Workforce Management 301: Defining What "Good" Looks Like

In this episode of CX Roundtable, we continue our Workforce Management (WFM) series with a deep dive into what good WFM actually looks like in practice.

After covering WFM fundamentals (WFM 101) and why workforce management matters (WFM 201), this episode focuses on the operational reality of workforce management—including KPIs, forecasting accuracy, intraday management, SOPs, tooling, and organizational trust.

Host Sarah Caminiti is joined by workforce management experts Dan Smitley and Arlyne Pardo to unpack how mature WFM teams operate inside modern contact centers, BPOs, and customer experience organizations.

You’ll learn:

• Which WFM KPIs actually matter—and why context is more important than activity
• How forecast accuracy works across volume, handle time, shrinkage, and absenteeism
• Why burnout is often a capacity and planning issue, not a performance problem
• What strong SOPs enable for forecasting, scheduling, and intraday execution
• How intraday management (RTA) keeps teams stable when demand shifts
• What to look for in workforce management tools, platforms, and vendor partnerships
• How trust and curiosity turn WFM into a strategic partner instead of a reporting function

Whether you’re a CX leader, operations leader, WFM analyst, contact center manager, or BPO partner, this episode demystifies workforce management and reframes it as applied decision-making at scale.

If workforce management has ever felt overly technical, intimidating, or disconnected from leadership strategy, this conversation grounds it in reality—and shows how to build a WFM function that actually works.

Stay tuned for the final episode in the series, where we explore strategic partnerships and cross-functional collaboration in workforce management.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to episode 3 of the WFM Series
• 1:44 Meet the Experts: Arlyne and Dan
• 4:12 Defining What Good Looks Like
• 10:24 Forecast Accuracy and Its Importance
• 20:25 The Role of SOPs in Workforce Management
• 24:57 Empowering Change in Your Organization
• 29:38 Understanding Intraday Management
• 30:50 Defining Cross-Functional Boundaries
• 38:33 The Importance of Tools in WFM
• 48:18 What Does Good Look Like in WFM?
• 51:32 Closing

Transcript

Sarah Caminiti: [00:00:00] Welcome to the CX Roundtable. This is episode three of our four-part series on workforce management. I have Dan and Arlyne back again to, to just continue to explain. What workforce management is, the impact it has on a company, the impact it has on communities and how to succeed in this space, but also for folks like me, how to understand its importance and be able to navigate the language and the nuances so that when you do have a partner.

In WFM, you're actually able to be a partner and, uh, and, and collaborate with them on, on that level of, of knowing what's going on behind the scenes.

Episode Overview: Operational Focus

Sarah Caminiti: And this episode is one that is gonna be a little bit different than the first two, um, because we've talked so much about what it feels like and what it means to work in workforce management, um, and.

This episode is gonna be much more operationally based. [00:01:00] We're going to be talking about what good looks like. So when you step into this role and they start talking about KPIs, they start talking about tech stacks, they start talking about SOPs. What does that actually mean? Um, because it means something different in every single area of cx.

Everybody has their own metrics. Everybody has their own things that matter, their own structures for documentation. Um, and uh. Being blind if this is your first time entering into the WFM space is terrifying. And if this episode can make it a little bit less terrifying, then uh, then we've, we've done what we needed to do.

Meet the Experts: Arlene and Dan

Sarah Caminiti: Um, so I will let these two masters introduce themselves once again. I'm gonna mix it up though. And Arlyne, I'm gonna start with Yahoo.

Arlyne Pardo: Hi everyone. Welcome back. I'm Arlyne. I'm based in Panama. I'm a WFM professional with eight years of experience, uh, newly degreed as you hear in the last episode. [00:02:00] So yes, and I did my test and I am a common which means that I care a lot about people. And about everything, you know, but at the same time, I'm very direct.

So welcome.

Sarah Caminiti: It's a great introduction. I love after the last one and, uh, and went and looked to see what you were for your classifications after Dan surprised us with everything. So, uh, that was fitting. For episode four, I'm going to need to come and just give you a list of where I rank on all these things. So prep yourself.

Uh, awesome. Dan, please introduce yourself.

Dan Smitley: I am Dan Smitley, of, Two Consultingen in WFM space for,

Sarah Caminiti: I.

Dan Smitley: I'll say this, my WFM career can now legally vote, but it can't drink yet. if my, if my w fm career was a [00:03:00] person, you could vote but not drink. Um, little bit about me. I am one of four. I have two older siblings, eight and 10 years older than me, and then a younger sister, like 15 months apart.

So two sets. And I am in a house of females. I've got my wife, three daughters, two female dogs. The cat was a female. The beta fish, like it was, it's been ridiculous. It's, it is. All female over here. Um, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being a a, a girl, dad.

Sarah Caminiti: You really leaned into it, at least like in my house where I've got all men and small boys. Uh, my 2-year-old, I won't say he's a man yet, but uh. We, we went with female dogs, so at least I could pretend things were even, uh, but you just said, you know what? You know what? I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna go for it all the way.

