Adherence

Adherence is the percentage of the day an agent was doing exactly what their schedule said they should be doing. It is, in most cases, considered one of the main performance metrics both for agents and companies.

Every moment of the day when the agent is in a state or auxiliary (we will learn about this later in another section) that is not the one "plotted" for that agent at any given time of the day, will count agaisnt it's adherence, especially if the agent is not handling interactions.

Workforce Management (WFM) is, normally, the department in charge of plotting the schedule for all agents. This determines when agents start their shifts, take breaks and lunch time, and log off for the day. This ensures there are always available agents to assist customers, thus not every single agent takes a break at the same time.

Let's see a quick and simple scenario:

In the previous image, we can see the plotted schedule of an agent whose shift starts at 8:00 A.M, a 1-hour lunch, and two 15-minute breaks. But we can see the agent logged in 15 minutes late to their shift. Later, in the afternoon break, the agent took an extra 5 minutes to get back to handling interactions.

Those two incidents will have an impact on the agent's adherence. Let's calculate what that looks like:

• Total scheduled time: 8 hours or 480 minutes (Lunch time is normally unpaid, so we're not counting it).
• Non-adherent time (time missed): 15 minutes (late login) + 5 minutes (long break) = 20 minutes.
• Time on schedule: 480 - 20 = 460 minutes.
• Adherence = (460 ÷ 480) x 100 = 95.83%

Adherence goals normally range between 90% and 95%. As many variables can occur during a shift, such as power or internet outages, or extended interactions, it is unrealistic to look for a 100% adherence. For our previous example, it seems like our agent is still on goal for the day.