In our previous post we spoke about how to best enable your contact centre workers to work from home effectively during the government enforced lockdown. We’ve since seen many organisations make an extraordinary effort to keep business going. Many employees, who hitherto had never worked from home, set up shop in spare rooms, corners of lounges, and even at kitchen tables to continue working and supporting customers.  

In time, business will return to some semblance of the old normal – and indeed following the Prime Minister’s address on Sunday, there is talk of lockdown restrictions being lifted – when and to what extent is yet to be clear. However, it seems that for many, working from home will go beyond a temporary measure; it may continue for several more months as remote working (where possible) is encouraged both as a precautionary measure to quell the COVID-19 curve and as a general benefit to staff and business.  

Be Mindful of New Working Environments  

So, with more of your employees now working effectively from home and adapting to what could potentially be ‘the new norm’, it’s important to consider if you are adequately protecting your people and data in this unfamiliar world of work?  

We need to be conscious of the new risks working from home may hold and help to mitigate those risks where possible. Contact centre workers, for example, can present a greater risk than knowledge workers due to the fact they are usually involved in transactional activities and spend much of their time pulling up data for customers they are dealing with. Without the secure and regulated environment of the office – sometimes so secure that even mobile phones are not permitted at desks to protect customer data – it is possible for anyone passing by their computer to see whatever your employee pulls up on their screens and potentially make note.  

What Can We Do Moving Forward? 

Largely speaking, many will be using the same technology (PC, laptop, keyboard, headset, and mobile phone), accessing the same systems, and following the same processes, operating standards and reporting as before. However, there are some key things to consider actioning particularly – but not exclusively – for your Contact Centre staff in the new–ish world of socially distant remote working: 

• In terms of technology, end device protection through appropriate business-grade antiviral and other threat supervision allied to secure connectivity will ensure that working remotely is akin to working within the corporate network. It is advisable, however, to avoid letting your staff use their own computers to access corporate networks.  
   
• It’s not all about technology though! Be Sure to remind people of your collective GDPR obligations and make sure they understand and acknowledge them. Unlike controlled office environments, working from home could see staff exposing their screens, even inadvertently, to others with less scrupulous intentions.   
   

• Publish (or re-publish) working from home guidelines to protect your employees and encourage good health; suggestions to help people work remotely, such as self-care tips, advice on seating and screen use, and constructively reiterating the key IT and Data use policies that must continue to be adhered to. 

At Maintel we recognise that an organisation’s employees are their greatest asset, and it’s important that first and foremost the wellbeing of those employees be properly supported – lest they begin to feel they are less working from home and more living at work. With the Contact Centre agent acting as the voice – if not the face – of the business, that wellbeing support is doubly important.  

To use that oft quoted assertion that it is the people, processes and systems that make up a business a focus on employee wellbeing, compliant processes and securely connected systems will ensure the customer experience with your business remains a good one.  

Find out more about how you can protect your people, data, and customer experience in a time of uncertainty.