Today, I was in a North American Call Center Professionals discussion group and a question came up about what industry standards are for shrinkage. Shrinkage is the percentage of paid time that agents are not on calls, making calls or in after-call work mode.
This always seems to surprise folks but the average shrinkage percentage in a contact center generally runs between 30-35%. If you are not tracking and accounting for this statistic you could quickly find your self understaffed or seemingly understaffed. This 30-35% includes planned and unplanned shrinkage. Planned shrinkage is items such as breaks, scheduled training, coaching, meetings and lunches; basically anything that is planned for in the workforce schedule. Unplanned shrinkage makes up the rest and that is for items such as sick time and unavailable time not scheduled.
As far as a breakdown of the 30-35%, I have found that it varies by organization due to factors such as sick time as well as training, coaching and development time.
Are you currently calculating your total shrinkage percentage and what it accounts for? I’d love to hear how this statistic breaks down in contact centers.
Tags: Shrinkage, WFM, Workforce Management, Workforce Optimization
