Dave Hoekstra: Hello everybody
and welcome to Calabrio Shorts.
This is Dave Hoekstra,
your effervescent host.
And I've got a pretty good
show lined up for you guys
today so we can talk about it.
I'm very excited.
We're going to be talking
about shift bidding.
Now, we just came off a very
successful and very hotly contested
session at our C3 user conference.
And I'm very lucky to have the the
moderator of that session here.
Joining me are our good buddy,
Mark Beards, Mark, welcome.
And let's talk a little bit, but
here's what I want to do first.
I want you to tell me, give me your
resume real quick so that people should
know why they should listen to you
about when we talk about shift bidding.
Mark Beards: Yeah, sure.
First off, Dave, thanks for having
me again for the third time.
It's always a pleasure to
come on the Calabrio Shorts.
Okay, so a little bit about my background.
I started in Workforce just a
little bit over 25 years ago.
I started off as an analyst.
I worked from an analyst to a senior
analyst, from a senior analyst
to a scheduling analyst, from a
scheduling analyst to a BI analyst.
I then went into leadership, worked as a
manager, senior manager, director, every
single facet of the organization from a
WFM perspective, whether it's scheduling,
forecasting, planning HR, finance, I
have done it all from start to finish.
And if
Dave Hoekstra: you notice the way Mark
says organization, It means he's Canadian.
We, he has that going for him as well.
Yeah, lots of experience in this area.
And just so you guys know, for me,
I'm my path is similar to Mark.
I spent a little more time
on the the planning side.
But yes, let's just put it this way.
I think between Mark and I, we've
probably done, I would say triple
digits shift bids over the years.
So we've done this, we know what we're
talking about, and hopefully we can give
you guys a little bit of insight here as
to what ShiftBid is, what's the point.
So let's start there, Mark.
Tell me, for those who might not know that
are listening to this, what is a ShiftBid?
What's the point?
Why do we do them?
Mark Beards: Yeah, sure.
I'm going to break it down to the
basest way of explaining a ShiftBid.
You can get super technical with it.
ShiftBidding is a fair way to offer.
An exchange or a balance of shifts to
your agents, making it a fair and equal
system where you can actually change
it from an organizational perspective.
And I know that sounded super
complicated, so I'll break it down.
It's a list of shifts,
8 to 5, whatever it is.
And you're making those shifts available
to your agents where they can go in
through a bidding process and say,
hey, I want the 8 to 5, or I want
the 10 to 6, or I want the 9 to 5.
And then you can actually then say.
For these agents, you can
choose a different way of
allowing them to bid on those.
You can choose seniority or you
can choose adherence and you can
change and make a whole bunch
of methods available from those.
Dave Hoekstra: So it's a good
way to reboot your shifts, right?
So what happens over the course
of time in a contact center
is, you come up with this.
Base set of shifts.
Some people leave, we bring in new
hires and they get plugged in the holes.
Some people change their schedule
from full time to part time.
And, over the course of three, four,
six, eight, 12, 18, whatever months
it's not as pristine as it used to be.
You've got little gaps in your coverage.
You've got some things you need to change
and what's a way that you can reset the
whole table is through a shift bid, right?
And so we do this process and that's
why we do them is it's a great way to
reboot the system and I want to call
out a word that mark used a couple
times Fair and fairness is a huge
part of a good shift bid and we'll get
into some of the details of that But I
wanted to make sure to call that out.
So Thank you mark.
That's a good one
Mark Beards: Yeah, so I'm going to
ask you now, if you were to build
a ShiftBid from scratch, knowing
nothing about scheduling, what would
be your way of explaining it from top
Dave Hoekstra: down?
From scratch, my basically I'd put
all the Shifts in a hat, and then draw
them out one by one, and whoever gets
it, they have to be happy with it.
No, I'm kidding.
I ShiftBid, let me see
how I would explain this.
Is, I would probably have to start from
a perspective of, okay, I have to write
down all of the shifts that I need, right?
I have to start from that.
But I usually know, I don't know this
as well as my workforce management
system would know this, right?
So I'd probably use, I had access
to a workforce management system.
I would have it generate to me
what schedules I would need.
Now, not everybody has access to
a workforce management system, so
this could be an Excel spreadsheet
that kind of lists out all of the
all of the key shifts that we need.
But you have to be very detailed about it.
You can't just say, okay, I need some
eight by five, eight to five, I need some
nine to sixes, I need some ten to sevens.
You really have to define each
shift and which one is available.
And then, From there, I have to then
figure out how to equitably distribute
these shifts to others, right?
Like you said, sometimes it's
by adherence, sometimes it's
by seniority, sometimes it's by
attendance, sometimes it's by a
mixture of a whole bunch of them.
You have to find a way to figure out who's
number one and who's number 100, right?
And then work from there.
And then you have to allow
them to choose from there.
And then they start working those shifts.
Is that what you're thinking?
Mark Beards: Yeah, that's
a great explanation.
I'm going to ask you a follow up question.
Is it, is shipping like a be all end all?
I know there's a stigma right now that
a lot of organizations are almost set in
their ways and shipping is a new and it's
a change and it's a different option.
What would be your approach to maybe that
Dave Hoekstra: aspect of it?
There's no doubt that shift bids
stress an organization, right?
This is, it is a good test to see
how well things, how well your
organization deals with change.
Because shift bids is, it is wiping
the slate clean and starting all over.
But the best organizations
are smart about them.
They're not just absolutely steadfast to
say, this is the only way it's going to
be and you will never do anything else.
It is, you, so we've seen success
with sometimes the full timers bid
differently than the part timers.
Sometimes the, you have to do
different languages and make sure
your coverage, but that's the
question you have to ask yourself
is what coverage do I really need?
And it starts from that
conversation as you go forth.
But I think very.
The first initial decision is how much
stress can my organization handle,
because if everything is already on fire
and you come in and say, by the way,
everybody's getting new shifts and in six
weeks, it might just be the proverbial
straw that breaks the camel's back.
And you might be very careful about that.
Yeah, I think that's a,
it's a good question.
But, yeah, I think that's alright,
it's my turn to throw you one.
Where do you see the the pros
of a shift bidding process?
What can an organization
benefit from doing a shift bid?
I'm going to
Mark Beards: start off
by saying one piece.
Shift bidding doesn't have
to be an all or nothing.
You can have some people on shift
bids, some people on rotations,
and some people on static.
The pros of a shift bid are really where
it makes it dynamic for your organization.
If you're with a group where your volume
or your handle time or your trend changes
on a frequent basis, If you're only
using static shifts, you're never going
to be able to account for those changes.
Shift Baiting now allows you that new
opportunity to take this change in volume,
change in demand, change in requirements,
and meet those demands without
having to change your actual staff.
Okay, now with these types of
changes, you're going to know this
better about your organization than
anybody can come in and tell you.
So you need to find the balance
that best works for your group.
Okay, so that could be maybe right now.
Nothing.
Maybe you keep everybody on static.
And then next year, as you're adding
in new people, you have them move
into a shift bid where you have
your existing people on one process,
your new people coming in another.
Maybe you have a group of volunteers.
You send out a note saying, Hey,
look, we're looking for a group of
volunteers to move to this new process.
And When you're talking about
compensation for it, maybe you can
compensate them a little bit differently.
Maybe they get a premium
for working on a ship it.
These are all triggers from a workforce
perspective where you can actually really
balance your business needs at minimal
cost to the organization or at no cost.
If you have volunteers who want to do
it for free, but the success of a ship
it really allows you to fill those
gaps and business needs of where you
need the people in the right place.
Dave Hoekstra: I think too, as we talk
about these different pieces, A lot
of people get very scared about what's
the perception of a shift bid will
look like, but it's always important
to remember that there are probably
more agents than you think that are
not happy with their current schedule.
There are more agents you think that
would be willing to shift their schedule
and there are more agents that you think
that would be very happy about a fair and
equitable process for them to get a better
schedule because a lot of organizations
just go by straight seniority.
There's nothing wrong with
that, until there is, right?
And when you turn on the seniority
bucket, you have these people that
know that no matter what they do,
they're always going to be, have first
shot at whatever shift they want.
That, for a newbie, that's just
coming into the organization, maybe
they're okay with it for the first few
months, but after a while they start
to realize Oh my gosh, I'm never ever
going to get higher up in the org.
