For Workforce Management Professionals - Getting your ideas implemented!

"How do I take my insights and use them to make my workforce more productive?"

I often get asked this question by Workforce Management (WFM) analysts as I engage with clients. There are a lot of hard-working WFM Professionals who have a lot more to deliver than their current role allows. This can get frustrating when you have the drive and passion, and know exactly how to drive productivity in your call centers. But it’s easy for WFM to get drowned out in the chaos of running an operation.

So how do you get noticed, get your ideas implemented and make your business more productive?

First, you have to position your business cases from the perspective of your internal customers. Easier said than done, right? These can be the same people who are ignoring your recommendations and (it appears), taking the easy path. Often, the issue is with differing obligations and accountabilities to the organization. Operations leaders are called upon to deliver high levels of customer and employee satisfaction. There is a cost to this, and that’s what WFM sees every day. Often, pushing productivity alone can hurt these other objectives. Accepting this reality is a critical starting point for any WFM professional.

Everything is a tradeoff. Everything.

When you identify trends or opportunities that can improve productivity, consider the implications on other business objectives. If you raise an opportunity from a balanced view, instead of just a one-dimensional productivity perspective, you’re much more likely to get people’s attention. Even better, find out what metrics your internal partners are accountable for and show the impact of that for them.

A call center I worked at had consistently exceeded their handle time objectives. I wanted the operations team to either reduce their handle time, or change the budget so we had enough staff to support the higher handle time. As you can imagine, I got resistance because they didn’t have funding to raise the handle time goals, and the employees said they needed the time to deliver the expected level of customer service. We were at an impasse.

I knew that at a certain level (in this case, operations director) had some accountability for the financials – cost per call (CPC). So I did a pretty straightforward analysts that showed the CPC at budget, and CPC based on how the agents were actually performing. That immediately got their attention. I wasn’t accusing or judging… I was the impartial support professional (btw, I communicated this in an informal 1:1, not on an email or public meeting). This softer, more objective approach, having the facts to back it up, and ensuring to engage the director in a trade off conversation helped him to “see the light”.

We didn’t fix handle time overnight, but we did start down a new path… A path where I had more support for pushing down handle time, and one where the operations leaders were willing to trade off some of their stats on customer/employee satisfaction for improved productivity. It wasn’t an either/or, it was re-balancing. Customer and Employee satisfaction are critical in any organization. But we don’t run the operations with a blank check.

1. Take a balanced view when making your recommendations.
2. Listen to your partners and their needs.
3. Link your suggestions to business objectives. 

Invest time in these three areas and it can play huge dividends for you and your company!