And I love that. I love that for you. So let's get this party [00:04:00] started again.

Defining Good Workforce Management Practices

Sarah Caminiti: This is what does good look like? So we're gonna be talking about mature KPIs, SOPs org structures.

Um, so we're gonna be looking at what the blueprint for a healthy, scalable WFM function is. And Arlyne, I'm gonna start with you and I would love to know what KPIs actually reflect the WFM Excellence, not just the activity.

Arlyne Pardo: The best KPIs, uh, I believe that balance the experience, uh, with the efficiency. Think about forecast accuracy, schedule efficiency, and something particularly that I have found with the schedule efficiency is that there are different ways to measure it. And it doesn't mean that you are wrong or you are correct on the way you measure. Just if you decide to go with one, stick to that one. So you can have a way to compare where you were at the beginning and where you are. also as a BPO, something that we care a lot is [00:05:00] shrinkage. we want to have the right amount of people, otherwise is not profitable for us. it help us as well a lot with the occupancy because we manage the shrinkage, right? we don't be on a space where we have the agents too much time idle, looking at the rough and not making money. And as well the, uh, opposite where we will have back to back transactions and everybody's burned out will, will increase our attrition.

So that's for me. What about you Dan?

Dan Smitley: Um, so I was just gonna say, I think it, it shouldn't come as a surprise that workforce management. Focuses and, and drive so much around efficiency and data. Love our data. So the question around like, do you have KPIs? What KPIs do you like? We're like, boy. Do we like, we've got terms and KPIs and data points.

We have them in abundance. So it's kind of hard to say like, [00:06:00] which ones are the most important. And I think Arlyne, you, you set it up nicely in that each organization's gonna be a little bit different and each one is going to focus on different things. I'll, I'll harken back to the last episode that I was talking about, like the three different weights, right?

Customer experience, agent experience, business outcomes. And I think for me. It's about which one is gonna be the most important for the organization, and then which one needs to have the most robust reporting around it, right? So if it is about business outcomes, you're, you're not just going to talk about, uh, forecast accuracy or schedule efficiency.

You're gonna start driving into occupancy and utilization and shrinkage and absenteeism to try to understand are our people where we want them to be. Organizations maybe that are focusing on agent experience are probably gonna be a little bit more, uh, challenged, but it's gonna be something along the lines of. How many of the agents got their preference, uh, preferred schedule? So maybe the WFM tooling has some sort of preference based scheduling. So what percentage of our agents [00:07:00] actually got a preferred schedule? What tiered, right? If there is tiered system, they get their first, second, or third pick a schedule.

Um, or even something as simple as. Agent feedback. You know, they, they give you feedback to say, we like working with the WFM team. We think that the, um, the schedules created are fair, balanced, and equal, or whatever those kind of survey questions are. But the primary thing that the, the thing that is at the core of all of WFM service levels and or abandon rates, those metrics drive almost all of our calculations for us to be able to answer the question, how many people do we need? We have to know what our service level goals are. And so the primary KPI would almost go s far to say w fm is not doing w fm in any way, shape or form, regardless of what you're prioritizing. If you least don't have some sort of service level or abandon rate goal, you're not doing w fm. So I would say if we're thinking KPIs, we're thinking about [00:08:00] establishing something and you're your wfm, you're establishing it for the first time. You gotta establish your service level agreement. That's priority number one. The other metrics will follow from there.

Sarah Caminiti: Yeah. Well, I really, really love both of your answers. And Dan, I also really love how the ones that you really highlighted, the SLAs and, and, and the drop rates. Those aren't, those are agent KPIs. Like those aren't necessarily, those aren't technically, you know, you would think of as WFM KPIs. Those have to do with the people.

Like usually that's what you see when, when you're looking at KPIs for the frontline teams. And so to connect, like in order for us to do our job. It's not even necessarily the KPIs that we have. It is we need to have this information, and that's why these KPIs that exist within this organization [00:09:00] are so important, not just for.

Agent ability to do their job, not just for, you know, speed control or any of that stuff. It's like, no, we can't do our job without this data. And, and I think that's a really important thing to remember about KPIs is it's not always. Like who's doing what wrong? What needs to change? What needs to be improved?

Sometimes data is data, and it provides value regardless of what it is to other places within the organization in order for. Them to be able to do their job, to make it so that you can do your job better. So taking that weight off of people's shoulders of, I'm failing. I'm failing. No, like we just need data.

Like we need to track this so that we have this data. I really like that.

Amazing. So.

Forecast Accuracy and Its Importance

Sarah Caminiti: Moving things a little bit over to [00:10:00] forecasting and forecasting. We talked about a lot in the first episode. Um, but uh, kind of circling back to it, when you're thinking about an accuracy target, how do you define that and what does a mature accuracy target look like? Dan, I'll start with you on that one.