Which means I'm never gonna
have a better schedule.
So turning it into an equitable
shift bidding process could have huge
positive ramifications on a lot of
people that maybe you didn't expect.
So I think it's a great point.
Mark Beards: I'm gonna add something
that as well, because one of the
most successful things that we ever
did at a group that I worked for
was actually doing a half and half.
We had half of our people on it was
almost like a fixed rotation where
you worked the same amount of shifts
every week over the period of time.
But what we did was.
Instead of giving all those people
the earliest shifts, if you wanted
a static shift, we took half of our
total shift requirements, half of
the mornings, half of the middle of
the days and half of the evenings.
And we put them in that static place.
We said, Hey, look, here's your ranking.
If you move under this section.
And then we took the other half
and we put them in the shift bid
and we said, here's your ranking.
If you move under this section.
So what we had people doing
was moving back and forth.
Forth between them on almost like a
quarterly basis because they could
get different shifts as they were
moving back and be more pliable.
But the thing is, when you were going
through your bid process, at least
you knew that you were gonna get that
shift for a certain period of time.
And with the static people, they were
guaranteed that shift permanently.
So it allowed there to be a lot more
flexibility between the two systems.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah.
And that's a great example of
how there really is no rule book.
For this you do what the organization
needs, but it has to be a balance between
what's going to be a positive impact for
your agents and their work life balance.
And then what's going to be a
positive impact for the business.
If shift bids weren't needed, if
everybody just worked everything we
said, we wouldn't have this problem,
but then we'd also basically have
robots that are working and we wouldn't
have to worry about any of that.
We don't have that problem.
We have the different problem of these are
human beings that need to be scheduled.
And think back to when you first
started your, your first part
time job and, you were maybe in
high school or college, right?
And.
You had scheduled demands.
I have to go to class at this time and
I have to, and how the schedule changed
based on your life, but it also changed
on what they needed at your organization.
And that's exactly what a shift
bit is how to fit all those
Lego pieces together to create.
The right kind of coverage, but
also matches your overall group.
So what the, so to follow up on, on
on my question earlier what do you see
as some of the cons of a shift bid?
What are some things that people
maybe need to watch out for?
Mark Beards: The first thing is
be fair, be honest and be open
about everything that you're doing.
The second you start hiding information
from the people that are involved, it is
a slippery slope of negativity, right?
So as long as you're upfront, you're
honest, and you're open about everything
that's happening, and you're transparent.
It's almost difficult to have a negative.
The biggest negative that I would
say for people who want like a
regular nine to five every day
is there's going to be change.
There's going to be a shift in shifts.
There's never going to be that
consistency that some people want.
But that's why you need a balance, right?
So you're going to have people that have
probably been with your organization
for 20 plus years You're not going to
want to put those people on a shift bid.
They've earned their right.
But now I'm actually going to turn
this a little bit back on you.
And I'm going to say, at what point does
it become seniority versus performance
versus maybe a third option, right?
Because yes, maybe you have that
person there for 20 years, but
is that the right thing to do?
Dave Hoekstra: I think
it should play a role.
And this, I think this is a good
discussion of how a balanced
scorecard or a really balanced
ranking mechanism is very important.
What I used to do is I had a weighted.
Excel spreadsheet that had all of
the KPI that needed to be focused on.
So we had talk time and wrap up
time and attendance and QA scores.
And one of the columns in
that was seniority, right?
How long have you worked for the
company now that may have only waited.
Five or 10 percent of the overall
score, but it did matter, right?
So if I've worked here for 20 years
and you've worked here for two weeks
and all things considered equal, you
definitely want to give seniority
to the person that has put in their
sweat equity into what they're doing.
But we also wanted it to be very
performance based because you being
here for Two weeks, you know that if you
really put in the work and you really
work on getting your stats better, your
QM scores better, you show up to work
on time, you do what's asked of you,
you will very quickly climb up that
ranking because we are incentivizing
towards the target that we wanted.
And I think that's the, if there's
one thing to step back and ask
yourself, any part of this is what.
What do we want to
incentivize people towards?
Because you can use a schedule as a really
good motivating tool to what they need.
People will work hard for
that extra schedule, right?
To make sure that it's where they want.
That's how I always approached it.
