The optimum call center workplace bears little resemblance to a conventional office, making it one of the most dynamic challenges facing today's workplace designers.

Here to stay
The call center is now a fact of modern life, with some 78,000 call centers staffed by approximately two million agents in the United States alone at the close of 2003, according to the market research firm Datamonitor. As part of a global call center services market that telecommunications firm IDC estimated at $58.6 billion in 2003, the call center has emerged as a significant workplace environment where customer relationship management (CRM) has a major impact on business.

Since call center employees must process customers' requests quickly, accurately and courteously, the call center environment is attracting scrutiny as a source of help or hindrance to the workflow. Interestingly, call centers share traits with both the factory (due to its emphasis on process) and the office (due to its person-to-person handling of customers). Each agent may be engaged in repetitive work, but he draws a respectable average compensation of $32,000 per year, and costs between $5,000 and $18,000 to recruit and train, according to a benchmarking study by Dr. Jon Anton, director of Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality.

In fact, recruiting and retaining agents constitute endless challenges. Call center work is generally acknowledged to be tedious, stressful and boring, which often leads to chronic absenteeism, vandalism and turnover. A 1999 study of inbound centers by Anton's center at Purdue noted how devastating poor management and workplaces can be, rating average annual turnover at 26 percent for full-time employees and 33 percent for part-time employees. While call center design may not be the primary source of the problem, any significant improvement in its environment could help mitigate this human resource challenge.

Experts emphasize the importance of ergonomic workstations, on-site training facilities and quality air handling and
lighting — particularly for 24-hour activity.

Bigger is better
So how do the best call centers run smoothly? In a world where call centers may employ from half a dozen agents to hundreds, bigger seems better. The more calls a call center receives, the more the agent occupancy rate approaches 100 percent. Illah R. Nourbakhsh from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University reports that the relationship between the number of agents needed and the number of calls received is not directly proportional: While six agents can field 100 calls per hour, Dr. Nourbakhsh notes, only 341 agents are needed for 10,000 calls per hour. It is the largest call centers, employing hundreds of agents, that receive the most attention in terms of design and operations.

Locating a facility where 300-plus agents may be working at any time on multiple shifts begins with an evaluation of demographics, real estate markets and time zones. The profile of the call center agent is no mystery, as described by Madeline Bodin, a writer and industry observer at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science: a housewife, student with flexible schedule, part-time employee or recent graduate. Since CRM is crucial to many businesses, choosing a location for the quality and quantity of its labor pool makes more sense than looking primarily at its labor costs. Potential employees who are well educated, possess computer and communication skills and embrace a strong work ethic can be expected to treat customers with care and respect. Suitable locations tend to have rapid economic and population growth, a large percentage of young people and a high birth rate.

No definitive building program has emerged yet for the call center. However, experts emphasize the importance of ergonomic workstations that account for extremes in human percentiles and work styles, on-site training facilities to educate agents on internal operations and external business conditions, good security arrangements, quality air handling and lighting, and such amenities as food service, mothering rooms and casual gathering spaces — particularly for 24-hour activity. Since call centers routinely monitor agents for such variables as speed of answer, talk time, wrap-up time, abandon rate and first-call resolution, they appreciate performance-enhancing
design features.

Camaraderie by design?
Not surprisingly, planning and design still vary considerably among call centers. More businesses are introducing design and cultural motifs that give call centers a feeling of camaraderie and concern for employees. Yet a modern call center remains a dense place, allotting some 130-135 square feet per agent (excluding toilet, mechanical, electrical closets, stairways and restricted exit areas) versus 169 square feet per typical office worker, as reported for 2002 by the International Facility Management Association.

More businesses are introducing design and cultural motifs that give call centers a feeling of camaraderie.

Can call centers ever be ideal workplaces? The industry's dependence on visual surveillance and electronic monitoring may be inescapable, despite unflattering parallels with factory work. Fortunately, call center operators increasingly accept the need for such humanizing urban planning principles as smaller blocks of clustered workstations, areas of visual relief and naturally occurring zones for gathering.

Knoll can help
Office furniture from Knoll can introduce numerous humanizing elements to improve the workplace. Knoll task chairs, for example, enable agents to make ergonomic adjustments throughout the workday to avoid repetitive stress injuries and other health hazards. Knoll furniture systems let call centers vary the shape and size of work stations, while the Equity system can link them on a 120° angle, maximizing work station configurations to supports work flow. To support the vital amenities that help recruit and retain agents, Knoll offers seating, tables and storage units that cover the full spectrum of settings — from playful and casual to formal and elegant. Indeed, when call center furnishing needs arise, Knoll is uniquely suited to respond.