November 30th, 2021
Written by Emily Miller, Director of Marketing
Workforce Management, otherwise known as WFM, is about managing multiple key demands in a contact center: forecasting, agent and staff scheduling, employee empowerment, performance management, and the processes around it. It can also be looked at as optimizing the use of your staff. When people typically think of the contact center, they envision rows of cubicles filled with people on headsets answering consumer questions. But, there’s an art to WFM. It’s all about getting the right agent, in the right place, at the right time. Workforce management enables more accurate forecasting, automated and intelligent scheduling, adherence monitoring, and performance management while solving business challenges like customer experience, employee engagement, and improved efficiency.
So, why is WFM so important in the modern contact center?
The simple answer: agility.
From the onset of COVID-19, the workplace has evolved, especially in the contact center. Here are 6 reasons why the modern contact center needs agility:
Remote employees need more autonomy, flexibility, and personalization.
Customers expect wider channel access to brands.
Increase automation and process optimization to lower costs and handle change.
Leaders need to know their business inside and out – in comes greater customer and workforce intelligence.
Vitality of cloud for scalability and remote operations.
Competition for employee recruitment and retention as no longer bound by center location.
