We're strong supporters of the home agent concept.  We've been supporting home agent hiring since 2002.  We're pleased to announce our new hiring platform designed to help select the right candidate for the home agent position. 

According to IDC, a research and analysis firm, about 100,000 home agents exist in the United States today.  That number is expected to grow to 300,000 by 2010.  Our belief is that we will see faster growth in this market.  The economics are just too appealing.  In fact, in our own Recruiting Center, we're preparing to move to a home agent model to support the phone evaluation of call center job candidates we provide to our clients.

One of the driving factors that we see in the home agent market is the ability to increase your labor pool.  In our site selection studies to support opening a new call center, we consistently find that job candidates want to be within 30 minutes of the physical call center.  Based on this data, the labor market is now limited in size and the quality of the job candidates that live within that market.  The home agent market allows you to throw that constraint out the window.

Michelle Cline from our company recently presented on home agent hiring at Call Center 2.0.  She was joined on the panel by representatives from 1 800 Flowers and Alpine Access.  Feel free to review her presentation here.

You can also learn more about working from home in the Telcoa TeleWork Benchmarking Report.