A workforce management solution is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot these days. Many contact centers are looking to add new systems and processes to their business, but they aren’t always sure what this means for them. In this article, we’ll show you how WFM can impact your organization, including some of its most overlooked (and innovative) benefits.

Now, we don’t mean to suggest workforce management solutions are the silver bullet for all your contact center woes. But effectively managing agents is a task that even seasoned contact center leaders may find themselves struggling with. It can be difficult to track and monitor the performance of numerous employees and ensure that everyone has the resources they need to do their jobs all on its own, let alone while you’re trying to fuel the kind of future-forward thinking that delivers game-changing results and upends the status quo.

Below, we dive into the 100-meter sprint that is effectively implementing and optimizing a workforce management solution. Let’s go.

QA is a part of workforce management (obviously)

Many people don’t think that QA is a part of workforce management, but it is. The term “QA” refers to quality assurance, which is the practice of checking quality on work products and processes. To make the case for QA as a workforce management function even stronger, think of it this way: If the caliber of your workforce’s throughput can’t be managed, then how will you know what’s working, and more importantly what isn’t?

Training for new employees is a part of workforce management

Training new agents is a critical part of workforce management. In fact, we could even say that training new agents is necessary for workflow optimization, which is why many contact centers make sure their agents are constantly getting better at what they do. In addition to improving their skillsets and workflows, though, it’s also important for contact centers to ensure that new agents have access to the right tools and resources for optimal task management.

In order to ensure that this happens on a regular basis (and not just when someone feels like doing so), it can be helpful to consider using an online training and eLearning platform like LiveVox instead of spending hours preparing presentations in Powerpoint or Excel (especially when you’ve got customers to talk to!).

Analytics and staffing are both a part of workforce management

You’ll also want to incorporate analytics into your workforce management program. Here are some ways you can use analytics and agent management together:

• Determine the effectiveness of your current staffing practices by tracking key metrics for each employee or group of employees.

• Estimate future staffing needs based on historical data, including seasonality and other factors that could impact peak periods or workloads (e.g., new products).

• Review historical data to determine how many people you need across time periods and then compare those numbers with actual headcounts to see whether there are any gaps between what’s expected versus what was actually needed at specific points in time (for example, did we overestimate our demand for skilled labor?).

Historical data can be used to predict the future

History doesn’t have to repeat itself. Instead, you can use it to inform a better future for your business. 

• Historical data can be used to predict the future.
• Analytics is important for workforce management.
• You should use analytics to predict customer service needs, employee turnover and more!

Analytics can be used to help your contact center make more money. You should use analytics to predict customer service needs, employee turnover and more. 

Scheduling is a crucial part of WFM

Scheduling is a crucial part of WFM. Scheduling is the process of assigning work to agents. It plays a significant role in customer satisfaction and efficiency, as well as agent satisfaction.

Without a proper schedule, the WFM system can’t ensure that agents are available to answer customer calls. A poorly designed or implemented schedule can lead to increased wait times and high call volume, which results in an unhappy customer experience.

Long-term planning is impossible without analytics about how the health of your workforce

You can’t plan for the future without a solid understanding of where you’ve been. This is especially true in contact center workforce management, where you’re dealing with humans and their unpredictable day-to-day schedules and tasks. You need to know what’s coming down the line so that your staffing is always at an optimal level. Analytics can help you predict future staffing needs through data analysis, forecasting, and strategic planning. They’ll also help you understand your customer base better than ever before, which will make it easier for you to arm agents with the tools they need to succeed on the job.

Analytics can also help with agent trends like productivity levels and turnover rates so that over time they don’t become part of a trend themselves—something we’ve seen happen in industries where managers have relied heavily on gut instinct rather than hard facts when making decisions about their workforce needs (think: Uber drivers).

Agent attrition is inevitable, and you need to plan for it accordingly – or even better, work to prevent it

The most obvious reason for attrition is the fact that agents are human and therefore prone to unpredictability. They get bored, they get frustrated, they want to move up in the company or they just don’t like the work anymore. The good news is that by now you’ve probably put together a smart team of people who are passionate about what they do and love their jobs. And while an employee leaving can be devastating to a business (especially if it’s your top performer), it doesn’t have to be.

Workforce management tools like LiveVox  will help you understand where things are headed before you even notice them happening so that you can take corrective action before it costs your company money or productivity.

Workforce management can help with customer satisfaction as well as agent satisfaction

Workforce management is about making sure that your agents are performing at their best. Customer satisfaction is a big part of workforce management, too,  so it’s important to keep in mind how satisfied your agents are with their jobs and the work environment. Most importantly, agents need to be happy to perform at their best and provide great customer service. If they’re feeling any sort of dissatisfaction or lack of engagement in the workplace, they’ll be less motivated and more likely to give lackluster customer service—and this can lead directly back to poor customer satisfaction numbers.

The takeaway

Workforce management covers many areas of your organization; don’t overlook that when evaluating your current system’s readiness for today’s challenges.

Some of these may be obvious to you, but let’s start with a quick refresher on what workforce management is. Workforce management covers many areas of your organization; don’t overlook that when evaluating your current system’s readiness for today’s challenges.

Workforce Management isn’t just about scheduling and assigning tasks or shifts to agents anymore. It has evolved into a broad methodology that covers:

• Performance management – identifying strengths and weaknesses in agent performance so they can be coached, trained or disciplined as needed

• Training – making sure employees have the skills they need to get their job done well

• Recruiting – finding new talent for open roles within your organization.

So, in conclusion, we’d like to stress the importance of workforce management solutions as a whole. It’s not just about having enough agents or scheduling shifts; it’s about ensuring that your entire organization is working at peak efficiency. And that means looking beyond the obvious and keeping in mind all the different ways your WFM solution can improve your business now and in the future.