Auxiliary Work State
Definition
Auxiliary Work State
Auxiliary work state is the time a contact centre agent stays signed in but off live calls, handling other duties — training, coaching, admin, breaks, or system tasks. The routing engine marks the seat unavailable and reroutes inbound calls to the rest of the team.
Managers assign “aux codes” to label the reason. AUX 1 for coaching, AUX 2 for a system outage, AUX 3 for lunch. Without those codes, every non-call minute reads as idle time, and workforce planners over-schedule to compensate.
The metric matters because unmonitored aux inflates labour cost fast. A 2024 SQM Group benchmark put average agent occupancy at 60–70%, meaning up to 40% of paid time already sits outside live calls.
Tagging that time correctly is what separates a healthy queue from a burning one — and it is the single biggest lever between paper occupancy and real occupancy on a BPO invoice.
Key takeaways
- Auxiliary state = every paid minute an agent is signed in but not on a live customer call.
- AUX codes label WHY the agent is unavailable, so shrinkage stays measurable per shift.
- Untagged aux distorts occupancy, over-inflates headcount forecasts, and quietly raises cost-per-call.
- Best-in-class BPOs cap total aux at 30–35% of paid time, split across coaching, admin, and break codes.
How it works
When an agent signs into the automatic call distributor, the system starts them in “Available”. The moment the agent selects an aux code, three things happen at once.
The ACD stops routing inbound calls to that seat. The workforce-management tool starts a shrinkage timer against the labelled bucket. The call center real-time dashboard shifts the agent’s status colour so team leads see it at a glance.
Most platforms (Genesys Cloud, NICE CXone, Five9, Avaya) ship with a standard set of AUX codes admins can extend. A typical taxonomy looks like this:
| AUX code | Label | Counts toward shrinkage? |
|---|---|---|
| AUX 1 | Break / lunch | Yes (planned) |
| AUX 2 | Coaching / 1:1 | Yes (planned) |
| AUX 3 | Training | Yes (planned) |
| AUX 4 | System issue | Yes (unplanned) |
| AUX 5 | Admin / paperwork | Partially |
| ACW | After-call work | No (counted separately) |
The distinction between AUX and ACW matters. ACW is the wrap time an agent needs to finish notes after a call, and it rolls into average handle time. AUX is unrelated to any single call and rolls into shrinkage instead.
Workforce planners then feed the labelled data back into Erlang-C staffing models. If yesterday’s real AUX ran 32% against a forecast of 25%, they know to raise tomorrow’s headcount by roughly one seat per fifteen.
That is a rule of thumb ICMI has published in its contact-centre benchmarks since 2019.
A well-run daily shrinkage review runs in four steps:
- Pull the aux report by agent and by code for the previous 24 hours.
- Compare each bucket against the schedule the WFM tool built the day before.
- Flag any variance greater than 5% for a team-lead conversation the same morning.
- Feed the actual (not forecast) shrinkage back into tomorrow’s staffing curve.
Skip step 4 and the forecast drift compounds. By Friday the roster is either underwater or paying idle hours it never planned for.
Examples
- Manila-based BPO (financial services). A 400-seat outsourcer running Genesys Cloud for a US bank moved from 3 aux codes to 12 in Q2 2024. The finer taxonomy exposed 6.8% of paid time sitting in “system slow”, enough to justify a mid-year desktop upgrade rather than fresh hires.
- US health insurer (in-house). A Blue Cross plan on Five9 caps total non-ACW aux at 33% and flags any agent breaching it two days running. The rule cut unplanned aux by 18% in 2023 without pushing agent-satisfaction scores down.
- Australian retailer (NICE CXone). Cotton On’s customer team splits AUX across peak and off-peak schedules, letting agents batch admin during the 2–4pm lull rather than early morning. Occupancy climbed from 71% to 78% across FY24 without adding staff.
- Cebu outsourcing campus (multi-client). A three-client operation uses per-client AUX codes so ops can invoice coaching hours back to whichever line of business triggered them. It is an audit-friendly approach the client’s service level agreement explicitly rewards.
Related terms
- Shrinkage: total paid time an agent is unavailable to take calls, of which auxiliary state is one component.
- Occupancy Rate: share of logged-in time an agent spends handling live calls versus waiting or in aux.
- Average Handle Time: mean duration of a single call including talk and after-call work, tracked separately from aux.
- Service Level Agreement: the contractual answer-speed target aux directly threatens if left unlabelled.
- Workforce Management: the forecasting and scheduling discipline that consumes aux data to size the roster.
- Call Center: the operational context inside which auxiliary states are defined and enforced.
- Agent Turnover: the churn metric that quietly rises when aux is capped too tight and agents burn out.
FAQ
What is the difference between aux and ACW?
ACW (after-call work) is post-call wrap time tied to a specific interaction and folds into average handle time. Aux is any non-call activity independent of any single call — coaching, breaks, training — and rolls up into shrinkage instead.
How much auxiliary time is normal?
Best-in-class contact centres run 25–35% of paid time in aux, per SQM Group’s 2024 benchmark. Under 20% usually signals under-coached agents; over 40% signals bloated schedules or an outage no one has flagged.
Do agents get penalised for high aux?
Not for the aggregate; for the reason. Sitting in “coaching” against manager approval is fine. Sitting in “admin” for two hours nobody scheduled is not. Adherence, not raw aux, is the accountability metric.
Can auxiliary states be automated?
Yes. Modern ACDs auto-flip agents into system-outage aux when a screen crashes, and RPA bots can push agents into “post-training” aux the moment an LMS module completes. Automating the trigger removes the “forgot to change code” tax on shrinkage numbers.
Why does OA cover this metric?
Outsourcing contracts price seats on assumed occupancy, and aux is the biggest lever between paper occupancy and real occupancy. Buyers who never read the aux report end up paying for seats that never take a call.
Ready to size a contact-centre team the right way? Explore Outsource Accelerator’s outsourcing hubs to compare BPO partners by seat, spec, and shift.
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