What are the benefits of 'homeshoring'?

Ian Ashby is CEO of Exony, the leading provider of interaction management software for virtualised customer contact operations.

In the UK, our near-one million contact centre staff generate 1.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year. Costs and staff churn are both growing issues. With the opportunity to cut £5 per hour per employee of staff overheads and reduce agent churn I believe it's time contact centres looked at enabling more flexible ways of working. Other sectors offer homeworking for staff in order to attract the best employees and enable them to maintain a healthy work-life balance. The contact centre industry should be no different, although, understandably CEOs want to see a business case for 'homeshoring'.

We at Exony have therefore built an economic and environmental benefits model which shows the significant benefits homeshoring brings.

Bear in mind that we already trail the US by quite some way. Currently, there are an estimated 112,000 home-based agents in the US, a figure that is predicted to rise to 330,000 by 2010 (source:IDC).

What is homeshoring?

Homeshoring occurs when contact centres equip staff with appropriate communications facilities to be able to work from home rather than from a central office. British-based contact centres are missing out on some significant benefits by not providing homeshoring; recruiting and retaining skilled staff, improved morale, environmental benefits, reduced overheads and increased opportunities for the disadvantaged in society. Combining technologies such as broadband, which enable employees to both handle calls and connect securely with the corporate network, along with tools to measure and manage agent and call performance in real-time, allows contact centres to reap the benefits of homeshoring. Breaking down these perception barriers is the first step towards more effective contact centre operations. It is time the UK woke up to the benefits and caught up with the US.

IDC estimates that staff in US contact centres cost $31 per hour, including training and operational overheads, when based in an office. This falls to just $21 per hour when the employee is home-based. As well as a compelling case to cut costs, there are also benefits for employees: free from a costly commute, home-based agents enjoy flexible working arrangements, and homeshoring also enables disabled or mobility-restricted workers, such as full-time carers, to get back on the job market.

As we outlined above, there is also an environmental case to be put forward. At a time when green issues are rising up the corporate agenda, we worked out that, with 460 million commuting journeys taking place each year in the UK to and from contact centres, in an average-sized car this could equate to 1.3 million tonnes of CO². This combined contribution to global warming would require 902,000 acres (1409 square miles) of forest to 'offset' (source: US Environmental Protection Agency). This roughly equates to an area the size of Kent.

Next steps

Contact centre managers will naturally be concerned that, out of their sight and working from home, employees might be tempted to exploit this new liberal arrangement and not be as productive. We have found the converse to be true - people find that, without the many distractions of the office environment, they get much more done and are generally more contented.

We launched a white paper recently to coincide with Work Wise Week - a nationwide event in April each year which intends to raise the profile of working from home - covering the benefits of homeshoring and, critically, a sensible step-by-step plan on how to implement it.

The core benefits of homeshoring include:

  1. Reduced overheads: Employing home-based workers reduces typical office costs such as space, furniture, heating, lighting and parking. Analysts at Gartner Dataquest estimate that staff costs equate to 70 per cent of contact centre overheads
  2. Increased staff morale: Attrition is a real issue in the industry, currently running at 22% per year (source:ContactBabel). This has an exhaustive effect on companies, especially given high training costs
  3. Improved opportunity: Disabled workers, older people or new parents, who would find commuting difficult or impossible, are now able to work, bringing their skills and experience to benefit customer service
  4. Green benefits: Reduced commuting and energy costs leads to a lower carbon footprint. Exony estimates that the four million contact centre agents currently working in UK, US and Canada produce more than six million tones of CO² each year

Exony's white paper, "Virtual Contact Centres and Homeshoring: Driving the Benefits Home", can be downloaded from http://www.exony.com  

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