April 25, 2007

What is Multi-tasking?

The most common ability or competency that gets mentioned to us when we are interviewing an organization to understand their hiring challenges is how to measure multi-tasking during the staffing cycle.  Usually, a short discussion to define multi-tasking takes place.


To help provide details behind the definition of multi-tasking, we provided a summary from a client’s job analysis, details from a presentation at a call center association, and comments from an academic paper.


From a client’s job analysis report, multi-tasking is defined as:


Multi-Tasking: Processes information quickly and manages several tasks simultaneously
·         Uses soft phone system to call branches while assisting a customer, to check availability or to transfer or conference the customer call.
·         Simultaneously asks questions, listens for information, responds to the customer, and enters data and notes into the system, to complete the call within transaction time targets.
·         Navigates efficiently between legacy systems, reservation systems, Internet, and Outlook, to access information quickly.
 

From a meeting at the British Columbia Call Centre Association in 2004, multi-tasking was defined as:
·         Ability to talk with customer and perform data entry functions simultaneously
·         Able to maintain two open data base sessions concurrently
·         Able to freely move between data base sessions 
·         Able to maintain a balance between focus on business (follow the script) and provide value-added service to the customer (being personable) while maintaining AHT
·         Able to minimize Post Call Processing time
 

From the academic article: "Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching," Joshua S. Rubinstein, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Atlantic City, N.J.; David E. Meyer and Jeffrey E. Evans, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., Journal of Experimental Psychology - Human Perception and Performance, Vol 27. No.4.


“Whether people toggle between browsing the Web and using other computer programs, talk on cell phones while driving, pilot jumbo jets or monitor air traffic, they're using their "executive control" processes -- the mental CEO -- found to be associated with the brain's prefrontal cortex and other key neural regions such as the parietal cortex. These interrelated cognitive processes establish priorities among tasks and allocate the mind's resources to them. "For each aspect of human performance -- perceiving, thinking and acting -- people have specific mental resources whose effective use requires supervision through executive mental control," says Meyer.


The researchers say their results suggest that executive control involves two distinct, complementary stages: goal shifting ("I want to do this now instead of that") and rule activation ("I'm turning off the rules for that and turning on the rules for this"). Both stages help people unconsciously switch between tasks.”


Another academic paper, “Multi-tasking Assessment for Personnel Selection and Development” by Susan C. Fischer and Patricia D. Mautone that was written for the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences in August 2005 provides the following chart of cognitive and personality variables that influence multi-tasking.


 

Cognitive Variables

Personality
Attention allocation strategy
Complacency potential
Baseline arousal levels
Conscientiousness
Ability to coordinate information
Coping style
Divided attention
Decisiveness
Fluid intelligence
Impulsivity
Inhibition
Locus of control
Interval timing ability
Mastery orientation
Managing large sets of data
Openness to experience
Mental set switching speed
Organization
Motor response speed
Performance orientation
Perceptual accuracy & discrimination
Risk tasking
Perceptual processing speed
Tolerance for high intensity activities
Planning
Tolerance of ambiguity
Prioritization
Trait anxiety
Prospective memory
Type A behavior pattern factors
Reasoning about abstract concepts
Achievement strivings
Recognizing abstract relationships
Impatience/irritability
Retrospective memory
Polychronicity
Selective attention
Sense of time urgency
Situational awareness
Working memory capacity & updating
Now that we have a better sense of multi-tasking, next time we’ll discuss how to measure it during the hiring process.

 

Posted by jeff at 03:08 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 24, 2007

Yes We Can Automate Pre-Screening

About a month ago, John Sumser wrote on Electronic Recruiting News about effective screening for call center hiring.  We’ve been reading John’s website since 1997 when we first started our company.  At one point, he consulted with us on our business plan and model.  We admire and respect his writings and appreciate his direct methods, even if they might be pointed at us.