I never wanted to completely dismiss
seniority and I never wanted it to
be completely performance based, but
you really have to find that good
balance in the way you wait out those
different KPI to really help the agent.
And then going back to your earlier
point, Mark, transparency is huge.
You can't just keep this little
spreadsheet off in the corner and
you're, hacking away at it, like
in the dark, and tempting your
fingers and saying, excellent.
You have to.
You have to really be
transparent about that.
I would publish these rankings
every two weeks and it was, and it
wasn't designed to shame anyone.
It was designed to help people
know truly where they are.
And if someone came to me and said,
Dave, I got to get off this shift.
I'm like, it's right there.
This is how to do it.
We are doing a shift bid.
We did three shift bids a year.
So every four months.
Which I thought was better than
doing four a year, so every four
months there was a shift bid that
happened and literally, every single
day, you could go and see what your
ranking would be towards that bid.
And if you're transparent
and open and you're fair.
This is an easy process to go through.
It gets complicated when you have lots of
different cues and skills and different
areas and languages and things like
that, but that's why you guys get paid
the big bucks to do these, to make these
decisions with workforce managers, right?
I'm sure, yeah, big bucks Dave?
But, that's why we are where we are is
because we're the ones with the brains
that can make this decision happen.
That's the way I've always approached it.
Anything you want to add?
I'm
Mark Beards: going to ask you another
question, actually, one that you asked
me what do you do with somebody where the
manager comes in and says, Hey, look, we
know you have a dedicated workforce team.
This agent has to be on this schedule.
How do you approach that?
Dave Hoekstra: This is
the 64, 000 question.
I can tell you many times I had
someone walk into my office and
say, Hey Dave, I can't work this.
What are you going to do about it?
And we had to figure out what
we wanted to do about it.
The problem is that if you make a
special exception for that agent,
you now have invalidated the
fairness of the entire shift bit.
But, on the other hand, do you really
want to lose a, a good employee
just because you can't do it?
You really, in my mind, you have
to do it on a case by case basis.
And you have to you have to
come to a compromise, right?
Hopefully you're not working with
such scarce resources that one agent
is going to completely destroy an
entire, four hour part of your day.
If you're working from that perspective,
maybe a shift bid is not going to help you
all that much if you're that understaffed.
So maybe work on getting your
numbers up before you get into
the shift bid, but a compromise.
So let's say you gave them and it's Hey.
I can work the 1030 to 730 shift,
but can I do a half hour lunch?
And I see you've got me like
Thursday and Friday off.
And it's really important.
Thursday is my night class.
Can I change that to a Wednesday?
I say, look at the schedule and if you
could accommodate it, do it, right?
But if you look at the schedule
and you can't, that's the
whole point of a shift bid.
Is this is what we're trying to avoid
the minute I give you what you asked
for We're right back where we started.
I have to do another shift bid to
cover it So i've seen situations
where agents have left As a result
of a shift bid that didn't go
their way and that's unfortunate.
I never liked that But if I gave
everybody what they wanted We're
right back where we started.
And so you can't, you really
have to weigh those two things.
So it's important to discuss with
your management, upper management,
how you want to handle this.
And I think it's important you
discuss it with them before you do
the shift bid, not after it's done
and then go, Oh, no, what happened?
You need to have a plan about if an
agent contests the schedule that they
got, how are we going to deal with it?
It's good to run through some scenarios.
I had one, I'll tell you a funny story.
I had one guy, Who was,
the rock solid dude.
He showed up every day, did his job,
never complained, good QM scores.
He was ranked, I think, third in a
shift bid was maybe 150 agents, right?
And he had always worked the
kind of mid afternoon shift.
So coming at 11, that thing, and
we did the whole shift bid and.
I noticed that he got like a 7 a.
m.
to 4 a p.
m.
shift and I went to his name was Jim.
I said Jim I said this seems a little
different than what you got and he looked
at the paper and he looked at the results
He was like shoot and I was like what he
said I didn't put my first choice down
because I didn't think I would get it.
So I put my First choice down is my
actual third choice and I was like,
no, Jim, you did it backwards, man.
You and it would and so I
luckily we hadn't released it.
I was able to give them and we reshuffled
and it didn't cause a lot of chaos,
another thing I tell, would tell the
agents is don't try to play the game.
