Despite the contact center industry embracing the transition to the cloud, remote working, and the rise of AI and automation, companies are faced with sagging morale. Research from Balto, a contact center firm, shows that every year 30 to 45 percent of contact center employee leave for voluntary or involuntary reasons.
Furthermore, Deloitte research shows that the cost of losing an employee can be up to twice their salary.
But not all companies are struggling to retain staff. In fact, some companies, like CX vendor Five9, might actually be struggling with too many candidates, driven by their strong reputation as well as gleaming employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor.
So how do they do it, and how can contact centers apply some of that secret sauce to their own operations, creating a workplace that employees will fight to stay at?
Here are some of the top things employees care about, gleaned from reviews of some of Glassdoor’s top remote and hybrid companies.
Flexible Working
While it shouldn’t come as news, given millennial employees’ focus on work-life balance, flexibility was among the most mentioned positives for Glassdoor’s top companies.
Dropbox, for example, has “non-linear” workdays that let employees schedule their day as they see fit, apart from a few core hours.
Tech giant SAP works similarly, with a flexible-first working policy that allows staff to set flexible work schedules, so employees can decide when they work aligned with business needs.
Workplace Perks
Atlassian, one of Glassdoor’s consistently highest rated companies, rewards employees with unique perks, such as paid volunteer days for staff’s favorite causes and a remote working allowance.
Adobe has a strong focus on learning, offering its staff a $1000 yearly learning fund as well as educational reimbursement of up to $10,000 per year. This is especially important as the contact center industry goes through monumental changes and legacy agents risk being left behind by new technologies.
Intuit, on the other hand, receives strong praise for its commitment to mental health, thanks to its Recharge Days. This consists of a week off at the end of the year during a company-wide time off so employees can unplug from work, rest and recharge.
Hybrid and Remote Working are Preferred
Reviewers on Glassdoor love Dropbox’s “Virtual First” policy, but note that employees have the flexibility to go into the office if they should want.
SAP also excels in this realm, offering a location-agnostic policy in which people can work from home, at the office, or remotely.
CX giant Five9, meanwhile, made it into Glassdoor’s top places to work list in 2022, no doubt in part thanks to its international working policy which allows employees on the Pacific Time Zone to clock in independently of where they are.
HubSpot even built a career portal for “remote HubSpotters”, aimed at building an engaged community among its remote workforce.
But perhaps Salesforce Co-CEO Mark Benioff summed up the future of work best, when he said:
Office mandates are never going to work.
Salesforce, like most other top Glassdoor employees, has embraced a hybrid model, letting its teams decide on their own working arrangements.
