GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Getting the most out of

Workforce
Management
Roles and Responsibilities
Jamie Pickup
Workforce Optimisation Business Consultant
@Jamie_Pickup_

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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Introduction:
Roles and Responsibilities
In order for an Core Functions and is not universal – in smaller
businesses the responsibilities
organisation to fully Typically, WFM tools require around each of these core functions
benefit from a Workforce three core capabilities. These can be merged and the role
are Forecasting, Scheduling and
Management (WFM) Intraday Management.
becomes more of a generalist role
as opposed to a specialist one.
solution, it is important In many organisations, these The following sections detail
that the project is not functions are actual roles in a the roles required for the
only treated as an IT Resource Planning team, where ongoing success of a Workforce
individuals or even groups of Management tool, and list the
project where a new individuals are responsible for each required tasks associated with each
system is installed of the core functions and role. Consideration should be made
are managed and given objectives
and the benefits are focussed on each of
whether it is necessary to create
new roles within the organisation
expected to be realised the required outputs. or to merge these tasks into existing
automatically. This set-up is determined by size and ones, depending on workload.
complexity of the sites concerned,
Successful WFM is as much about
people and processes as it is about
the software. A good WFM system
is an enabler, but it is the people
and processes that will identify the
tangible benefits, drive performance
and make the difference.
Through many years of WFM
deployment experience, Sabio is
acutely aware of the necessity of
involving Operations in any WFM Forecaster Scheduler Intraday Analyst
deployment – they are the key to
its success and therefore buy-in is
crucial.
Having suitably skilled individuals
with clear objectives and Generalist
appropriate operational
relationships is essential for effective
WFM.
The following sections will highlight
the roles and responsibilities all
organisations need to fill in order
to bring WFM to the centre of their
operations, and in turn, accelerate
the benefit realisation of having a
“Best in Breed” WFM tool at their
disposal across the enterprise. Generalist

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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
01 Forecaster
long term
The long term forecaster
should be responsible
for long term planning,
ensuring that future
contact volumes and
FTE requirements are
forecasted and enough
staff are recruited
on time to meet this
demand.
Incorporated into this role are
aspects of financial management
and capacity planning – ensuring
that budgeted staff and seat
management are accurately
tracked and predicted on an
ongoing basis.
Intelligence should be passed to
the person responsible for the short/
medium term forecasting to ensure
that both processes are adequately
aligned.
This role would use reports and long
term ‘what-if’ functionality from WFM,
alongside excel based reports to
produce the required information.
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Tasks are:
• Creation and maintenance of • Working with the short
a long term forecast for each term forecaster to ensure
queue, building in intelligence that the whole forecasting
from marketing or other process is aligned through
known influences. Queues to delivery, improving the
to be forecasted include all process where possible.
contact centre queues – i.e.
Frontline & Back Office. • What-if analysis and sizing.
• Capacity Planning – ensuring
• Working with the managers
in both Frontline and Back that each site / campaign
Office to ensure that each is within capacity limits.
area is modelled accurately • Providing ongoing staffing/
in the long term plan. forecasting MI to the operation
• Tracking and monitoring – e.g. identifying available
seasonal variations in holiday allocation by forecasted
volumes and AHTs. skill, by day for the coming year.
Updating where appropriate.
• Creation and maintenance of
a recruitment plan / tracker to
match the long term forecast
to ensure enough staff are
available throughout the year,
highlighting areas of significant
surplus/deficit to the operation.
• Provision of forecasting and
schedule data to finance.
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02 Forecaster
short/medium term
Primarily responsible
for the collation of
relevant data to be
used in the short term
forecasting process,
creating forecasts within
the desired forecast
accuracy guidelines.
The forecaster must ensure that the
forecasts are kept up to date with
relevant intelligence applied so that
the schedulers are able to create
efficient and optimised schedules.
This role is responsible for the
‘working’ forecasts in WFM and is
required to create and maintain
these forecasts on an ongoing
basis, whilst using any intelligence
provided by the long term process
to accurately predict the demand
on each queue. This role works
with both the long term forecaster
and the scheduler to transition the
process from its initial planning to
actual delivery.