Be very clear about what you want,
because I want you to get what you want.
Believe me, I do, but if you try to mess
with the way this works, you're going
to be disappointed and so just so many
little nuggets of, these are mistakes
that I have made and I'd be curious.
You have any that you can
pull out from your past?
I
Mark Beards: was going to say that
was actually probably one of the best
examples that you could give from a
shipping perspective when it comes to
the ownership of the person and trying
to like almost finagle the system
to get it to do what it wants to do.
Dave Hoekstra: That's
exactly what he was doing.
He was gaming the system because he
thought he was going to be smarter
than the ranking and he wasn't.
He just wasn't.
Mark Beards: So I don't have something
necessarily on the ship bid side, but
I do have something that's like the
craziest story you're ever going to
hear about workforce and I'll throw
it here just because it's so crazy.
Okay.
And I know it doesn't play to ship
bidding and I apologize, but you
just made me think of the craziest
story and I not tell it now.
Okay.
I won't say the organization
we're at an organization.
Okay.
And we were using ship
bidding at the time.
You would get your bid and
then once you would get your
bid, vacation would open up.
Okay.
And then at the end of
the year, we do an audit.
At the end of our third year of
doing this process, we found an agent
that managed to accumulate almost an
extra week's worth of paid time off.
And what they were doing was they
were booking all of their PTO on their
hours worked around their breaks.
So they, we did paid breaks
and paid lunches at the time.
So they were getting an
extra hour back every day.
Wow.
Okay.
So at the end of three years,
somebody finally picked up on it.
Like, why do we keep having these two,
three, four hour segments for this person?
And we did a full audit
over the last three years.
And this person was ranked one on
our shipping process for the record.
They were always getting
their favorite shift.
They got everything that they wanted,
but then they were manipulating the
system and they actually got removed
from the shipping process after thirds
and they got ranked from the lowest.
So it leads to the shipping.
It doesn't, but it shows
Dave Hoekstra: you that.
Hey, we have a saying here in Texas
agents are smart y'all right and they'll
figure out ways to game the system and
there are gonna be times where you have
to step back and you go, you know what?
I'm not even mad That's actually really
impressive But then you have to get
mad because a lot of times you have to
take action on that I mean I've been
disciplined for trying to be smarter than
the system before back in my agent days.
It's a rite of passage for those of
us that are destined for more than
being a call center agent in our lives.
But yeah, that's a, but that's a great
example of your ranking system needs
to be relatively unmanipulatable.
If I can string some syllables together
there, the, it needs, you need to
be, you need to stress test your
ranking system to make sure and, keep
in mind and the best way to do that
is to just put it to the smell test.
If you've got an agent that's always
showing up in the top two or three
and you're like, I don't get it,
then that's a really good reason to
do a little mini audit or try and
dig into the numbers a little bit.
It's okay to ask the questions.
It's okay to understand what's going on.
But, if you have an agent
that's gaming the system.
And then they get a really good
shift out of it and then somebody
else gets they get taken out of a
preferential shift that can open you
up to some real unfair things, right?
There's always the agent that,
does the after call work bump into
the bottom of the queue thing.
And I, it's funny, the same agent that
I was talking about had insanely low
after call work scores, insanely low.
And we, we're talking like most normal
people are in the 60 to 90 second range,
his words were in the single digits.
And so we just straight up asked
him, like, how are you doing this?
And he's I just do everything
on the call with the customer.
I just, I can do notes and everything.
And by the time I hang up with them,
I just go straight into the next call.
And I'm like, I got no problem with that.
As long as it's not affecting the customer
experience, I got no problem with that.
And his talk times were longer.
So it all balanced out in the end.
It was, I was like, Hey, you're
a, whatever works for you, man.
It's good.
All so I think this has
been an awesome discussion.
I'm going to, you got one more chance,
one more question or one more thought.
What have you got
Mark Beards: here, Mark?
Yep.
My last question is for the
people who are hesitant.
To even think about shift bidding.
What are you going to say to them?
Dave Hoekstra: Do a small test do a
small test with a group, start with
your Spanish agents or find that small
population of a group that can handle,
and you know what, just do it as a test.
