Posted On: 05-05-2021
Position Title: Director, Forecasting and Scheduling
Job Location:
Apply Online: https://careers.blackboard.com/technology/position/director-forecasting-and-scheduling-reston-va-usa

The Opportunity:
We’re looking for a Director, Forecasting and Scheduling to help us push the boundaries of what education can offer through the power of technology. Education is our passion, and our team members bring that to work each day as they aim to advance learning in every region of the world. Blackboard is the world’s leading education technology company, providing dynamic products and services to the global education community. We’re focused on driving innovation in EdTech and working with our clients to create a smarter learning environment.

For more information about Blackboard and our career opportunities, please visit www.blackboard.com.

The Blackboard Student Success team provides a suite of services designed to improve the student and faculty experience for higher education clients. These services include Help Desk support, assistance with registration/financial aid as well as marketing/enrollment/retention services. The Director, Forecasting and Scheduling position is an exciting opportunity to manage a team of Forecasting and Scheduling professionals whose mission is to build, communicate, and deploy a staffing plan that meets both financial and client needs for a global contact center environment. In this role, you will work directly with various Blackboard internal departments, external vendors, and clients directly to facilitate an effective staffing/capacity plan. You will be responsible for the capacity plan as well as analysis of actual performance vs plan and leading strategies for continual improvement. You will be responsible for real-time tracking and forward-looking projections of contact center expense and budget compliance.

A successful candidate will be able to leverage leading contact center technologies and best practices to drive the optimal performance of the Forecasting and Scheduling team is support of the contact center.

Primary responsibilities will include:

  • Being accountable for the capacity planning and budget management of the Blackboard Student Services (BbSS) contact center environment
  • Establishing policies, procedures, and processes for the BbSS contact center associated with staffing, scheduling, forecasting, and planning
  • Designing and implementing scheduling and capacity planning to support multiple contact center locations
  • Building, developing, and leading the Forecasting and Scheduling function into a highly responsive team that meets the required standards and delivers on critical staff planning activities:
    • Planning for the day (volume forecasting, staff scheduling)
    • Planning for the week (making scheduling adjustments including OT plans)
    • Forecasting for the month
    • Measuring results
  • Ensuring clear goals, objectives, and performance standards are established and communicated across all levels within the team and for cross-functional partners
  • Developing/managing capacity planning tools to accurately forecast customer volume via various channels hourly, daily, and monthly. Translating this information into hiring forecasts and staff schedules. Optimizing schedule placement to best match volume arrival patterns
  • Identifying and leading innovative strategic change initiatives that impact the long-term efficiency, agent satisfaction and overall performance within the contact center environment
  • Analyzing volume drivers by source, handle time, root cause to effectively identify event avoidance and contact reduction opportunities
  • Utilizing forecasting/staffing information to properly support the contact center Operations in terms of seat capacity, work locations, workstations, hardware, etc.
  • Ensuring that the appropriate business rules are in place in each of our systems including but not limited to Aspect Workforce
  • Championing the optimization of existing contact center management technologies and leading search for new vendors that can add long-term value
  • Reviewing team procedures and process flows regularly to ensure that they meet guidelines and Client needs
  • Forecasting capacity requirements for licensing and infrastructure
  • Participating in and leading special projects as needed
  • Forecasting resource requirements and tracking expenditures against the established budget
  • Ensuring adherence with all key performance indicators for assigned lines of business (including, but not limited to, contractual SLAs, call quality scores, and schedule adherence)
  • Reviewing weekly staff plan with recruiting, operations, finance, and executive leadership
  • Attending daily, weekly, and monthly staff and operational meetings as requested
  • Partnering and coordinating with BbSS Real-time Operations Center team to provide targets for off-phone activities at an intraday level
  • Fostering and maintaining a culture and work environment that makes the BbSS Forecasting and Scheduling group a highly desirable team for employees to work
  • Supporting the entire contact center group, and specifically the Operations team, in making BbSS an employer of choice
  • Producing ad-hoc and standard reports and analysis as needed for the Senior Director, Business Planning and Analytics
  • Managing the team in terms of staff requirements, job descriptions, staff appraisals, set performance objectives, work discipline and administer salary reviews
  • Researching and recommending process improvement solutions, ensuring efficiency and currency of the established procedures to achieve optimum performance levels for the contact center operations
  • Providing constant reviews and feedback on areas of potential risks and threats to identify these risk elements and take appropriate corrective and/or preventive measures

 

The Candidate:

Required skills/qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
  • 10+ years of prior relevant experience
  • 5+ years of Contact Center experience
  • 3+ years of management experience
  • Administrative level experience with Aspect Workforce technology
  • Prior supervisory experience required and understanding of Avaya contact center technology and Microsoft Office Applications
  • Ability to manage multiple job tasks at one time
  • Able to focus in a fast paced, flexible environment
  • Strong attention to detail
  • Excellent oral and written communication skills
  • Ability to adapt to change
  • Ability to manage stress appropriately
  • Ability to build a positive work environment across many sites and influence leaders outside of direct responsibility

Preferred skills/qualifications:

  • 2+ years of Outsourcing Contact Center environment experience

This job description is not designed to contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required. Nothing in this job description restricts management’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities at any time.

Blackboard is an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, gender, age, color, religion, national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, protected military/veteran status, or any other legally protected factor.

This position is not available for candidates residing in the following states: CA, CO, MA