4 CONNECT
Tasks are:
• Creation of campaign level
forecast based on agreed
window (e.g. 4 weeks ahead).
This campaign forecast
includes all media types (i.e.
telephony, email, chat etc)
to ensure it can be planned
accurately as a whole.
• Collation of contact intelligence
derived from previous
weeks’ data and also any
future events known about
for inclusion in forecast.
• Review and analysis of
historical contact, AHT and
Shrinkage data, normalising
where required.
• Tracking of ‘special days’
using forecast Profiles and
Pulse Notes and external
tools where necessary.
• Validation of shrinkage to
be used in forecasts (both
historical and planned),
feeding back into the long
term plan about changes
in shrinkage behaviours.
• Analysis and calibration of
patience factor by queue
on a regular basis.
• Application of weightings to
forecast where appropriate.
• Scaling of weekly/daily
volumes by queue.
• Editing and manipulating non-
representative call spikes from
forecast where necessary.
• Production of further “cuts”
of forecast based on new
intelligence at regular intervals.
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• Final cut of forecast prepared
and sanity checked before
the end of the week and
handover to the real-time team.
• Working with the scheduler
to ensure plan has been
optimised thoroughly for
the following week.
• Working with the scheduler
to create reports showing
following week’s anticipated
performance, contacts,
hotspots etc by day/
interval for discussion.
• Building and maintaining
relationships with key
stakeholders that have
information relating to
contact impact – monitoring
this impact and feeding into
forecast intelligence as well as
reporting for
future learning.
• “What-if” forecasting
and impact analysis.
• Analysis of contact centre
performance via available MI.
• Attaining an overall accuracy
of forecasts, recommended to
be 95% - 105% overall, with 75%
of intervals within +/- 5%, whilst
being able to demonstrate that
the methodology used provides
the most accurate results.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
03 Scheduler
Responsible for
the upkeep and
maintenance of all
shifts and work patterns
(permanent shift
creation rules) held
within the WFM system
and the generation of
timely, accurate and
optimised schedules.
Where possible, offline activities
(breaks/lunches/meetings/one-
to-ones etc) should be forward
planned, and should all be entered
into the schedule as per the best
practise processes and with minimal
impact on Service Level.
It is also recommended that this
scheduler role picks up the tasks
of the System Administrator and
becomes the system expert,
responsible for both maintaining the
system as well as the scheduling
tasks.
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Tasks are:
• Schedule design – creation
and maintenance of a best
fit, dynamic schedule –
considering all skill-sets and
demographical restrictions.
• Creation of schedules
within agreed publishing
window for each campaign,
including Frontline and
Back Offices agents.
• Analysing schedule fit
per queue to ensure
accurate delivery of SL.
• Identifying overtime
requirements for the coming
weeks – working with the
team leaders and real-time
team to ensure slots are filled
where budget is available.
• Maintaining scheduling
rules to ensure schedule fit is
dynamic and automatic.
• Creation of all relevant floating
events to ensure system
optimises these automatically
e.g. one to ones, team
meetings, buzz sessions etc.
• Applying special events to
schedule well in advance
e.g. public holidays.
• Making manual adjustments
to schedule up to day
before go live to optimise
projected performance and
ensure required coverage.
• Ensuring all schedule warnings
are resolved in a timely manner.
• Adjusting shrinkage to
account for off-line activities
already booked.
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• Flagging schedule issues
to operations such as;
times affected, service
level predictions and
agent requirements.
• Optimising shift activities in
advance of go live to ensure
accurate SL predictions.
• Communicating any
availability (‘white space’) to
Operations to allow this time
to be utilised productively.
• Re-publication of
individual schedules as
and when required.
• “What-if” scenario planning in
conjunction with forecaster.
• Attending regular meetings with
team leaders, training dept to
provide input into scheduling
issues / considerations.
• Negotiating off-line activity
addition and removal
from schedules with Team
Leaders, Training and
Ops when required.
• Contributing to MI production.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
04 Intra-day Analyst
Intraday Analysts are
responsible for real-time
delivery of the plan and
so should track volumes
versus forecast and
that the plan is being
followed accurately
by the agents, making
real-time decisions
to maintain ongoing
delivery of SL.
