5 ways to empower agents: The future of self-managed schedules

In 2025, flexible work is no longer a perk—it’s an expectation. Recent studies show 68% of U.S. employers now offer some form of remote or hybrid work, a significant increase from pre-pandemic levels. This shift reflects an evolving workforce that prioritizes flexibility, work-life balance, and autonomy over more rigid, traditional office structures.

Remote and flexible work models have already proven their worth. Recent research indicates that 95% of employees are at least as productive working remotely as in the office, with 61% reporting higher productivity. Employees, for their part, cite increased job satisfaction, lower commuting costs, and better overall well-being as key advantages of workplace flexibility—in fact, a recent Gallup survey found that remote workers were 30% more engaged than office workers.

While industries such as tech, finance, and healthcare have already embraced greater flexibility, historically rigid sectors—like contact centers—are now feeling the pressure to evolve. Contact center workers are increasingly looking beyond their industry peers, noticing the flexibility available elsewhere, and demanding similar freedom in their own roles. As a result, organizations that fail to modernize how they schedule employees are at risk of higher attrition and lower employee engagement.

The growing demand for flexibility in the contact center

Contact centers have long been known for their structured scheduling models, which grew out of the need for round-the-clock availability. Today’s agents, however—many of whom entered the workforce during or after the pandemic—are no longer willing to accept inflexible shift structures that get in the way of their work-life balance. Over 70% of contact center agents now express a strong preference for more flexible scheduling, according to recent industry surveys.

The impact of inflexible scheduling is clear: increased stress, burnout, and ultimately, high turnover. Rigid scheduling requirements leave little room for individualized schedules, contributing to attrition numbers and employee dissatisfaction. Stress and burnout born from business needs that necessitate long or irregular hours (including 24/7 operations, evening shifts, and holiday work) leave agents feeling powerless. The way your organization manages scheduling has a tangible impact on your team’s engagement. Constant turnover is costly and disruptive for your organization, too. Traditional scheduling models, which rely on rigid shift assignments and limited self-service options, are no longer sustainable.

Empowered agents, on the other hand, are engaged agents. One of the quickest ways to create a culture of empowerment among your team is to put agents in charge of their own schedules as much as possible, offering autonomy in your contact center team’s day.

Forward-thinking organizations recognize that offering flexibility in scheduling is a critical strategy for retention, operational efficiency, and employee satisfaction. When agents have greater control over their schedules, absenteeism decreases, engagement improves, and customer experience scores rise.

Here are five ways to increase flexibility in your contact center’s scheduling and build a more empowered and engaged team.

1. Create a ‘bring your own schedule’ approach

When developing schedules, allow your agents to request their preferred shifts based on specific parameters. With these preferences as a guidepost, adjust the agents’ schedules based on business requirements. The easiest way to do this will be with a schedule optimizing tool within your workforce management platform.

The Bring Your Own Schedule (BYOS) feature within NiCE Workforce Management (WFM) gives agents the ability to request preferred shifts based on pre-configured parameters that include:

• Shift length
• Start time
• Scheduled lunch breaks
• Hours worked per day

Once agents submit their shift preferences, NiCE WFM automatically aligns the schedules with business needs, optimizing start times, lunch breaks, and other elements.

2. Gamify scheduling with availability points

The perfect schedule doesn’t exist, but concepts like availability points can get you pretty close. Availability points work by assigning each interval of a workday with a unique numeric value and setting rules that agents must meet to complete their availability. Agents then submit their availability and schedule preferences in a way that meets these parameters.

With NiCE WFM Availability Points, contact centers can introduce a structured yet flexible way for agents to set their work availability. Supervisors define specific rules and assign numeric values to different schedule components, such as:

• Minimum hours per week
• Required peak-hour availability
• Trade approvals

In this way, Availability Points gamify the scheduling process and encourage agents to make compromises with their availability based on business needs. This drives engagement while providing opportunities to further reduce absenteeism.

3. Automate the perfect fit with preference-based scheduling

Automation is your friend when designing schedules. Take agent preferences into account through an automated bidding process for shifts. With preference-based scheduling, your workforce management system can quickly create schedules that consider shift rules, planned activities, and known absences. This creates schedules that meet forecasted staff requirements and each employee’s work rules in one step.

Traditional scheduling often involves manual adjustments that fail to consider employee preferences. NiCE WFM’s Preference-Based Scheduling automates this process by:

• Factoring in work rules, planned activities, and known absences.
• Using AI-driven models to balance employee preferences with staffing requirements.
• Generating optimized schedules in a single step.

This method significantly reduces the time spent on manual scheduling while ensuring that both agent satisfaction and workforce efficiency are maximized.

4. Prioritize agent preferences fairly with shift bidding

Create opportunities for your agents to select which schedules and shifts they prefer. You can offer shift patterns weekly for agents to bid on, then schedule each person based on their bid priorities as well as rank and seniority.

NiCE WFM’s Shift Bidding feature gives agents a voice in the process, introducing a transparent, merit-based scheduling process that allows employees to select their preferred shifts based on configurable parameters such as:

• Agent tenure or seniority.
• Targeted KPI goals, such as highest adherence or average handle time (AHT) goals.

5. Empower agents to manage their own time with self-service scheduling

Foster a team environment where agents are empowered to perform self-swaps and schedule trades with co-workers. You can optimize this process by building rules that consider net staffing, agent skills, fluctuating business needs, and internal work rules. When trades are a voluntary exchange, both parties feel they gained an advantage.

NICE’s Employee Engagement Manager (EEM) enables self-service scheduling, allowing agents to:

• Swap shifts directly with coworkers.
• Make real-time schedule adjustments.
• Adapt to fluctuating business needs without manager intervention.

The future of contact center scheduling is flexible

As the broader workforce embraces flexible work models, contact centers must follow suit to remain competitive. The demand for greater scheduling flexibility is not a passing trend—it’s a fundamental shift in what employees expect from their employers, and the contact center is no exception. Companies that invest in WFM solutions that offer flexible scheduling can not only improve agent satisfaction but also drive efficiency.

NICE’s innovative scheduling solutions, including BYOS, Availability Points, Preference-Based Scheduling, Shift Bidding, and Self-Service Scheduling, give contact centers the flexibility they need to thrive in 2025 and beyond. By prioritizing agent empowerment, organizations can reduce turnover, improve efficiency, and create a more engaged workforce.