Not ready

"Not ready" describes any moment when an agent is logged in but not available to receive the next call. It is the opposite of Ready state. An agent goes not ready by clicking Pause, finishing a call before they disposition it, or sitting in a wrap-up screen after a call ends.

Not all not-ready time is wasted. Some of it is necessary work the agent has to do between calls, like typing notes during Wrap-up or waiting out the Wrap-up time timer. The rest is breaks, training, or meetings. The trick is telling these apart, and that is what Pause code entries are for: each time an agent pauses, they pick a reason so you can see where the time really went.

Why it matters

Too much not-ready time directly lowers Occupancy, the share of an agent's logged-in hours spent actually on calls. If half your floor is paused at any moment, the dialer cannot keep enough lines busy and your throughput drops. Watching not-ready alongside Shrinkage helps you separate planned absences from agents who simply forgot to come back from a pause.

When an agent first logs in for an Agent session, they usually start in a not-ready state until they confirm their phone and click Resume. Only then do they enter ready-state and become eligible for the next call the dialer hands out. Keeping an eye on how long agents linger in not ready, broken down by pause code, is one of the cleanest ways to find lost minutes without micromanaging anyone.

Reporting on not-ready time is usually broken out by reason. A dashboard might show that agents spent 40 minutes in bathroom and coffee breaks, 25 minutes in a team huddle, and 15 minutes in unexplained pauses with no Pause code picked. That last bucket is the one to chase, because it is the slice you cannot account for. Some teams also set a maximum pause length so an agent who walks away and forgets gets logged out automatically. The goal is never to shame people for taking breaks; it is to make sure your reported Shrinkage reflects reality and that a handful of forgotten pauses are not quietly dragging down the whole floor's Occupancy.