6 CONNECT
Tasks are:
• Monitoring contact volumes,
AHT and Service Level against
plan, and report issues to
Operations where appropriate.
• Managing all on-the-day
requests for advisor off-
phone activities, taking both
individual queues and the
plan as a whole into account.
• Re-forecasting and re-optimising
where appropriate, to ensure
that the plan is always accurate.
• Updating Pulse Notes
with on the day issues
affecting volumes.
• Proactive communication
with Supervisors / Team
Leaders regarding any
upcoming issues or changes.
• Intraday reporting – sending
out intraday report including
commentary to the business.
• Maintaining a top level view
of adherence - challenge
any adherence issues with
Team Leaders. Ensure
an ongoing intra-day
adherence score of 90%+.
• Working with the Scheduler
and Team Leaders to ensure
that overtime slots are filled.
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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
05 Administrator
The Administrator role is
responsible for short term
schedule maintenance
and for ensuring that
the staff within the
system are kept up
to date. Since the
changes being made
by the Administrator can
directly affect the future
scheduling process, they
should liaise regularly
with the Scheduler so
that changes made are
known and visible.
7 CONNECT
Tasks are:
• Enter sickness / late / AWOL
information into WFM system
as and when it happens,
to ensure that real-time
decisions can be made.
• Manage holidays, ensuring
that the available number
of hours are filled and that
escalations are dealt with.
• Manage Shift Swaps
where necessary.
• Maintain staff lists – starters and
leavers and training groups.
• Maintain agent skills
(audited monthly).
• Maintain agent proficiencies
for new starters.
• Ensure training groups
are in WFM.
• Tracking attrition.
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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
06 Supervisor/
Team Leader Support
Supervisor support
and buy-in are key
to the success of any
WFM deployment, as
well as Service Level
delivery. The Supervisor
role should support the
organisation’s planning
processes, since they
will largely determine
its success or failure in
real-time.
8 CONNECT
Tasks are:
• Working with the scheduler
to ensure offline time is
preplanned into the schedule.
• Making requests to the Real-
Time team when wanting
agents to come off their
scheduled activity for ad-hoc
events. Respecting the decision
of the Real-Time team.
• Being aware of centre
performance (both actual
and forecasted) through ACD
reporting and through Pulse,
so that any requests for offline
time are sensible and realistic.
• Maintaining a view of their
teams adherence, ensuring
the team collectively and
individually maintains a
real-time score of 90%+.
• Dealing with any agent
escalations, before they reach
the Planning Team – being
able to train the agents on
correct usage of Time Off
Manager and Shift Swap.
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07 System Administrator
The System Administrator
is responsible for the
overall health and
tidiness of the WFM
system. Typically,
this role sits with the
Scheduler, as they are
the person most likely
to be involved in and
understand all elements
of the system due to the
extent of the overlap into
each role.
9 CONNECT
Tasks are:
• Ensuring user access levels
are set appropriately.
• Working with the Forecaster
to ensure ACD queue
mapping is accurate.
• Ensuring the system is tidy
– removing old shifts / work
patterns / dummy people
etc where appropriate.
• Purging old leave / swap
requests as necessary.
• Creating new campaigns /
organisations were required.
• Maintaining rules for Time Off
Management or Swap requests.
As mentioned previously it is
recommended to incorporate
the tasks from this role into the
Scheduler role, since it is likely
the Scheduler will understand
and provide expertise in
most areas of the system.
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08 Generalist roles

As there are close Tasks are:

links and overlaps • A Scheduler should know and
between many of the understand the Forecaster
roles outlined above role, and vice versa.
it is important for • An Administrator should
both progression and understand the Scheduler
Role, and vice versa.
contingency planning
• The Intra-day analyst should
purposes to identity be able to cover the Scheduler
some people as role, and vice versa.
‘Generalists’.
Generalists can be people in existing
specialist roles, who are trained
in and know enough about other
roles to be able to step in and
provide contingency cover where
appropriate. Expanding on this
generalist knowledge then allows
them to become specialists in new
roles in the future. Additionally,
because of the overlap between
roles anyway, knowledge of the
required tasks / expertise is always
helpful.
