Many contact centres, especially with large volumes of agents, work to such strict management information systems that analyse stats, how can this be managed for a disabled employee that has mental, neurological or cognitive difficulties and are unable to meet these targets?

eg. in a sales role, the length of the call may lead the system to 'assume' a sale is taking place, therefore if an agent takes longer to deal with a call, due to the agent having a disability, so the system increases sales target, putting the agent at a disadvantage, how do you deal with this as a manager?

Is it reasonable/possible to eliminate these agents from the 'systems' and set targets independently and individually?

As these kinds of disabilities are often 'hidden' and unpredictable, how do you go about assessing what adjustments need to be made?

Apart from in the UK it would be discriminatory and personally I find
it reprehensable taht you are singling out 'disabled agents' in this manner.

I would suggest that you may wish to qualify that the views here are not that of your employer!

The idea of sales targets being set by a system that makes assumptions
based on call length etc is, in my opinion, severely flawed.

ALL targets should be set as you say, independently and individually.

Having a driver such as Calls per hour / DMC's / SPH etc is a good indicator
but...

Using performance to drive targets will lead to a drop in productivity.

Anyone else care to add anything?

DaveA
MODERATOR CCV

Oh, i am sorry if my message seems to have been worded in a way which has caused confusion. Please let me clarify:

If the management information system works on some general assumptions, like length of call indicates a sale, but it is decided that a reasonable adjustment for a disabled person is to disregard AHT as a performance target, but by doing so and allowing them extra time to deal with calls, the system could put different pressures on that person, like expecting higher sales, which i feel is unfair to the disabled person. I agree with you the system is flawed in that respect. Therefore, simply to disregard AHT is not necessarily the answer, due to the associated effects of the system.

So what I am asking is, if the system puts the disabled employee at an unfair disadvantage by virtue of expecting higher sales due to being allowed extra time on calls, is it reasonable to remove the disabled person from the 'system' and set sales performance targets independently (off-line)? How practical is it to do that?

My aim is to ensure we are not giving reasonable adjustment in one way, at the expense of putting further pressure on the disabled person in another way, as i agree that would certainly be discriminatory, and has to be avoided. I am not seeking a way of 'singling out' disabled agents at all, but rather ensuring that adjustments are effective in helping the agent.