begun to adjust to the new conditions. Across sectors, we are seeing that workers in jobs that can be feasibly done from home are currently doing so. This has meant that many workers are finding ways to adjust their schedules to fit their family needs, blurring the lines between work and personal life, but finding ways to make it work.
For organisations, this experience has been a lesson in how to ensure business continuity.
Some have performed better than others, but everyone has learned how and are hopefully internalising their findings for the future to achieve greater agility for when we will inevitably have to face disruption again.
Contact Centres as a Case Study
One segment of particular interest that has faced adversity during this period is the contact centres.
They are interesting in many ways, but from a perspective of understanding cultural and technical shifts, they provide an excellent use case for how organisations can continue to provide service even in times of crisis.
Keeping contact centres running smoothly has probably played a big part in the relative lack of public panic as consumers felt that they had someone to talk to about essential services like health, banking, utilities, and of course, streaming entertainment. Along with keeping customers satisfied, the workers answering calls provide us with a level of reassurance and continuity when it is tough to count on much else.
In many ways, contact centres are a very traditional type of business. Employees show up for shifts, log on to their machines, and start taking calls throughout their shift. At the end of the shift, they shut down and leave the office. A classic 9 to 5, solid-type office job that provides good service and employment. And for years, this model worked just fine.
While there has been plenty of innovation in the tools of the trade, the culture of contact centres kept employees coming into the office, even when cloud-based solutions began to rise to prominence.
So when the pandemic hit, the contact centre sector was in an interesting position. On the one hand, the technology and services existed to help them transition to a work-from-home arrangement. On the other, with some exceptions, many had not considered that they would have to go remote and had not invested in those capabilities before. Again, primarily due to the sector’s culture.
