Your contact center made it through Q4, but January often tells a different story. Agents who stayed through the holidays start giving notice, PTO requests cluster in the first few weeks, and you’re managing staffing gaps right when call volumes typically increase.
Q1 brings predictable staffing pressure every year, but 2026 adds complications. Federal policy changes, tightening compliance requirements, and post-holiday workforce shifts are converging in the first quarter and the window between losing an agent and having a replacement fully trained doesn’t compress just because demand increases.
Why Q1 2026 Brings Heightened Staffing Risk
Three factors are compounding in the first quarter to create staffing gaps more challenging than usual.
Read More: The Compliance Countdown: Federal Staffing Compliance in 2026
CMS Policy Changes Take Effect January 2026
Medicare Advantage and Part D regulations finalized in April 2025 go live in January, requiring integrated ID cards and health risk assessments for dual eligible plans, alongside Medicare Prescription Payment Plan expansions.¹ These changes will drive call volume increases as beneficiaries navigate new processes and have questions about coverage right when your team is most vulnerable to post-holiday attrition.
These policy-driven call volume increases create staffing gaps when your team is most vulnerable to post-holiday attrition. Centers that haven’t planned for this convergence will face service level degradation exactly when beneficiary need is highest.
Post-Holiday Attrition Patterns Hit Every January
Agents who stay through December for holiday pay or year-end bonuses often give notice in early January. PTO accruals reset, creating concentrated time-off requests in Q1. New Year career resolutions drive job searches, and the psychological reset of a new calendar year makes January a high-turnover month across contact centers.
Compliance Pressure for US-Based Staffing Is Increasing
The Keep Call Centers in America Act (S.2495) is advancing through Congress, requiring US-based human agents for federal call center work with annual FTC certifications.² If enacted, this eliminates offshore staffing as a gap-filling option and increases pressure to maintain domestic talent pipelines year-round.
Early Warning Indicators Your Schedule Is at Risk
Most staffing gaps don’t appear overnight. They show up in patterns you can spot weeks in advance if you’re watching the right signals. Recognizing these early indicators helps you prevent staffing gaps before they impact operations.
- Clustering PTO requests in January-February: When multiple agents submit time-off requests for the same weeks, it’s often a sign that accruals reset and everyone’s using banked hours simultaneously.
- Tenure concentration under six months: If 40 percent or more of your team have been in roles less than six months, expect higher Q1 churn. Newer agents haven’t built enough attachment to weather the post-holiday job market.
- Post-bonus resignation timing: Agents who received December performance bonuses or holiday incentives frequently give notice in the first two weeks of January once payments are clear.
- Exit interview themes repeating: If multiple departing agents mention burnout, scheduling inflexibility, or lack of career progression, those same issues are affecting agents who haven’t left yet.
- Supervisors covering agent shifts regularly: When leadership is filling scheduling holes instead of managing teams, you’re already understaffed you just haven’t formalized it yet.
Read More: The Real Cost of Last-Minute Hiring: Choose Proactive Planning
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Building Staffing Continuity Without Over-Hiring
The goal isn’t to eliminate all turnover, but to ensure turnover never creates staffing gaps that impact service levels. These strategies help you maintain continuity without carrying excess headcount.
Pre-Schedule Critical Coverage Windows Before Q1 Starts
Identify your highest-risk weeks in January and February based on historical call volume data and known policy implementation dates. Lock in coverage for those windows in December, before attrition hits. This means confirming which agents are available, scheduling overtime in advance, and identifying which shifts are most vulnerable if someone gives notice.
Maintain a Standby Talent Pool for Immediate Deployment
Reactive recruiting, posting a job after an agent leaves, creates 4-6 week gaps between resignation and replacement. Staffing partners who maintain pre-screened, training-ready candidate pools can deploy agents within days, not weeks. This doesn’t mean keeping an extra headcount on payroll; it means having access to vetted talent that activates when you need it.
This approach eliminates the most damaging aspect of staffing gaps: the weeks-long period between identifying the need and having a qualified replacement ready to work. Pre-screened talent pools compress that timeline from 4-6 weeks to days.
Build Transition Overlap into Your Scheduling Model
When agents give two weeks’ notice, those two weeks are typically spent offboarding, not maintaining full productivity. Schedule incoming agents to start before outgoing agents leave whenever possible. This creates knowledge transfer periods instead of staffing gaps. Staffing partners who handle onboarding logistics make this overlap feasible without overwhelming your internal HR team.
Use Flexible Staffing Models for Surge Periods
Federal contact centers face predictable volume spikes for open enrollment, policy changes, and fiscal year transitions. Fixed headcount models force you to either overstaff during normal periods or understaff during surges.
Temp-to-hire and project-based staffing lets you scale up for high-volume windows without long-term payroll commitments, then convert high performers to permanent roles as attrition creates openings.
Read More: How Surge Staffing Keeps Contact Centers Running Smoothly
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Track Leading Indicators, Not Just Lagging Metrics
Most contact centers monitor turnover after it happens. Start tracking leading indicators; PTO request clustering, tenure distribution, engagement survey results, supervisor workload so you can intervene before gaps materialize. If you notice three agents on the same team all requesting the same week off, that’s a scheduling risk you can address proactively rather than a gap you manage reactively.
Don’t Let Q1 Staffing Gaps Derail Your Operations
Salem Solutions helps federal contact centers maintain continuity through high-turnover periods with pre-vetted, deployment-ready talent pools and flexible staffing models. When agents give notice or volume spikes faster than your internal recruiting can handle, we activate within days not weeks.
Contact us to discuss your Q1 staffing strategy.
References
1. “Contract Year 2026 Policy and Technical Changes to the Medicare Advantage Program, Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program, Medicare Cost Plan Program, and Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (CMS-4208-F).” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 4 Apr. 2025,https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/contract-year-2026-policy-and-technical-changes-medicare-advantage-program-medicare-prescription-final.
2. “S.2495 – Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025.” U.S. Congress, 119th Congress,https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2495/text.
