We weren’t sure what impact that COVID-19 and enforced isolation would have for our clients in the finance, energy and insurance contact-centre industry.

Working with highly regulated industries we knew our clients couldn’t afford to take their eyes off conduct risk, compliance workflows, employee performance and people development. But we didn’t know how that would play out.

We analysed the behaviour of YakTrak users before and during COVID-19 isolation and found that professional development activity  increased as businesses adapted to working remotely. Happily, this increase in coaching was led by the employees themselves.

Highest levels of professional development activity ever

As people shifted to working-from-home, we initially saw a reduction in activity. However within a month usage had returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. By May usage was at its highest level ever. This shows that remote workers have an appetite for the structured connection that coaching provides.

• People are getting their coaching and development activities completed earlier in the day – the platforms busiest times are between 8.00 to 10.00am during COVID-19 isolation.

Once people settled into their iso-routines we saw users prioritising coaching sessions. With more say in when and how they use development time, employees are shifting towards early mornings and later in the week.

• Wednesdays and Thursdays are the busiest days on the YakTrak platform. Tuesday was the busiest day pre-COVID-19.

We also found that the duration of coaching sessions remained steady. This showed us that working remotely does not affect the time required to coach team members and that teams were committed to ongoing professional development.

Over-45’s using technology to keep in touch and on track

An unexpected benefit of isolation for our clients has been the increase in usage by older employees. Over-45’s accounted for the biggest lift in usage.

• In the last quarter of 2019, 34% of users were aged over 45, this has grown to 44% of users to April this year.

With the loss of face-to-face communication, this group has more readily adopted YakTrak as a way of keeping in touch with their team and up-to-date with development activity.

• Users between the ages of 45-51 have seen the highest growth in adoption rates when compared to other age groups during isolation.

Visibility, accountability and connection

The pandemic has caused the contact centre operating model to change quickly. Businesses have established remote working processes while being ever mindful of managing compliance issues. While visibility is a key requirement for leaders, in this environment it’s the tools that provide connection that actually increase accountability and mitigate conduct risk.

YakTrak Chief Operating Officer, Brad Thomas, believes the increased usage on the platform is due to two reasons – team members are craving the regular connection that structured coaching provides and leaders genuinely want to make sure that team members get what they need:

Employers have a real challenge in maintaining visibility over the interactions their leaders are having with staff. Employees are looking for connection. Coaching and people development doesn’t just stop just because we’re all working from home.

Contact us to find out how we can help your team stay engaged while working remotely.

Image by Mimi Thian via Unsplash