Workforce Engagement
Management

WFM processes are a component of workforce engagement management that encompass forecasting, planning, scheduling, employee self-service and real-time agent tracking to ensure that all agents and supervisors are productive, engaged in their work and delivering an exceptional customer experience. Originally developed as a method of simple staff scheduling, WFM processes now incorporate time management, shrinkage, shift selection, bidding, compliance and training, all bound together by quality assurance (QA), artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics.

WFM processes not only give contact centers a 360-degree view of each customer interaction, but can help business leaders identify areas for improvement in business and subsequently close gaps. WFM processes must ensure you are staffing the right agents, with the right skills, at the right time and helps plan and manage the performance of inbound, outbound and blended staffing resources across all customer channels. WFM components such as forecasting, scheduling and tracking capabilities allow organizations to accurately project future staffing requirements. By supporting anticipated customer contact volumes, creating optimized staffing plans with unique schedules for each agent, and monitoring staff performance and adherence in real-time throughout the working day, staffing adjustments and other corrective actions can be taken immediately.

In addition to performance and scheduling, WFM processes also analyze employee time spent training in order to optimize business need and effectiveness. WFM processes also include online training and supervisor-based coaching. WFM processes seek to increase efficiency and effectiveness as well as improve CX.

An evolution from simple workforce optimization (WFO) strategies, workforce engagement management (WEM) in a call center focuses primarily on the individual employee and includes hiring, onboarding, training, scheduling, CE and employee development. With an emphasis on retention and eliminating the common problem of turnover within a call center, WEM analyzes the employment lifecycle holistically and provides development and incentive while optimizing CX. By increasing focus on employees, WEM can decrease attrition and empower employees with the tools needed to drive performance and customer satisfaction.

Workforce engagement management in a call center primarily seeks to deliver a great customer experience while managing individual as well as workforce labor costs. Workforce engagement optimizes business need through recording and quality management, workforce management processes, and workforce optimization strategies. Workforce engagement also functions to keep employees regulated and within compliance. Quality control, review and assurance strategy is necessary so that your workforce is fully compliant with laws and regulations, especially when it includes Personal Identifiable Information (PII).

Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) software are the tools your organization needs to maximize efficiency, monitor, improve and reward agent performance and reduce turnover.  WEM tools include workforce management, performance management, recording, quality management, gamification, AI-powered workforce optimizer, and speech analytics. Designed to optimize your team whether they are on-site, temporarily remote, or in a work-from-home setting, WEM software makes it easier to coach, develop and manage agents.

Using an employee-centric agent experience, WEM software allows you to get the most from your contact center technology, so you can deliver the very best customer experience in a way that is cost effective for your enterprise. WEM software can assist with recruiting and onboarding, time management, quality and performance. By allowing organizations to increase focus on employees — WEM software helps your business elevate engagement, decrease attrition and empower employees with the tools needed to drive performance and customer satisfaction. WEM software streamlines your processes and adds consistency by aligning your business goals to your workforce ultimately maintaining SLAs and increasing KPIs.

Workforce management (WFM) processes and software serve a variety of functions and people within the contact center. Agents use it to enter their personal schedule preferences, receive their official schedules and request changes to their schedules. By using business rules to automatically approve or reject proposed changes, agents can get real time feedback for scheduling. Supervisors and managers utilize WFM processes and software to manage the schedules of each team member, monitor agent activities vs. planned activities throughout the day and view aggregate information at the team and group levels. Workforce planners use WFM to forecast contact volumes, create official schedules that are disseminated to agents and monitor workforce performance throughout the day. Due to the wealth of workforce data available within WFM technology, the ability to make adjustments to forecasts and schedules and the ability to cull real-time data, WFM can help you make decisions about workforce staffing and allocate resources immediately and maximize call center efficiency and deliver the highest level of customer service.

Workforce Management (WFM) is divided into two types: scheduling and performance. Workforce management scheduling includes the creation, administration, forecasting, compliance, productivity and optimization of the staff itself. WFM scheduling addresses immediate needs from an administrative point of view (staffing absences and emergencies, simulations, demand availability) as well as planning, resources, and logistics from an agent point of view (self-service, PTO balances, assignments, shift management). WFM performance addresses current and long term needs through data analysis of employee activities and organizational processes in order to determine resource and workforce allocation. WFM performance also encompasses employee onboarding, training, gamification, and incentivization in support of business objectives. WFM performance is the analytical support that drives development and continuing education of your workforce in order to achieve optimization. The two types of WFM possess the same goals of ensuring that all agents and supervisors are efficient, productive, engaged, and delivering an exceptional customer experience.