All cloud call center software get upgrades periodically. New technology, influence from new market trends, and new tools and concepts within an industry drive these transformations.
Take, for instance, Call Center Studios’ AI chat. This automated customer service tool requires updates to keep up with emerging AI advancements.
Today, it’s all about WFM, what it stands for, and how it works. Let’s find out WFM definitions.
The following text will delve deeper into these topics.
What does WFM mean?
WFM stands for workforce management. The WFM meaning is that it’s a strategic approach to optimizing employee efficiency and productivity.
Workforce management, or WFM, comprises a few unique processes, strategies, and tools to facilitate its purpose. These processes ensure that everyone on your team is equipped with the right skills and scheduled at the correct times for maximum productivity.
The main components of WFM are:
Planning and Forecasting
WFM requires forecasting, which is predicting the future based on past trends. You base these predictions to ensure you have the best staff working at peak times to offer the best service. Examples of variables you use for forecasting are workload, foot traffic, trends, events, and other variables.
Knowing these helps you better plan the schedules and work timetables.
Scheduling
Scheduling entails creating a detailed work schedule that aligns with the demand you anticipate. For example, a restaurant puts more people on the mid-day shift because it expects more clients during lunch hour.
This ensures that you have the correct number of servers, chefs, and hosts on the ground to keep operations running.
Attendance and Time Tracking
After creating a timetable, you need to track who adheres to these times. This is the function of this component. Attendance ensures that an employee attends a shift. Time tracking records their arrival and departure times.
The information you gather from these sheets helps you accurately calculate working hours and absenteeism.
Performance Management
Besides time tracking, WFM also helps with performance management. Whose shift is the most profitable? Who makes the highest sales? Who requires more training, and on what?
These are some of the queries that a performance management sheet answers. Knowing the answers helps you identify what areas require reinforcements and recognition. In the areas that lack, you can offer skill training or add equipment to boost efficiency.
Leave Management
If you manage a vast employee team, it can be challenging to manage who takes leave manually and when. A WFM system comprises a leave management component that helps you with this.
With the leave management tool, you will be able to plan who takes leave and when systematically. You also get the privilege to inform your team beforehand so they can prepare.
Reports and Analytics
Reports and analytics sum all the above systems up: time tracking, attendance, performance, and scheduling. These data sheets summarizes how well you managed the system and your team.
They also highlight what areas need improvement and which ones deserve recognition by ranking. This data helps you pinpoint the best performing departments and employees for awarding.
Compliance
The final component is compliance. Compliance highlights how well you’ve been compliant with the state’s labor laws. It keeps you in check with regulations and organization policies.
What is WFM in BPO?
BPO in full is Business Process Outsourcing.
Under BPO, you’ll find services such as technical support, telemarketing, customer service, and back-office procedures. All the above require meticulous planning and execution. For example, to offer technical support, you require knowledgeable agents on call to provide support whenever a client needs it. Without proper scheduling, planning, and performance management, you might miss the point of offering the best service.
WFM in BPO also entails forecasting, scheduling, time-tracking, and performance analytics. It also involves training and development.
Streamlining WFM in BPO offers your business the following benefits:
- Better operational efficiency.
- Better resource management and control.
- Boosted service and product delivery.
- Higher customer and employee satisfaction.
- Better scalability to meet client needs by scaling up or down staff availability.
- Better compliance with state and company rules and policies.
What is WFM scheduling?
WFM scheduling is the placing of the best-qualified staff at the most appropriate time at work. Scheduling aims to optimize customer service, resource allocation, and employee satisfaction.
Here is an in-depth perspective on how you handle WFM scheduling:
- Start with Forecasting: By the time you’re looking into WFM, you ought to have data on the company’s peak and off-peak durations. For a contact center, this can be the time slot most clients call or send messages. An online store’s high-traffic duration is the span of which most clients make orders. This information guides you on the staff number and the required skillset they need to handle these slots efficiently.
- Plan the Shifts: Now that you know the staff numbers and the skills needed per shift, plan them. Decide on the start and end times as well as the breaking times. Align the working hours based on the state’s labor laws to avoid trouble.
- Match Skills to Shift’s Needs: This is where you slot in staff names on your list to ensure that these people are sufficient to handle the shift’s pressure. Placing the wrong employee can cost you precious time and resources.
- Be Open to Making Adjustments: If a staff member calls in with an emergency, be ready to make adjustments. There might also be an unprecedented surge in demand that calls for more staff. When this happens, be prepared to bring in more reinforcements to help. You can have part-time workers on stand-by or offer existing employees extra paid shifts. Just be sure to get their consent first.
- Use technology: Doing all the above on paper will tire you. So, to ease your work, use workforce management software and tools to streamline the process.
What is a WFM analyst?
A workforce management analyst is a professional who oversees a WFM system. When you become one, you plan, forecast, schedule, and manage all systems in real time.
An analyst possesses specialized skills like:
- Analytical skills.
- Attention to detail.
- Technical know-how.
- Problem-solving skills.
- Labor laws and regulation knowledge.
Making a Workforce Management System Work For You
A workforce management system adds substantial value to all kinds of businesses. Implementing a cloud call center software will boost efficiency and productivity. This is because you will have the best workforce on duty whenever your clients need them.
Contact Call Center Studio to get started today!
