A recent survey shows that almost 75% of consumers use at least three different channels of communication to interact with a business. Are your employees ready? Contact centers need to have the right resources in the right places at the right times, handling each interaction and work item in the most appropriate way. Contact center planners, forecasters, team members and leaders have different requirements that need to be provided for in an integrated environment to enable operational visibility and performance insights. View this slideshare and learn the seven key capabilities for a powerful contact center Workforce Management (WFM) solution. Want more information on this topic? Get the omnichannel chapter of the Contact Babel report http://gsys.co/VGICW

1. Key Capabilities for a
POWERFULWorkforce Management
Solution
eBook
7

2. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 2
The USERS of Workforce Management
solutions have different requirements
that need to be provided for in an
integrated environment to enable
CLEAR VISIBILITY AND INSIGHT.

3. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 3
The Key Questions!
User: Forecaster
What will happen longer term?
How do I build an accurate forecast?
How can I spend less time on
preparing data & more time
on value added analysis?

4. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 4
The Key Questions!
User: Planner
What is the best way to deliver a
comprehensive schedule to meet the forecast?
How do I accommodate for leave
and breaks, shrinkage and training?
What does my coverage look
like after the training?
How does it change?

5. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 5
The Key Questions!
User: Team Leaders
Where are my team members?
Are they doing the right work
at the right time?
Do they have the right skills
to do the work assigned
to them?
How is reality different
from planning?
What can I do about it?

6. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 6
The Key Questions!
User: Team Members
What does my schedule
look like?
When is my break?
Can I pick/trade a shift?
Can I take leave?
How does my performance
match up with expectations?
How can I get additional
training?
Can I share transportation
with my colleague?

7. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 7
7 Key Capabilities For a POWERFUL Workforce
Management Solution
Cross-channel Workforce Management
Forecasting Scheduling
Real Time
Management
Employee Empowerment
& Enrichment
Interaction DeliveryReporting

8. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 8
1 Cross-Channel Workforce
Management
Cross-channel workforce management leads to superior customer experiences
A recent survey shows that almost 75% of consumers use at least three, and sometimes five, different channels of
communication to interact with your business. Are your employees ready?
You need to have the right resources in the right places at the right times, handling each interaction and work item in the
most appropriate way. A cross-channel workforce management strategy provides cross-channel insight for more accurate
forecasting and scheduling. It also helps ensure that you’re distributing work to the employees who are the most skilled
at handling each particular type of interaction (voice, email, chat, web, etc) – so that you can provide the best possible
experiences for your customers, each and every time.
1 channel 2 channels 3 channels 4 channels 5 or more channels
25%
52%
22%
of consumers use
1 or 2 channels
of consumers use
3 or 4 channels
of consumers use
5 or more channels
Source: Ovum Research

9. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 9
2 Forecasting
Track capacity shrinkage
Forecasters must be allowed to select and apply multiple
overhead templates that show individual shrinkages which can
be applied to a forecast at interval level. This greatly improves the
accuracy of your staffing.
Define ‘external events’ that impact the forecast
External events such as thunderstorms and floods, or other events
like marketing campaigns you are not aware of, can influence your
organization’s performance. You should be able to separate these
events from your historic information, or insert them at the precise
moment they happen, so that you can better analyze the impact
based on both the relevant history, and on individual occurrences.
Cross-channel workforce management leads
to superior customer experiences
For strategic planning and tactical purposes you want to create
multiple forecast scenarios to understand what the staffing and
cost implications are. What happens if my volume grows 5% each
year or what is the increase in performance outcomes if I add 25
FTE to an activity?
!
!
!

10. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 10
3 Scheduling
Build schedules across multiple sites
Each individual site should be integrated into a comprehensive view when building schedules, so that meals, breaks,
meetings and task sequences are accounted for as a whole, rather than having isolated views for each site.
Display agent schedule on a mobile device
Giving employees the option to view their schedule on their smart phone or tablet is a great communication tool, and keeps
employees informed, even when they are not at work.
Schedules with hypothetical ‘profile agents’
By quickly adding ‘profile agents’ you can build schedules without knowing the exact details of these agents. This is
extremely useful when it comes to planning for the future, especially when you create schedules for your outsourcers,
for example.

11. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 11
4 Real-time Management
Compare forecasted, scheduled and actual data
Understanding what the deviations are between what you forecasted, how many employees you scheduled and what the
reality is, gives you actionable data to make real-time decisions when you may not be reaching your performance objectives.
Real-time adherence
Employees do not always adhere to the schedules you give them. Having real-time insight as to what your employees should
be doing, and what they really are doing, will help provide a better customer experience and ensure constant coverage.
Visual Alarms
Configuring visual alarms that automatically activate when the variance between expected values and actual values breaches
a specific threshold, increases your ability to determine and resolve issues quickly.

12. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 12
5 Employee Empowerment
& Enrichment
Request time off and keep track of preferences
Providing team members easy-to-use tools to request time off and list their preferences can be a big time-saver – especially
an integrated, agent-oriented web application. Based on configurable rules, requests can be taken into consideration, granted
or revoked automatically or by a team leader or manager.
Trade or bid on a shift
Trading and bidding on a shift helps organizations to find the right balance between providing schedules that meet business
objectives, while still providing flexibility to your team members. Within defined parameters, team members can trade a shift
without compromising your service levels.
Enable automated employee training and enrichment
A really good workforce management system should be able to determine areas where improvements can be made
(Handle times need improvements? Skills need a boost?) and automatically incorporate customized training at the optimum
time – all the while taking into account employee availability, trainer led and/or eLearning options, classroom availability and
potential service level impact.

13. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 13
6 Reporting
Out of the box report templates
Reports for forecasting, scheduling, time off, overtime and other parameters should be available, and in use, when you first
install it.
Trend reports
It’s important to create multi-day, cross-channel reports, using intraday granularity, for contact center and workforce
performance. This helps you to more easily spot trends and issues that might impact the business.
Export information to external systems
Some of your other information systems, like HR or payroll, may need information that resides in your workforce
management solution. You should be able to make this information accessible across the business.

14. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 14
7 Interaction & Work Delivery
Deliver interactions and work items
Scheduling and delivery of interactions and work go hand in hand. One cannot live without the other. Modern Workforce
Management solutions should be tightly integrated with your contact center environment for maximum effectiveness.
Reduce overtime costs
By integrating your workforce management solution to your routing system, you can stop delivering work to employees whose
shifts are about to end, or who are already off-shift, reducing the high costs often associated with overtime.
Create a happier work environment
By ensuring that your employees only get assigned to work that is both timely and appropriate to their skill sets (Channels or
work types? Languages? Special customers?), they will be happier doing their jobs, which reduces attrition and the high cost
of employee turnover (replacement and training).
Outbound
Mobile App
Branch Office Self-Service
The Web
Inbound
Front Office
Back Office
“Changes to the schedule drive routing decisions and put the operations team firmly in control.”
Schedule-based Routing

15. 7 Key Capabilities for a Powerful Workforce Management Solution 15
These 7 Capabilities Provide
The Tools You Need For A
More Successful Workforce
Cross-channel Workforce Management
Forecasting Scheduling
Real Time
Management
Employee Empowerment
& Enrichment
Interaction DeliveryReporting

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About Genesys
Genesys is the market leader in multi-channel customer experience (CX) and contact center solutions in the cloud and on-premises. We help brands of
all sizes make great CX great business. The Genesys Customer Experience Platform powers optimal customer journeys consistently across all touchpoints,
channels and interactions to turn customers into brand advocates. Genesys is trusted by over 4,500 customers in 80 countries to orchestrate more than
100 million digital and voice interactions each day.