Finding the right people to up-skill
in each of these areas is key to
ongoing continuity of successful
processes and protects the
organisation against issues caused
through attrition. It also provides a
clear progression path for each
member of the team.

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Making WFM a Success
Key Relationships within the Business
Having defined clear
roles within the Planning
function, Sabio also
recommends the
creation and nurturing
of relationships with key
stakeholders throughout
the Operation.
11
Executive level and
Management
Require detail surrounding the
performance and projected
performance of the contact centre
as well as costing information and
any potential employee issues.
Those responsible for WFM are
able to provide this information
easily and on a frequent basis.
Additionally, Managers are able
to request “What-if” scenarios e.g.
the impact of reducing AHT, or
decreasing Overtime allocation –
this insight can be provided quickly
with the WFM tool.
It is recommended to have regular
meetings between WFM users and
management to discuss potential
resourcing issues and options
surrounding the achievement of
Service targets on a consistent
basis. It has proved particularly
successful in other organisations
when managers have been given
direct access to the WFM web
application where performance
can be viewed in near real-time
through Pulse, without the need
for other people generating and
sending reports. This facilitates
buy in into WFM and promotes
ownership and faith in the system,
whilst also potentially reducing
reporting workload for others.
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Marketing
By creating a solid relationship
between the WFM users and
marketing stakeholders, the ability to
forecast accurately at a consistently
high level is enhanced. Marketing
drive the contacts into the centres
via their activity and knowledge
of this activity as far in advance as
possible allows the WFM users to
build such intelligence into forecasts
– allowing for a more confident
schedule being produced. For
example, having visibility of
forecasted orders each month
allows the Forecaster user to convert
this into a contact forecast by
calculating the historic relationship
between orders and contacts. In
turn, the WFM users can provide
marketing with valuable insight into
the success of their campaigns.
Supervisors/Team
Leaders
Key to the entire WFM process,
Supervisors require insight to any
potential staffing issues that may
occur during the course of a
day. Additionally, Supervisors are
actively engaged in supporting
the management of annual leave,
shift swaps, and other off phone
activities. Having a constant link to
the WFM users and also access to
relevant parts of the software will
make their lives easier by helping
cut down on administrative duties
as well as allowing them to make
informed decisions and requests on
resourcing. It is vital that Supervisors
are bought into the WFM tool and
surrounding processes and are
involved in the roll out from an early
stage of the deployment.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Agents/Employees
Staffing schedules can be a
fairly emotive subject, especially
when annual leave and time off
are considered. Giving agents
access to their work schedules
and allowing them to book annual
leave and shift swaps from their
desktop will give them a sense of
involvement in the WFM process. It
is key that agents are aware of any
changes to their current working
practices that WFM will bring and
educate them on the benefits
of the system in advance of any
deployment.
Find more WFO resources at www.sabio.co.uk/wfo
Contact Sabio on 0844 412 3000 email info@sabio.co.uk
or visit www.sabio.co.uk and follow @sabiosense
12
IT Department
Changes to technology such as
IVR installations or a new unified
desktop can have significant
impact on key metrics used in the
forecasting and scheduling process.
For example, implementing an IVR
may reduce the AHT of Frontline
calls by 10 seconds. WFM users
need to know about this sort of
impact in advance and use this
intelligence in their forecasts to
ensure an accurate staffing plan is
created. Additionally, WFM users
will be able to inform IT of the
impact on the business of system
outages if they occur.
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Finance
Staffing costs make up
approximately 60-70% of the entire
cost of a contact centre therefore
understanding this is crucial for any
operation. WFM users are able to
assist the Finance department in
understand the impact on Service
Level of recruitment freezes,
overtime allocation etc. Having a
deep knowledge of the shrinkage
across a centre is also important
and if managed correctly, can
save an operation a considerable
amount of money at the same
time preserving Service Level
achievement.
Through accurate role definition
and encouraging the right
relationships within the business,
the implementation of a WFM
system will both drive performance
improvement and reduce the cost
to serve.
It is however essential to plan
for ongoing training, role
maintenance and succession as
one of the most common barriers
to success is ‘knowledge erosion’.
If you have any questions or
need help with any of the roles
or processes mentioned in this
document please contact Sabio
and we’ll be happy to help.