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Outsourced Workforce Planning Solutions

As anyone with experience in the contact centre industry will tell you, a good Workforce Manager is worth their weight in gold.

According to recent Australian Contact Centre Salary information, a Workforce Manager's salary is, on average, $133,000 AUD plus superannuation, and that's when you can find one as they are in short supply.

It's one of the core reasons companies are now looking to outsource their workforce planning to professional outsourcing organisations that specialise in workforce management/workforce optimisation for contact centres. 

And there's a good reason to get your workforce planning right. 

With labour typically the largest expense in a contact centre (approx 70% to 80% of the total budget), even just a 1% improvement in efficiency can lead to significant cost savings in large centres.

Whilst typically, the WFM functions have been done in-house, outsourcing your workforce management (WFM) functions can deliver you some significant savings and reduce the burden placed on your call centre team leaders or managers who are often required to perform the WFM/WFO functions in addition to their normal duties.

And if considering outsourcing your WFM function overseas to the Philippines or India, you can save considerable costs.

What does a Call Centre Workforce Management (WFM) Professional do?

A Workforce Management (WFM) professional in call centres is responsible for a range of critical functions that ensure the efficient operation of the call centre.

Their primary duties include forecasting call volumes based on historical data and trends, scheduling staff to meet anticipated demand, and managing real-time adherence to schedules.

They also monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as service levels, average handle time, and occupancy rates to optimise resource allocation.

Additionally, WFM professionals handle the planning and coordination of breaks, training sessions, and meetings to minimise impact on service levels, while also adjusting schedules dynamically in response to unexpected fluctuations in call volume or staffing. 

Their role in the call centre is vital in balancing customer service quality with operational efficiency.

Call Centre Workforce Planning Functions You Can Outsource

You can outsource all of your WFM functions or discrete functions depending on your requirements.

Common workforce management functions you can outsource include: 

  • Forecast workloads and create agent rosters to meet business objectives, including Service Levels. 
  • Manage sick leave and unplanned activities and adjust break times to maximise efficiency. 
  • Move agents to different queues or back-office functions in real-time to meet business priorities.
  • Redirect agents to offline activities when call volumes are lower than forecasted (e.g. training, coaching, back-office work)
  • Distribute work tasks across multiple parallel business processes
  • Allocate and re-allocate work according to current skills and staff availability
  • Analyse productivity, staff skills, and unit costs
  • Provide a range of reporting and analysis on efficiencies, agent performance, service-level agreements (SLAs), quality etc

You may also be interested in suppliers for:

Learn More about WFM

Just like this Directory, ACXPA (Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association) provides a range of resources to support the contact centre industry and workforce management professionals in Australia, including:

Select a Country for your Workforce Planning (WFM)

You can find WFM Outsourcers by country below or using the search filters to discover other back-office outsourcing partners by function or country.