John wrote about effective screening for call center hiring as part of a larger topic that effective recruiting really depends on several dimensions:  We agree 100% with John’s summary:
 

"We think recruiting varies in the following dimensions:

  • Volume of Hiring across the enterprise
  • Volume of a specific position
  • Strategic importance of the position
  • Geography
  • Labor Availability"

Regarding effective screening for call center hiring, John wrote the following:


“There is no one "right" kind of person for the call center operation. Managers routinely experiment with differing views of candidates. Some emphasize experience, some knowledge, some skills, some a fuzzy set of nearly measurable attributes. Competitive advantage and sustained success depend on continually trying to find a better approach.


Making an automated tool that effectively screens for the current variable is virtually impossible. Doing so would eliminate the competitive advantage call centers gain when they figure out a new screening variable. So, even though the job is straightforward, the solutions are challenging to automate when screening is the primary source of value in the Recruiting process.”


Our business focuses on making automated tools that effectively screen candidates for call center jobs.  In our experience, we consistently find that several abilities and behaviors that many candidates possess do contribute to successful job performance in a call center.  Time and time again, job analysis summaries show that critical competencies (abilities and behaviors) like multi-tasking, dependability, and work attitudes are linked to performance outcomes.  In our experience, we have been able to automate a testing process to screen for these competencies.


For example, almost all call center HR managers and Operations managers agree that multi-tasking is a common ability that is required to work in a call center.  We, and a few other vendors, have automated realistic job simulations that force the job candidate to complete call scenarios that measure multi-tasking ability, among other competencies.  This test can be used across almost all call center environments.  Other competencies can be evaluated via multiple choice questionnaires or other types of assessments.


Most important, and we think this is where John was heading when he wrote, “Competitive advantage and sustained success depend on continually trying to find a better approach”, is the ability to update the hiring model to reflect better knowledge and data. 


With our clients, we focus on predictive modeling across the entire employment lifecycle.  This means that the hiring model gets smarter and smarter as more information is fed into it.  This information includes variables like recruiting source, training data, tenure, job performance metrics like first call resolution, and other metrics.  With a data driven model, progressive hiring organizations can constantly update their hiring model to drive additional competitive advantage over other organizations, whether those organizations are marketplace competitors or labor market competitors.  The ability to quickly screen a candidate early in the hiring process that identifies them as a potential high quality hire can add significant value to the hiring process.


John is spot-on when he writes that, “screening is the primary source of value in the Recruiting process” for hiring call center agents.  With a data driven model that links recruiting sources to downstream job performance and the technology to update the scoring model at will based on refined understanding of this data, call center hiring managers can drive significant competitive advantage for their companies.

Posted by jeff at 03:22 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 21, 2007

Replacing the Agent?

In the March 10th issue of The Economist, an article in the Technology Quarterly section discussed the sue of "chatbot" technology to automate the handling of customer calls.

In Call and Response, the article reviews the use of automated systems that help evaluate a job candidate’s pronunciation, grammar, and comprehension.  It then moves into a discussion of how these chatbots might replace the human agent.  

We’re certainly big fans of technology.  In fact, our clients have been able to reduce significant administrative time using our test delivery system that can automate hiring workflows based on business rules.  In addition, just being able to pre-qualify thousands of job candidates against an objective, automated, and predictive model has delivered impressive return on investments to our clients.  Two years ago, we heard from the Site Director of a well known video game system manufacturer.  She described how she had reduced her staffing levels by 50 percent by applying technology at critical points in the customer experience. 

Will technology ultimately replace the agent representative?  Probably not.  We’ll continue to see the shifting of simple, low variance calls to technology based solutions(just like those calls have also moved off-shore).  What do you think? 

Posted by jeff at 09:39 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Best Use of a Call Center?

The latest issue of Forbes discusses an elaborate drug dealing ring in the New York City area.  You can access the story here but may need to register (which is free).  The story, Inside Dope, tells a fascinating use of distributed technology to manage this high tech drug dealing operation.  Called the Cartoon Network, this technology driven business used a distributed workforce with highly trained workers, sophisticated databases, and remote call technology to run the business.  The call center was relocated weekly, sometimes daily, to avoid detection by the police.  While we’re not advocating the use of the end product here, it is interesting how the leading users of technology are sometimes outside main street business.

