Offshore staffing glossary: the terms, in plain words

#Numbers

13th-month pay

13th-month pay is a yearly payment Philippine employers must give rank-and-file employees, worth at least one-twelfth of the basic salary earned in the calendar year and paid by December 24. It comes from Presidential Decree 851 of 1975.

A

Average handle time (AHT)

Average handle time (AHT) is the average time an agent spends on one customer contact from start to finish: talking or typing, hold time, and the follow-up work after the contact ends. It is total handle time divided by the number of contacts.

B

Business associate agreement (BAA)

A business associate agreement (BAA) is the written contract that HIPAA, the US health privacy law, requires before an outside company handles patient health information for a healthcare provider, health plan or clearinghouse. It limits how the data is used and requires safeguards and breach reporting.

C

Customer effort score (CES)

Customer effort score (CES) is a one-question survey score that measures how easy it was for a customer to get an issue handled. Customers rate the effort on a short scale, usually just after a support contact ends.

D

Data Privacy Act of 2012

The Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10173) is the Philippine law on collecting and handling personal information. It created the National Privacy Commission (NPC), which enforces the Act and issues the rules under it.

Dedicated agent

A dedicated agent is one person who works only on your account, on your schedule, every working day. They learn your products, tools and customers, unlike a shared agent who splits each shift across several clients.

E

Employer of record (EOR)

An employer of record (EOR) is a company that legally employs a worker on another business's behalf: it holds the employment contract, runs payroll and tax, and pays statutory benefits. The client business still chooses the worker and directs the daily work.

F

First response time (FRT)

First response time (FRT) is how long a customer waits between sending a message and getting the first reply from a person. It is usually reported as an average or a median for a day or a week, counted in business hours or in clock hours.

N

Night shift differential (Philippines)

A night shift differential is extra pay of at least 10% of an employee's regular wage for each hour worked between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am, set by Article 86 of the Labor Code of the Philippines. Agents who cover US business hours work inside that window.

O

Occupancy

Occupancy is the share of an agent's available, logged-in time spent handling customer contacts, including the wrap-up work after each one. It is handle time divided by available time, so an agent busy for 45 minutes of a 60-minute hour runs at 75%.

Q

QA scorecard

A QA (quality assurance) scorecard is a checklist a reviewer uses to grade a sample of an agent's real tickets or calls against your rules. It turns "are they doing a good job?" into scores you can read each week.

R

Regularization and probation (Philippines)

Regularization is the point at which a Philippine employee on probation becomes a regular employee. Under Article 296 of the Labor Code (formerly Article 281), probation may not exceed six months, and an employee allowed to keep working after it is regular.

S

Shrinkage

Shrinkage is the share of an agent's paid time when they are not available to handle customer contacts: breaks, training, meetings, leave and absence. Because of it, covering one seat for every hour of the week takes more people than the hours alone suggest.

Staff leasing

Staff leasing (employee leasing) is an arrangement where one company employs workers and assigns them to a client, which pays a fee that covers wages, benefits and overhead. Staff augmentation is the wider idea: adding outside people to your own team for as long as you need them.

T

Team lead

A team lead is the manager on the office floor who supervises a small group of agents: they coach, check work and answer the client. In an outsourced team the team lead works for the provider, so you do not have to supervise the agent yourself.