Dan Smitley: So. What is the forecast accuracy? So forecast accuracy basically is how well was I able to predict the future? So is my forecasted volume against actual volume Now, depending upon your confidence and the maturity of your environment, that might be at week day interval. It might be at different queues. It might be a grouping of multiples in one. How confident you are, what the measurement of success looks like is gonna vary significantly based upon volume. Right? So let's just think about it [00:11:00] this way, right? Your, your variance on a sample size of a a hundred thousand calls coming in, in a day, you're gonna be able to say, with a lot more confidence, I know what's going to happen just because of how large the sample size is versus. 10 calls coming in, in a day where those calls are gonna land, are you, why would you have so much confidence? So the forecast accuracy is going to vary significantly based upon sample size complexity. I would say this though, as we're thinking about maturity of workforce management, you start with forecast accuracy on volume. What I personally don't hear enough about, and what I would love to hold WFM accountable for more often is forecast on volume, handle time, but then shrinkage. Absenteeism, rate, utilization rates, service levels, like these are all variables and numbers that we are using or even inside of shrinkage.

How much of that is based upon sick time versus PTO time based upon, you know, too long of a break? [00:12:00] We are making a guess based upon all these variables. think a lot of times WFM simply says, sure, we know all of these things, or we think we know them. We're guessing. We're guessing. We're guessing, but we are only holding ourselves accountable to the long-term big number, SLA. Did we hit the number or not? But if we aren't holding ourselves accountable to all of those mo smaller metrics, we don't have repeatability. can easily be accidentally hitting service level. We could be accidentally hitting even forecast accuracy on the highest level of just volume. But that volume doesn't mean a whole lot if we're way off on shrinkage or occupancy or these other pieces that are informing the larger, calculation. Um, so. Forecast accuracy, yes, volume forecasted versus actual, but I think there's more accountability that should be held by WFM that says, you're guessing on all of these metrics, how good are your guesses? And I'll [00:13:00] hold you accountable to those things as well,

Sarah Caminiti: Why don't you think that's talked about enough?

Dan Smitley: because people don't understand W FM well enough and w FM doesn't want the extra pressure. Like why? Why stand up and say. Hey, y'all we're making guesses on six different metrics. You should ask us how good we are on those metrics. When in the reality, a lot of ops are simply saying, we hit service level, yes or no? And that's all they care about. to even have a forecast accuracy goal on say, volume is sometimes more than a lot of organizations have. 'cause all they care about again, is level, yes or no. and WFMA lot of times isn't standing up to volunteer for more pressure, so. We do our stuff in the corner, and then we say, we hit it or we didn't hit it.

Sarah Caminiti: Yep. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. That's a really good point, Arlyne, in, in your space. W do you take into consideration things like what Dan was [00:14:00] talking about or do you stick with, with what the standards are, because that's really what senior leadership is asking you about and where they're kind of driving those conversations?

Arlyne Pardo: My team gets accountable for forecast accuracy. So we definitely have a target. Our target is to be, uh, less or more. Than 10%, meaning that 90% or 110%. That's our goal on a monthly basis, as Dan says, uh, there are different ways intervals per day, per week, all different ways to, to measure it on a granular way. but as well, um. We don't get measure or accountable for shrinkage, but we monitor that on a weekly basis and we report that to all our operations managers and. You mentioned up there. Um, so yes, like we have to, [00:15:00] but it's because we have to report on that on a weekly basis. So it is one of our deliverables as WFM, um, maybe not uh, on a structured way for occupancy. but when we are looking for headcounts requirements and, get approval for something, then we need to have a look into where. our occupancy to make that call. So it depends a bit, um, on the way that you have a structure and if you get measured by that.

Dan Smitley: Yeah, but it's a point of clarity and I think you used a word around, you know, we're not responsible for shrinkage or for occupancy, right? The, those are outcomes of agent behavior. And so I can already hear some WFM professionals saying, no, I shouldn't be held accountable to the metric of shrinkage or occupancy.

I'm not saying being held accountable in the sense of like, your WFM [00:16:00] shrinkage was too high. You need to do something about it. It is. What did you think it was going to be? What did it

Sarah Caminiti: Mm-hmm.

Dan Smitley: in as? It isn't, so, just as a point of clarity, if there's other WFM professionals listening, trying to already, you know, their pitchforks, I'm not saying we should be accountable for shrinkage.

I should, we should be accountable for our guesses as to what we think shrinkage will be, because again, if we're wrong. We could have people standing around doing nothing, and now we're wasting the, the company money, or we got it so wrong, there's no one here, and now the customer is suffering because our calls aren't getting answered in a timely fashion.

Sarah Caminiti: I think that's such a good point, and I think that's something also that can easily be tied to so many areas of a business, but really like what I've seen in CX spaces too, it's like. Giving yourself permission to take data as an opportunity to have a conversation and ask questions, versus I'm [00:17:00] responsible.

I'm not responsible like putting such stringent like guardrails around these sorts of metrics. Like when I run my teams, I really don't spend a lot of time. Thinking about the metrics, like, oh, this person did one more ticket than what they did yesterday. I should probably see what happened because they increased their output.

