Since 1882, Americans have set aside a day near the end of summer to recognize the workers of the country. Interestingly enough, for those offering 24 x 7 x 365 service via contact centers, no such day off exists. Once you open your doors for business under an "always available" banner, no option exists to provide a day of rest for the contact center resources.

Contact centers historically have been associated with a challenging work environment—long hours and constant oversight down to the keystroke. I've visited numerous centers over the years with agents well into the 90%+ occupancy range. No wonder turnover in many centers is the #1 resource related issue.

However, in the last few years, I've also noticed a shift in many centers to a far greater focus on the retention of key resources, with many companies realizing their contact center agents are true brand ambassadors. An arising meritocracy is appearing in many customer contact organizations with initiatives such as performance-based scheduling (being able to choose one's hours based on performance) and work-at-home programs that are tied to performance objectives.

With the cost of running call centers always being 70% tied to the cost of human resources, optimization and efficiency of this cost component will always be present. But we may be seeing a new phase beginning to arise where "humanware" are managed more like assets and much less like cost elements.