« March 2007 | Main

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)