You don't have to actually put it in
a place, do it as a test to see what
would happen if we did a shift bid.
Say, here's what we're going to do.
These are the shifts available put in
your bid I'm going to execute the shift
bid and we're going to see whatever and
hey if I told you this was your shift,
would you be happy or sad about it?
I'd be happy i'd be happy and there
We've got 92 percent that were happy
and eight percent that were sad
Yeah, this is probably going to work.
It's practice runs are
really good for shift bids.
They don't put any stress
on people, but they do here.
And here's the key, right?
This is, I love this question because
the unintended consequence of a
good test is it wakes people up.
It gets people talking about
Oh what are they doing?
And of course you can tell how
old school I am because people
still sat next to each other and
talk to each other during the day.
Now they use chat, they use slack
or teams or whatever, and they chat
with each other, but they'll chat
back and forth and say, man, are
they thinking of redoing our shifts?
Ooh.
Oh that, that test they did they ranked
me by all these different, Oh, maybe I
should start paying attention to this.
And a good test can mean all the world.
And the last thing that I'll add is
make sure you have plenty of runway.
Before you, you actually do the bid and
before the new schedules actually start.
So you want to give, at least a few
weeks of runway to execute the whole
big people, give people time to talk
to their families about what shifts
they want to bid on all that stuff.
And then when you do come
up with the new shifts.
You can't just start it the next week.
You got to give them, sometimes three,
four weeks to get used to the idea of
their new shift going to be on there.
So that's another thing that maybe
from the from the mistakes Dave
has made department in his career.
So I think it's a great question.
I, I will ask you as the one final thing
to just, if you had, if there were a
sign, you were going to hang up above your
desk about shift bids, what would it say?
If that people would need to learn.
And I don't know if it's
Mark Beards: because what's on your wall
behind you, but believe in the process.
It's been stuck in my mind since
I've been seeing that believe
there, but believe in the process.
And if you follow just the simple rules
of transparency, being honest about your
process, and then following the A to B's.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, you can't go wrong.
Yeah, the first one's tough, but the
second one is easier, the third one
is even easier, and then when they're
used to it, you're like, oh man, we
should have done this a long time ago.
So shift bids uh, you know what's
funny is two, three years ago, shift
bids were an antiquated process.
But they've they're experiencing
a resurgence as we, as people work
from home and hybrid working and
people really paying attention
to their work life balance.
And, they're really
experiencing a resurgence now.
And we're seeing a lot of collaborative
customers that are super excited about
the possibility of doing a shift bid.
We had great attendance at your
session that we, that was done at C3.
So I think it's very exciting time.
So we want to hear your stories.
We want to hear if you, have
you done a successful shift bit?
Have you tried it?
Do you want to try it, but you're scared?
These are the kinds of things
that we want to talk to you guys
about while you're out there.
So if there's something that,
one of us at Collaborio can help
send us a, send us an email.
Shoot, I'll tell you
guys, my email is dave.
hoekstra.
com.
H O E K S T R A.
Send me an email.
And let's talk about
your shift in process.
I'm happy to have that conversation back
and forth and then we'll bring in Mark
when we really need to figure out what to
truly do, because he's the real expert.
I just like to talk a lot about it.
So go ahead, Mark.
Mark Beards: I was gonna
say my email is also dave.
hookstra.
Dave Hoekstra: com yes, Dave.
Dave, I have a question for you.
Mark, I have a question for you.
Weird.
Okay.
Yeah, that's great.
Believe me, I'm just gonna forward
everything I get right on the mark.
Hey, Mark, thanks so much for spending
some time here on the podcast.
Again your insight is always welcome
and hopefully we have get a lot of Good
traction out of this conversation for
those of you that are out there listening.
If there's a topic or something you'd
like to hear more information about that
me or Mark or anyone at Calabrio, you'd
like to hear more information about, or
if you'd like to join us on the podcast,
send me an email, let's let's talk
about it and we'll be glad to do it.
But otherwise.
Thanks guys.
From me, Dave, and I'm sure from
Mark my favorite Canadian at the
moment we will we thank you guys so
much for spending time with us and
we look forward to seeing you on the
next episode of Collaborator Shorts.
Take care, everybody.
Have a great rest of your day.
Thanks, everybody.
Bye.