Buyer’s Guide to Workforce management

Workforce Management solutions help companies manage their staff more efficiently through forecasting, scheduling, intraday management, real-time adherence and reporting.

Supervisors of contact center teams – typically in service roles with diverse skill sets and/or working hours – use WFM software to help them accurately forecast future demand and staffing requirements. These forecasts are then used to generate staff schedules that are optimized to achieve the maximum level of productivity for the lowest possible cost .

During the scheduled time period, supervisors can adjust shifts in real-time and monitor adherence to ensure demand is continually met and staff are working productively. They can then close the loop with analysis and reporting, reviewing the accuracy of their forecasts and effectiveness of their schedules to continually improve performance.

The latest WFM solutions also include agent self-scheduling, which enables agents to submit their availability, request shift changes, trade shifts with colleagues, and manage their vacations via a dedicated agent portal. This significantly reduces the amount of administrative work for supervisors and increases agent engagement, leading to lower sick days and attrition .