WFM Performance Measurement, Part I: Forecast Accuracy

This is the first of a 3-part series that will tackle the somewhat elusive application of effective performance measurements for your workforce management team.  I call it 'elusive' because it is apparent in almost every workforce management role I have served, or for every client I have consulted with, that these measurements have been in great need of implementation or improvement.

Workforce management professionals, by nature, are analytical, scrupulous, and (at times) frustrated with a lack of tangible, numerical data--they need to be graded, and assessed on some sort of a black-and-white, mathematical scale.  Telling them that they're 'doing a good job' is less satisfying and motivating than telling them (as an example) that they're not doing a good job because their forecast accuracy performance was 5% out of acceptable variance range.

For those of you who are not by nature or work experience WFM professionals, this series (hopefully) will help.  The series is broken into three parts in order to tackle the major aspects of workforce management service and support in the contact center: (i) forecasting, (ii) scheduling, and (iii) intraday/real-time management.