No, like I know everybody's doing their best, but if I see a big spike or I see a big dip, it's not, you are terrible or you're gaming the system, it's. Now I can have a conversation with you, uh, because I set a limit. You know, I set like the standard. This is what's expected of most people on average. This is what we're forecasting.

The volume is going to be for you to be able to handle if there's a big. Big [00:18:00] change in what, what you're able to do. If I didn't have that, this is what I expect or anticipate you to be able to do. It would be very difficult to enter into those conversations and say, Hey, why is this different? What's going on here?

Why are these things happening? But if you have that, you can then say, this is, this is what we usually see output as during this time, but you were only able to do half. So what was your blocker today? What was going on today? Was there something that was super difficult? Is there something that we can create better documentation for?

Was there something? And so when you're thinking of forecasting, it's basically the same thing. It's like, this is what we expect and now we saw something totally different. But if you're approaching it as black and white, good and bad, you prevent yourself from being able to have those why conversations because.

It ends up being fear-based. There's, there ends up being a heaviness to [00:19:00] this because you've said something is good and bad when it's really not. It's just, this is just the day. What happened? What is different about this day or this week or this month? And how can we extract something from that to make something better or more accurate in the future?

And so I, I love that. I love the way that you framed that because. It is a difficult thing to wrap your head around. I think especially for folks that are from the, the call center space, especially because that is so numbers driven, that is so just black and white, good and bad in a lot of different areas, but to call out, I'm not saying that we are the ones that determine whether or not these things are hit, but I am saying.

We should be paying attention to it. We should be asking questions about it. We should be seeing if this actually is something that, that changes the way that we look at data or have conversations about output and all those sorts of things, I think is a really important call out there and I'm, [00:20:00] I'm glad that you, uh, you shed some light on that, so thanks.

The Role of SOPs in Workforce Management

Sarah Caminiti: Moving to something a little bit different and talking about just kind of foundations like we did in the first episode, but. Again, similar to setting, like what does good look like in this situation? You have to think about SOPs and SOPs when you first join a company, are what gives you the tools that you need to.

Be able to be independently successful. I mean, just like if you're a customer that's self-service documentation to help guide you through things with, with care and ease. Um, like I always say to my teams, like, you want people to be able to feel empowered to do what they are seeking to do independently, but safe enough to ask questions if something comes up that they're not a hundred percent on.

And we don't want them to make assumptions. And I think that SOPs are the [00:21:00] internal. Uh, space for that because you want your teams to be able to utilize these SOPs and be empowered to get from point A to point B, but also safe enough to ask questions if something doesn't seem like it makes sense if, if things have changed and an so P hasn't been updated.

Um, so Arlyne, for SOPs in your organization, what is like the one or two. SOPs that when you join a company, this is what you're looking for first, so that you can kind of get that baseline of of, of how things operate.

Arlyne Pardo: when I joined this company, we didn't have like an SOP for WFM or it was like, it was not updated, honestly, um, because it was directed to one particular account. especially. Given the circumstances. I [00:22:00] went and create my own SOPA bit more general. Um, it explains about the forecasting cadence, like how you do the forecast, what methods you can use. Um, the forecast accuracy is embedded there. Um, how you get the approval from the clients, like all of that. More into a general thing rather than focus on one particular account. Uh, depending on where you are working, probably it will, um, depend. It includes as well the staffing, how it's calculated. What we use it is, it talks a bit about early, the, the calculations for the back office piece.

Like for me it's like a sort manual, like a big, big, big playbook. Talks about the schedule generation, the real time metrics, and as well, while I was building this team, I [00:23:00] found out as well that there were some, Information missing for the job descriptions as well, like how your career path looks.

And that's something that I found while I was onboarding more team members into this, uh, large team. Um, so I added into the SOP as well how your career path will look like, um, and what you need to do for, for instance, something that we implemented was the. Tier levels from the analyst. So you can be tier one, tier two, tier three.

So how you can advance to that? So. Now, like putting this into a SharePoint or to somewhere, or just sending back on an email, probably that's not something that everybody will look. So what we implemented as well for the SOP was to whenever we have a new team member joining the company or the department, uh, we'll send like an [00:24:00] automatically email like, welcome to the team.

Everything that you need is here, and a short video. Besides the SOP, uh, we have been working the last quarter of this year, oh shoot, sorry, this will be in January. Oh my God. So something that we were working on this. Last year, uh, was the Um, so we took basically that SOP on a general way down to the account level, but on this part it includes video of probably SMEs of the account, explaining how to run the report, where to click, where to find the information that you need to come up with the output of that report. So it is more. On a granular level for the RTAs or the schedulers of that particular account. But when you enter to the [00:25:00] department, you will have something very general that will tell you how this works and why is, uh, on that way. So yes, it's, it's essential.

Sarah Caminiti: And this is why Arlyne is on this podcast. And, uh, this is exactly what good looks like, um, in, in every way, shape, or form. Because holy moly, not only did you take the initiative to make something that actually. Allows you to be successful, you then used that as an opportunity to make it so that anyone that you are inviting into your team has the tools that they need to be successful.

Because you're right, it is essential. It is not a nice to have. It is a have to have and it needs to be thorough. And the fact that you noticed a gap in something from a job description and what was then in [00:26:00] documentation. Your team is so lucky to have you. That is, that is wonderful. So thank you so much for sharing all of that, and I hope that anyone, regardless of industry that is listening to this, takes that piece there.

Empowering Change in Your Organization

Sarah Caminiti: You have the power to do this regardless of what your role is, you have the power to make change within your organization. By leveraging knowledge, uh, to make others better. That's not something to be gate kept at all. Um, and, uh. You just did it. So I would hug you if I was next to you, but I'm not in Panama.

Uh, maybe at the next conference. I'm, I'm obviously gonna hug you like 50 times in the next conference, but one of them, one of those hugs will be for this today. Uh, maybe four, but at least one. Uh, Dan, do you have anything you wanna add to that?

Dan Smitley: I don't think I could. I mean, that was such a comprehensive answer, so solid. Uh, I'll give you a [00:27:00] hug for it too, but I think Sarah get line. Um.

Key SOPs for Effective WFM

Dan Smitley: I would say around kind of just nuts and bolts, getting down to like what are like the, the core pieces for your, again, my thought is you're standing up wfm, you, you've come in, you're trying to figure it out. think forecasting an intraday are your two primary SOPs. Scheduling, capacity planning, staffing models, maybe even just general communications are all good. And again, equipping our teams to be able to work on their own independently without us having to direct everything. Always a positive. but for me at least, I think those two pieces, because it is from our forecasting we're able to say confidently how we think our schedule should be created and why those schedules are working if our, our forecast process is wrong. We don't have anything for scheduling. I think, is where we are able to adjust from all of the mistakes we've already made. It's inside of that process. We're able to see our [00:28:00] forecast was wrong, our scheduling was wrong. We didn't expect the spike, we didn't expect the downtime, and that in particular. you need your SOP to clearly communicate what your escalation paths are, what your options are, what levers do you have, right? Like schedules. We can probably get creative forecasting. We probably have a pretty rigid model that we're going to approach. Intraday is where. Everything hits the fan. And this is where things get scary and this is where your team needs for you to spell out. Here's what you do. And when it's not in this list, you call this person. Like that I think is one of the most important SOPs for every WFM team. Um, because it's also gonna vary. Maybe I don't care that there's a downtime and I do nothing. But it can still get very scary because I see it and I, oh, is it me? Is it this person? And so just having that SOPI think on forecasting, establishes the discipline that WFM needs to have as part of their brand and their [00:29:00] kind of, how they present themselves in the organization. And it's intraday that you can remove some of the fear for your team and say, this is what we do when things go sideways. Um, so I think those are probably the two most important SOPs, uh, from my perspective.

Understanding Intraday Management

Sarah Caminiti: And when you say intraday, what does that mean?

Dan Smitley: Sorry, intraday, uh,

Sarah Caminiti: That's okay.

Dan Smitley: adherence or RTA intraday. So, um, both RTAs, so real-time adherence or realtime analyst, realtime analytics, whatever that is, is the, I am watching and monitoring what's happening in the environment. I'm responding to it. So it's intraday management. So as things are happening, volumes coming in, agents are doing what they do. I'm responding in some way. A lot of times those look like taps on the shoulders to say, please move into a different state as an agent. So that way your schedule is, your activity is aligned to your schedule. Um, but it's inside of [00:30:00] there that, that WFM is saying, we got something wrong because we didn't expect our customers to do something or the agents to do something, and now we're having to respond.

Intraday is RTA.

Sarah Caminiti: Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.

Defining Cross-Functional Boundaries

Sarah Caminiti: And, uh, I think what you also just touched upon is a really important piece, and that's the. Defining boundaries and YWFM from what I've learned from you both is so cross-functionally entwined, and whenever I join a team, that's one of the things that I look at first. Like what gray area exists in terms of how you connect cross-functionally.

Like what are the triggers for this? What. What are my limits? What are their limits? How do we meet? How do we communicate that? Because especially when companies are starting to scale, but even more so once they've already [00:31:00] hit large, you know, sizes, that becomes such an overwhelming, for whatever reason, thing to prioritize.

And so it doesn't, and so that's how silos get locked in. And that's that us against. Them mentality because you don't know what you're supposed to tell these people. You think that they're supposed to tell you and they think that you're supposed to tell them. And so you're both just like, what's going on?

Why is nobody talking about any of this stuff? And it's like, because nobody said that you had to talk about it. And asking something that I've had success with is. Instead of, and I'm sure you both have experienced something similar. Instead of like me coming in and saying, for your organization, for your team, this is what I, this is how I think that you should go about this.

Instead, I put it on the other team and say, what does good look like for you, for our [00:32:00] relationship? And then they can detail. What boundaries are important to them, what gray area is important to them, how they think that it needs to be managed or communicated or escalated. Who are the people, uh, that need to be included?

And then I can come back and say, this is possible. This isn't possible. This is reasonable, this isn't reasonable. Um, and, and it allows for a more collaborative conversation versus I'm gonna come in and make assumptions about what's important to you and what you think we do and how we do it. Let me take this as an opportunity to kind of understand.

If you even understand what we do. And, uh, that's always been a really nice gateway for that. But you were, the way you described it, Dan was so perfect that, uh, sometimes you don't have to panic about something, but you don't know you're not [00:33:00] supposed to panic about something. And if you say this could happen and it's okay.

This is just the reality. It's okay. Or if this happens, this is, this is the team that you go to. If you do not see this exact scenario playing out, this is where you go to talk to. That's giving people the tools they need to be empowered to do what they need to do, but then safe enough to ask questions.

Dan Smitley: Thought, I'll try to limit them. I would say I mostly agree

Sarah Caminiti: Don't limit them.

Dan Smitley: perspective on. To them have a conversation around how and what support looks like. I agree with that. I agree. Go to them. Let's have a conversation. I don't think. In some situations, I might allow them to define or try to define what support looks like, but at least from my experience, a lot of people don't understand what W FM is, and so they don't quite understand what support could look like. And so

Sarah Caminiti: Very good point.

Dan Smitley: [00:34:00] to product, when I'm going to marketing, when I'm going to hr, and they don't quite understand what I do. I start the conversation with what do you do? What's important to you? What are the KPIs that you guys are looking at? What are the things that you're driving for? What are the problem, the challenges that you're experiencing? then I'll come back to them later and say. I think this is how I can help you. I, I think my team, which you might not know, but my team has access to this. We see this, we do this, and I think if we can do these things in our processes, we could probably let you know when these things happen and that might benefit you when connected to this goal. I, for me at least, it, it shows that I listen and it shows that I support them, um, without putting the pressure on them to define the relationship where they don't know what I do. And so I don't want them to say.

Sarah Caminiti: Yeah.

Dan Smitley: Ops is gonna know, OPS is gonna say, when things break, I want your team reaching out. I want, and I think Ops and WFM have a closer relationship, but when it comes to those other periphery teams, um, they don't know.

And so I, I [00:35:00] start the conversation, but then I say, uh, let me figure out how to support you versus you telling, because they're gonna be like, I don't know. Um, tell me if my clients are gonna reach out to me because we're not hitting service levels, but you already have reporting for that. That's not me.

Like, that's something else. Um, so I, I think I mostly agree. I just might shift it depending

Sarah Caminiti: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, and, and that clarification I think is really important, especially my experience being in a, a support like customer support space. People know pretty much what they are expecting my team to do, how they're expecting it to be communicated, where they felt like, oh, I wish they could have done this because they've made it.

They have an, a general assumption about the role that this team plays and, uh, WFM, I think is a very different beast in that. Odds are at least half of the [00:36:00] teams probably have a very vague, if not completely misguided understanding of what WFM is. And so approaching it as an opportunity for education is definitely a much more beneficial use of everybody's time because.

You gotta, you gotta make sure they get it before you can even start to define boundaries.

Arlyne Pardo: Lemme tell you something. Whenever you hear the word WFM or you try to explain that to anyone on the organization, they will tie that immediately. They will say, do schedules, you are on the schedules. That's it. But there are so many parts that we are involved create the schedules. You know, like actually monitoring what's happening in real time. And just by hearing you guys talking about this, just remind me when we [00:37:00] were, um, implementing the capacity plan, but as well we were adding as well the hiring needs there or the training classes that will be there. And something that we do, um, we did back then was talk to the recruitment department. What do you need to see or what are your needs so we can fill it?

Like to be a strategic partner on that part, and not just having the capacity plan on a spreadsheet and having the recruiting department figuring out where, when they need to hire the classes. Like, okay, this is your timeline to hire. We added that into that model. It's a separate document for them, more like. Easy to read. Not all of those numbers. That will get a lot of people confused.

Sarah Caminiti: Yeah, that's such a good point. That is such a good point. I'm loving where this conversation's [00:38:00] going. By the way. This is just great.

The Importance of Tools in WFM

Sarah Caminiti: Um, I wanna pivot slightly to talk about tools because I think that tools are things that are often kind of skimmed over when you're kind of talking about foundational work and.

If something that's like very important to me on this journey of educating myself and hopefully educating others is, is making sure that people walk away with an understanding of the language that, uh, that is necessary to be successful in these spaces. And I think folks within the CX industry have a lot of gaps in language.

And when you have those gaps in language, you don't feel confident enough to stand up for yourself or you don't feel, uh. Empowered enough to to kind of push a little bit harder or to ask additional questions because you're nervous that you're not gonna sound like you know what you're talking about.

And it's just because you don't know exactly the right way to describe it. And so I think tooling is one of [00:39:00] those spaces that oftentimes people don't feel like they have the ability to. Advocate for themselves and their teams for the tools that they need to be successful, because they may not know what good looks like for tools.

They've only been given access to one thing, and they know it sucked, but they don't know why it sucked, and they don't know what else is out there that could be better. Or maybe they just didn't know how to use it, and then they just shame themselves and the whole spiral just begins. And that's so unnecessary because it's.

Tools do suck sometimes, and, uh, that doesn't mean that you're terrible at your job. That just means that you got, uh, you got handed a, a, a crappy card when it comes to tooling. So, Dan, in your experience, I'm sure you've seen quite an evolution of tools, especially in the age of AI for, for WFM. Are there.

Any tools that really stand out, and if you don't feel comfortable naming specific companies, [00:40:00] are there specific things that make a really big difference in whether or not a tool is actually gonna be beneficial?

Dan Smitley: Are you sponsored by anybody or can I name? Names?

Sarah Caminiti: Nope. Knock yourself out.

Dan Smitley: Okay. Um, it avoids the question, but I promise I'll get to actual tooling, but for me at least, um, when I'm thinking about vendors and buying software, one of my priorities is gonna be what does post implementation support look like? gonna get nickeled and dimed every time I have a question? Do we have a regular, uh, conversation where you're asking how it's going?

Do I have access to training documents? Do I have access to a training resource? So I'm, the way I say it, it's a little, um, kitchy, but I'm saying I want a partnership, not a platform. get the blue button or the green button, and they're probably gonna be roughly the same cost. know who do I get behind the button that's gonna help support me when I don't know what button to push.

So it's not about tooling, but it is about vendor selection. [00:41:00] And, and for those that are looking to maybe purchase a tool, make sure that you're having those conversations, um, they're going to say, yes, we have professional services, but that can be very costly. Um. How can I have access to just someone to bounce ideas off of or does that cost me money as well?

So tooling, um, a lot of bells and whistles out there around automation. So it's not quite ai, but simply you push a button for forecasting and it just chew through a bunch of different models and it spits something out, or schedulings the same way you put in a bunch of shift templates or variables and it says, great, based upon all of the pieces you gave me to play with. Here's how the schedules can best match. Um, those are great and helpful. Um, the base point is how do I consume the data coming into my forecast? So if I'm gonna try to find any sort of tool, does it connect my a CD? Does it connect with my telephony? Does it connect with my ticketing system? Does it connect with my chat?

So that way I am not the middle man. [00:42:00] Exporting, cleaning up, into my WFM platform. Does the WFM platform have an ability to connect directly? Not through an API. Not actually, I'll rephrase not through an actor connector, because I know other software companies would be like, oh, we have a connection that want a robust. Solid pipeline going directly from that into it. Not something that you've just built ad hoc for that one other person that's asked for this particular platform. Um, I can name names later whenever we get into like certain features or functions or things. But I would say when I'm thinking about tools, partnership over a platform and can it consume the data because if it can't consume the data, I really haven't gained anything from the tool.

'cause I'm still doing a lot of manual work.

Sarah Caminiti: Yep. Yeah, I think those are great points. What about you, Arlyne?

Arlyne Pardo: For me, it depends. Um, we, as a BPO, we have some clients that allow us or give us. All the accesses on the tool, on the a, c, D. So if we have a [00:43:00] tool, it's easy to connect directly for others are very restrictive and we don't have those type of access, but like a tool needs to be flexible. Um, for me, on that particular scenario that I could go to the a CD from the client. my data and just add it. there are a lot of tools in the market and I know because I was doing this research last year, um, and most of the systems that are out there does not allow you that flexibility or are not even thinking on the BPOs honestly. they say that they have ai, but it's not ai.

It is your legacy platform something embedded. So my best advice on this is to do a checklist. What do you want to achieve if they are meeting or not? That requirement that you have, [00:44:00] it doesn't matter honestly, if you have, if you are trying or. To get this tool with a small company or a bigger company, Dan says, like it's about a partnership, and I believe that it doesn't matter if you are a 10 seats contact center or a thousand seats contact center. vendor should treat you with respect and not assume or say or diminish. Um, your requirements or your specifications, and I, I experienced that. Um, I believe that one was bought by another company. and I was, I, I made sure to send over a letter saying that, thank you, but this is not working with the people that you have there.

Sarah Caminiti: [00:45:00] For you. I mean, it's uh. You both mentioned this, and I think that it's definitely worthy of a call out. It's related to the partnership piece. With so many niche companies emerging, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with people that are the founders of these companies. These are folks that want to learn.

From you to make their product better if you are open to being honest with them and telling them what you need to be successful. Um, and I think of it this way. It's with AI within our space, there's two ways that you can go about it. You can just accept the fact that there's gonna be a lot of stuff that.

It is not made for us. It's made so that somebody can say that they are a founder of an AI company and get a lot of money from it. And, uh, hope that nobody notices, [00:46:00] uh, and then get bought out by another company that's just gonna understaff it and it's gonna still be terrible. Um, or there's, there's like the other edge of or side of the coin where.

