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.

Schedule Adherence & Conformance, Part III: Target Setting & Implementation

In Part I: Introduction & Definitions, we established an understanding of metrics used in the contact center that assess actual fulfilment of the best-laid plans of forecasting and scheduling; in Part II: Impacts to the Contact Center, we discussed the importance of adherence and conformance in very basic terms--how much money do I stand to lose without measuring adherence and conformance?

This final instalment suggests ways to set targets appropriately, and provides some ideas as to how to implement new adherence and conformance accountabilities for your organization without alienating employees or operations management personnel.

Schedule Adherence & Conformance, Part II: Impacts to the Contact Center

In Part I, Introductions & Definitions, we introduced ourselves to adherence and conformance--the qualitative and quantitative sides of fulfilment for workforce management forecasts and schedules.   In this instalment, we get into more detail about financial and service implications for the contact center.

It's just a few minutes here and there.  What's the big deal?

The table below shows what happens when we have 350 contacts per hour with an average handle time (AHT) of 320 seconds (or 62 agents worth of workload).  Let’s assume we had planned to have 69 Agents in chairs to handle those calls in order to deliver an ASA of less than 20 seconds.  What happens if just 5% of our staff (in this case, 4 people) are not adhering to their work schedule during this period?  Note what happens with 65 staff in place: