Steve Nattress at Enghouse Interactive takes a look at agent welfare in the contact centre and outlines a practical EX strategy to maximize agent welfare and improve business outcomes in your contact center.

Understanding the Benefits of Improving the Agent Experience

Skilled, understanding agents are at the heart of delivering an excellent customer experience. But the competition for good staff is tough, while agent burnout is a growing risk.

All of this means engaging and retaining your people is vital. Customer service leaders must focus on the contact center employee experience (EX) they provide to reduce attrition, optimize performance, and lower costs.

Why Agent Experience Is No Longer Optional

Contact centers have traditionally struggled to recruit and retain agents for the long-term. And the picture is getting worse. ContactBabel research points to a 23% average attrition rate in the UK, and 30% and over in large US operations.

That’s a quarter or more of your workforce leaving every year – and anecdotally it can be much higher.

McKinsey estimates it costs between $10-20,000 to hire a new agent when recruitment, training and lost productivity are all added together.

But equally importantly attrition impacts the experience offered to customers as new starters get up to speed, while increasing the pressure on remaining staff as experienced talent walks out the door.

You face mounting pressure to:

Attract and retain frontline talent, particularly as interactions become more complex
Support remote and hybrid flexibility
Prevent burnout and mental fatigue
Improve performance without over-monitoring

Simply stocking the breakroom with snacks or celebrating milestones such as birthdays is not enough. Instead it means giving agents the right tools, flexibility, and support to thrive. This makes EX a core component of business resilience and overall performance, rather than just an afterthought.

“When our agents feel supported and equipped, they deliver more empathetic, consistent service. And that’s because with the right support from us and from their tools, they’re not just surviving their day anymore, they’re actually succeeding at their job!” Contact Center Leader

The Engagement Gap in Contact Centers

Many existing contact center workforce management strategies are simply not set up to meet the needs of increasingly demanding (and scarce) talent.

They don’t provide the tools for flexible and remote working, don’t give visibility into agent performance, and fail to systematically address issues such as stress and burnout.

Over three-quarters (77%) of agents say their workloads are now more complex and 56% say they’ve experienced burnout, according to Salesforce research.

Add in that hybrid and remote working mean that agents now have greater flexibility about where they can work and the pressure to bridge the engagement gap is rising dramatically.

You can’t fix agent burnout and talent shortages with pizza and praise. It requires operational design that prioritizes human needs and data-driven action.

Most current workforce management (WFM) and workforce engagement management (WEM) tools focus on maximizing productivity, rather than focusing on EX. Only 38% of contact centers surveyed by ICMI . say they measure agent satisfaction and wellbeing, alongside traditional metrics such as time utilization and availability.

To be successful, contact centers need to change their approach, as we’ll explain in the next chapter.

Rethinking EX as a Strategic Lever

Contact centers have to shift from workforce management to workforce empowerment. EX is central to improving performance, increasing retention, and differentiating in a competitive market.

McKinsey found that engaged and satisfied call-center employees are not only 8.5x more likely to stay than leave within a year, but also 3.3x more likely to feel extremely empowered to resolve customer issues.

All of this demonstrates that EX is now a strategic differentiator—not just for talent retention, but for brand consistency, compliance, and customer satisfaction.

It lowers absenteeism, reduces burnout, improves CX and boosts productivity, delivering long-term strategic ROI that goes far beyond savings on recruitment costs.

Achieving this shift to workforce empowerment means:

Giving agents more control and visibility over their schedules
Designing digital tools that reduce friction and make processes seamless
Measuring wellbeing and performance side-by-side
Supporting hybrid and remote agents with equal resources
Using Voice of the Employee (VoE) feedback loops to shape policies, not just track sentiment

Tools That Actually Improve Agent Experience

Implementing a successful contact center employee experience strategy requires a combination of an open, listening culture, people-centric processes, and the right technology. All three of these pillars need to be in place.

When it comes to operationalizing EX strategy, focusing on these seven areas is vital:

1. Flexible WEM and Self-Scheduling

Like many employees, across all industries, contact center agents crave flexibility over where and when they work.

Empowering them with flexible WEM tools that allow them to book and trade shifts to meet their needs therefore reduces absenteeism and boosts satisfaction. Yet the majority still can’t self-select their own schedules, according to research in Contact.centres.com.

Additionally, WEM can be used to support agents and their mental wellbeing, such as by mandating more frequent breaks for those that would benefit from them.

2. Enable Remote Agents and Integrate with the Gig-Economy

Remote working provides access to a much wider pool of talent, particularly when it comes to scarce skills such as languages.

To benefit, contact centers need to offer the same working experience wherever people are based through cloud-native CCaaS platforms that onboard and support them quickly.

They can also tap into the gig-economy or those looking for shorter shifts, such as students or those working just during school hours. This delivers flexibility for all as agents can simply log on and work when required without needing to travel to an office.

3. Deploy Wellbeing Dashboards and EX Metrics

Traditional management dashboards track performance metrics including average handle times or interactions answered per shift, with some also considering customer satisfaction-based metrics.

These need to be extended to cover EX metrics such as agent satisfaction. Overlaying both sets of metrics gives insight into agent wellbeing and its causes.

For example, agent engagement could drop dramatically if there is a spike in complex calls caused by a wider service failure. Analysis helps pinpoint areas for improvement and the early signs of burnout, enabling it to be addressed before it worsens.

4. Adopt Digital Ergonomics and UX-Centered Tools

Contact centers have grown over time, meaning agents have to access a wide range of systems to handle customer interactions.

Focus on the user experience for agents and eliminate pain points, such as through unified agent desktops that bring together all relevant information in a single screen. Use technology, especially AI, to assist agents, automatically providing relevant

information or automating mundane tasks such as call wrap-ups. This all lessens the cognitive load on agents, reducing pressure and allowing them to focus on the customer.

Deploying technology within the onboarding process also helps drive engagement and early productivity. Analyze skills and training progress so you can focus agents on interactions in specific areas, getting them up to speed and active faster.

5. Voice of the Employee (VoE) Integration

Make employee feedback part of your core metrics. Use structured surveys, open feedback channels, and AI to analyze themes. Provide options to give feedback anonymously such as anonymous surveys or even a simple suggestions box in the office.

Whatever VoE methods are used it’s vital to demonstrate that you are listening and acting on feedback. Report back regularly on concerns raised and what has been done about them.

6. Gamify Your Processes

Many parts of the agent role can feel mundane and formulaic. Employing gamification helps transform the experience, building healthy competition for targets.

Bonuses for high achievers don’t solely have to be financial. Some contact centers offer a preferred parking space or more quirky incentives, such as the chance for the boss to wash the winner’s car.

7. Provide Clear Guidance for Personal Growth

Agents want to feel their role is developing and that they can access relevant training in order to grow and build their careers.

Using AI-based quality management to analyze 100% of interactions gives supervisors a far better view of their team’s engagement than random sampling.

This enables them to support staff more knowledgably and author...

Call Centre Helper

Message History

Delivery option(s)