Posted by jeff at 09:36 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 27, 2007

Notes from Call Center Demo in Miami

We just returned from Call Center Demo in Miami.  The show is sponsored by the same group that publishes Call Center Magazine.

A few general observations:

  • The show mirrored the overall industry segmentation.  About 75% of the visitors to our booth represented centers under 150 seats.  According the Contact Babel, the UK research firm, 80% of North American centers have less than 200 seats. 
  • Those centers with less than 150 seats were represented by senior managers and executives versus the larger centers tended to be represented by mid level managers.
  • For the first time, we heard from an outsourcing group that represents off shore capacity that the home agent model in the US is competing with them for deals.  While we work with both off shore centers and home agent centers, this was very interesting to hear. 
  • A few main themes continue for hiring front line representatives in contact centers:
    • Recruiting continues to be a major challenge in many markets
    • Turnover continues to plague most mid size to larger contact center organizations
    • The traditional hiring approach of resume and interview doesn't cut it anymore.  Contact centers striving to best in class are pushing a more predictive approach in order to drive better new hire job performance.

Posted by jeff at 08:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 22, 2007

Call Center Demo in Miami

We're attending the Call Center Demo show in Miami from February 21st - February 23rd.  This show incorporates content from ICMI's consulting unit.  We'll report back from the floor later.

Posted by jeff at 06:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 15, 2007

Mirror, Mirror ...What is the best recruiting source of all?

My two year old daughter loves Snow White.  With the challenges facing hiring managers today, a magic mirror that answers our questions would be helpful.  But, as the wicked Queen discovers, we may not always like the answers.


So, what is the best recruiting source of all?  Last year, a study sponsored by the Direct Employer’s Association and conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton reviewed recruiting trends.  In this study, they introduced a nifty Source Value Index concept that compares recruiting sources using the following formula:


(% of New Hires from Source) / (% of Recruitment Budget Allocation)

We pushed this one step forward to add a quality of hire component to the formula.  Our clients use our testing platform to qualify job candidates for front line agent positions in contact centers.  Not only do we capture testing scores by candidate, but we also capture recruiting source, job tenure, and job performance data downstream in the employee's lifecycle.  Our goal is to create and end to end hiring optimization model that links sourcing strategy to job candidate qualification to job performance output.  In order to reduce hiring risk, just knowing how much was spent to hire someone compared by source is not enough.  We need to understand the quality of that hire.


So, using the same methodology, we added factors for tenure and job performance.  We aggregated data across several clients to create our own Source Value Index.  We also divided recruiting sources into tiers to make it easier to analyze.  Tier 1 is for traditional recruiting sources like print ads.  Tier 2 is for internet related sourcing.  Tier 3 is for person to person sources like an employee referral.  Keep in mind that we are focused exclusively on call center hiring for hourly job positions in the $9 to $14 per hour range.

In our chart below, a higher ranking is better.  The position (1:1) represents an equilibrium point.  OUr results are similar to the Booz Allen study except that we see a larger gap between Tier 3 sources (person to person referrals primarily) and Tier 1 sources because of the added performance component.  Efficiency refers to the dollars spent versus quantity of hires received. Effectiveness refers to the quality of hire


A few comments about recruiting sources - In our case, referrals are traditional person to person referrals, not the H3 or Jobster variety.  Not very many of our clients use the web based referral model that is the rage in the HR space.  We're not sure in the hourly market if this model has the same punch as it may for professional, salaried positions.  We hope to update our model with data from web based referrals later this year.


As the Booz Allen study showed and ours supports, solid data analysis linking recruiting sources to expenditures and quality of hire can lay the foundation of a data driven recruiting model.  Perhaps we won’t need that magic Mirror after all.

Posted by jeff at 05:11 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)