How Do I Calculate Compliance

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Written by Jonty Pearce

How Do I Calculate Compliance

We currently use an adherence based measure, this is causing some conflict within the operations, as such we want to try and measure compliance instead or in addition.

I am able to calculate the actual and scheduled for each activity individually but cannot work out an accurate and fair way of using this data to provide an overall ‘daily’ compliance percentage.

Is this possible and if so what would be the recommended calculation?

An example of the data I have is below –

Scheduled

Actual

Phone

06:15:00

06:26:55

Break

00:30:00

00:29:41

Lunch

01:00:00

00:59:16

Meeting

00:15:00

00:00:00

Training

00:00:00

00:00:00

Admin

00:00:00

00:00:00

Special Duties

00:00:00

00:00:00

Idle Not Ready

00:00:00

00:03:28

Question asked by Matthew

Answer for How Do I Calculate Compliance

How do you currently measure adherence?

This is typically taken as the amount of that somebody was able to do contact centre work divided by the time scheduled to do work.

In terms of the compliance part this typically looks at the actual vs scheduled time.

From my understanding, if I was due to work 9.00 till 12.00 and arrived 10 minutes late, but still worked 3 hours, I would have worked the right hours, but my compliance time would be 2 hours 50 minutes. So 2h 50min/3h 00min = 170/180 = 94.4% compliance (or 5.6% out of compliance).

With thanks to Jonty

Answer for How Do I Calculate Compliance

Thank you for you response.

We calculate adherence as the percentage of time spent doing what they are scheduled for. In your example we would consider the consultant to be 94.4% adherent but 100% compliant.

As an example if a consultant is scheduled to work 10-2 with a 15 minute break at 12, started at 10, finished at 2 had exactly 15 minutes break but at 12:30 the consultant would still be 100% compliant but 97.9% adherence.

However I cannot get a figure that reflects our interpretation of compliance from the example data I provided. It may not possible.

With thanks to Matthew

Answer for How Do I Calculate Compliance

I certainly would not use both measures. I guess that it all comes down to what you are trying to a achieve. Adherence (or Schedule Adherence as it should be called) is not about did the employee work the right number of hours, it’s more did they work the hours they were asked to.

If you had a shop and you brought in someone who had to look after the shop on their own from 9.00 until 5.00pm.

If they were late and did not turn up until 10.00 but said – “It’s OK I’ll stay late and finish at 6pm,” then this would be no use to the business as the store would be closed for an hour up till 10.00am when there could be customers and would be open for an hour after 5pm when there are no customers.

So I guess that I need to push it back and ask what are you trying to achieve? – Are you looking to ensure that employees work the schedule, or are you looking for them to work the correct number of hours?

With thanks to Jonty

Answer for How Do I Calculate Compliance

I would use Adherence as the measure for the agents adherence to their schedule – The % of time their Actual matches their Schedule. Starting when scheduled, going to break on time, coming back from break, finishing on time etc. all contribute to their Adherence %.

I would also use Conformance as the measure of work time accounted for – If the agent is scheduled for 7hrs of work and they give you 7hrs of work based on their Actual then this would be 100% conformance.

Using the 2 measures together will allow you to monitor whether an agent is adhering to their schedule as well as working the correct amount of time scheduled.

With thanks to Jayden

Author
Jonty Pearce

Jonty Pearce walked into his first call centre in 1989 and has been hooked ever since. He founded Call Centre Helper in 1989.

He is an Engineering Graduate with a background in marketing and publishing. In 2020 he won the AOP Digital Publishing Award for The Best Use of Data.

He writes and speaks on a wide variety of subjects - particularly around forecasting and scheduling. His in depth knowledge of forecasting algorithms has earned him the nickname "Mr Erlang."

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Reviewed by: Robyn Coppell