You can say this is a really wild time to be a professional in the tech space or the contact center space because I have a voice that I've never had before and I can't complain about the quality of the tools, about the, the narratives that are being, uh, put out there about my industry, about any of that if I'm not doing something to make it better.

People are coming to us all the time asking, can you hop on a call? Can you hop on a call? Can you hop on a call? Hop on a call because you will get a quick read as to whether or not this is a company that you wanna support. This is a company that's going to [00:47:00] be able to, to. Be a potential partner for you.

This is a company that you can tell other people in the industry to look into or to avoid. Like if you're not taking advantage of this, you are limiting your career growth because. Things are changing rapidly and if you're part of the change, like I can't tell you how many AI companies that I've just jumped on random calls with, I became like go to market strategist for them where they send me demos and they say, we're about to do a pitch.

Can you make sure that this actually looks like something that you would want to buy? And uh, then I go through and I am not. Kind, it's, this makes no sense. What if you did this, do this, do this. And then two hours later they'll send me another demo and they'll say, okay, we fixed the code, we fixed this.

Does this look better? And it's because these are places that are craving. Partnerships, they are hungry for [00:48:00] this type of conversation with people that aren't just saying, yes, this is great, that are asking questions about the quality of, of the tooling that they're producing, about their QA processes, about what's happening with the data, about how it's gonna better the team.

Because that's what's gonna make them a differentiator. That's what's gonna make them stand out because it is actually built by the people that are using this. Um, and, and so. Even if you are working in A BPO, even if you're working in a call center, this is the time to say yes to these conversations, to seek out these conversations because you could change the way a company is approaching your tooling because you said this isn't gonna work, or it could be way better if you did this.

So I, I love that you brought that up.

Alright.

What Does Good Look Like in WFM?

Sarah Caminiti: I. We didn't think we were gonna have very much, uh, to talk about on this, and we were [00:49:00] proven very, very wrong. Um, the last thing I want to ask both of you is if there's one thing, and it can be something we've already talked about, we can, we can go back to it. Uh, that's fine. Um, if you think of what does good look like in WFM?

What is the one thing that is always at the top of your list? And if you can't think of one, 'cause I'm looking at your face, Dan, and it's telling me there's probably more than one bundle. The crap outta these things. If you need to give me as many goods as you need to. Uh, but what does good look like for you, Dan, in WF?

Dan Smitley: I am biased because this is part of just who I am, how I think, and so I, I will own the fact that I'm going to say what's really important is the thing that I do well. So it's a little self-serving, but it it, it is true. And I think, honestly, I was taking some notes from our conversation. It, it rings true of today's conversation.

Of previous [00:50:00] conversations. What does good SOP look like? Good. SOP looks like high structure. With space to continue to allow for creativity and curiosity. Good forecasting looks like solid data, but you're digging in with curiosity, right? When people are reaching out to you about vendor tools, you lean into curiosity, be like, I don't know what this is, but maybe there's something here.

They're doing the same thing, like for me at least today, the, the word of the day I think in, in our conversation is curiosity. And I think for me, I. I, I almost put a second, but I think curiosity is the source for collaboration when we're trying to build these relationships externally with the vendors when we're trying to build these relationships internally with marketing or product or ops or whatever.

This is that collaboration comes from. A place of curiosity. What are your goals? What is it that you're trying to accomplish? What are our boundaries? What are these things? Not to shut down conversation, but to say, oh, [00:51:00] this is how we can help and support each other. Again, this is how you can go to market.

This is how we can support your marketing efforts. This is how we support the agents. Um, so we're thinking about what does good look like, I have a hard time boiling it past. looks like genuine and honest, open heart, open mind, curiosity, and I think out of that, structure, builds collaboration, builds influence, but it's curiosity boiled down to that.

Sarah Caminiti: I'm so sorry, Arlyne. That's a really hard one to follow up on. Uh,

Arlyne Pardo: What I can

Sarah Caminiti: nailed it.

Arlyne Pardo: can add to that is trust.

Dan Smitley: Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti: Yep.

Arlyne Pardo: That's how it looks good for a WFM team. Whenever a WF team is delivering a data or schedule or forecast, when you have, have that trust from operations, from your stakeholders, from your agents, that you are [00:52:00] doing it with your best intentions. That means a lot in WFN.

Sarah Caminiti: Yeah. I, I love it. I, and I, I think that those are such strong anchors, and that is a really important thing for us to end this episode on because the next and final episode of the series is strategic partnerships. And you cannot build strategic partnerships without curiosity, and you cannot sustain those strategic partnerships without trust.

Uh, so. You guys are just nailing it. Uh, thank you so, so much for episode three of this WFM series. I learned so much in this episode as I have with the other two, but thank you for your time, for your curiosity and your trust in me for this. And, uh, I cannot wait for us to, uh, to have episode four rollout [00:53:00] as well.

So thank you both.

Arlyne Pardo: Thank you. Can't wait.