Draft Agenda
SWPP Annual Conference
May 15-17, 2023
Sunday, May 14
4:00-6:00 p.m. – Registration
4:00-5:00 p.m. – Complimentary Pre-conference Session
Roadmap to the SWPP Annual Conference. New to the SWPP conference? Come to this fun and interactive session to hear how to make the most of your time at this event. Review the agenda and learn how these key topics will give you specific takeaways for your organization and help you with business decisions down the road. – Speakers: Rick Seeley, McKesson, & Sandra McFatridge, Nissan – Music Row 5
Monday, May 15
7:30-9:30 a.m. – Registration & Continental Breakfast – Legends Ballroom Foyer
9:30-10:45 a.m. – Welcome & Keynote Address
From Stuck to Unstoppable: How to Unleash Your Leadership Potential. Are you feeling stuck and frustrated in your personal and professional growth? Are you looking for opportunities to grow your influence and have a meaningful impact on the lives of those around you? Then get ready to attend a high-energy and empowering speech that will ignite the leader within you. In this presentation, customer experience expert Justin Robbins will have you laughing, learning, and leveling up all at the same time! With a mix of humor, storytelling, and practical advice, he’ll share proven strategies, tactics, and insights on how to overcome self-doubt, cultivate a growth mindset, and tap into your unique strengths and skills as a leader. You’ll leave inspired and motivated, knowing that everyone can lead. You can transform your team, organization, and community with the right tools and mindset. Whether you’re a seasoned leader or just starting your career, this keynote will give you the practical and actionable tips you need to unleash your full leadership potential. – Speaker: Justin Robbins, Metric Sherpa – Legends Ballroom
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. – Workshops
Preparing to Forecast: Decisions and Data for the Planning Process. There are many steps in data review and analysis before the forecasting process begins. In this seminar, you will learn about the up-front essentials of forecasting workload. Hear about the sources of input data and how to decide which best represents future needs. Learn about agent work state activity and techniques to ensure you have predictive AHT data. Practice identifying and adjusting for data aberrations and other considerations for data cleanup before it enters the forecasting process. You will also hear about forecasting models and how to choose the one the best represents your business and calling patterns. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 1
Where Are We Going? Looking Into the Future of the Industry. Will bots be doing WFM in the future? Will we have UBER agents working from tablets and mobile devices while they catch Pokémon in between calls? Technology is changing seemingly at the speed of light and what do you need to be prepared for and thinking about to stay one step ahead, not just in WFM, but in partnering with an ever-changing workforce. A panel of long time industry veterans shares not only what they see in our future, but how they maintained “fresh space” to keep an eye on the prize while navigating the sea of change. – Panelists: Jason Persico, Wyndham Destinations, Jessie Cessna, FIS, & Marshall Lee, ttec – Cumberland 2
Innovative Ways to Schedule. Ever wonder what other companies have done to get the most out of their schedules using creative scheduling and flexibility? Come join this interactive panel where we share our success/failures, best practices, and tips and tricks for you to put your ideas into place. You will also have the opportunity to share some of your own creative options that you have implemented and your experiences. The panel will also look at how labor laws affect different states, nations, and geographies and how to effectively manage these challenges. – Panelists: Jessica Harris, EPIQ Global, Sandra McFatridge, Nissan, & Chanda Chambliss, UAGC – Music Row 5
How Intelligent Automation Solves Staffing Challenges in Today’s Agent Focused Work Environment. Agent concerns don’t exist in a silo – they impact business goals: Turnover, CSAT, Productivity and Costs. Employee engagement can be hard to achieve, and remote work isn’t making it easier. Come to this session to learn how intelligent automation can solve staffing challenges while empowering your employees. – Speakers: Rick Tirado & Mark Gill, NICE – Music Row 1
Managing More Than Just Your Workforce: You’re Taking Care of Everyone Else, But Who’s Taking Care of You? Whether it’s the operations team, our bosses, our kids, the local non-profit committees… we are used to putting others first. We excel at pushing ourselves past our limits to deliver the latest report or the best forecast anyone has ever seen. We have made a name for ourselves by being the go-to person for almost everything, and we’re wondering why we feel burnt out. Join Dan Smitley as he talks through the importance of self-care, why saying “no” is in your best interest, and how setting appropriate boundaries will advance your career more than always being connected to work. – Speaker: Dan Smitley, Call Design – Music Row 2
SWAT Teams – in the Contact Center and Beyond! Contact center staff isn’t just for the contact center anymore! Learn how Transamerica implemented a workforce-driven, labor sharing strategy used across multiple departments, We will review how to identify labor share opportunities, the structure of shared labor teams, and the ROI for the business and the employees along with a few unexpected successes. – Speaker: Jeremiah Buehler, Transamerica – Music Row 3
Using Metrics to Tell Your Efficiency Story. It is common in contact center operations to display wallboards and dashboards that show overall performance and average agent performance. They help, but they do not show a clear picture. So, how do you manage your (sometimes at home) workforce using great analytics? In this session, we will discuss — together — ways to measure agent performance that may be a little more effective and non-traditional. Our hope is that we can all share ideas for analytics and measures. Some topics will include: agent performance and outliers, agent performance by queue or channel, call-back analysis, analysis of abandons, effectiveness of each channel and channel blend, and end-customer level of effort and our cost to service. – Speaker: Ric Kosiba – Music Row 4
Lessons Learned from Changing WFM Software Systems. So you are getting a new WFM software system. You might be really excited or you might be really anxious. Hear from a panel who has been through the process as they share information about common issues and pitfalls to be aware of. Hear how to navigate pain points such as loss of functionality, user acceptance, and changes in processes. The biggest lesson is: it will all be OK! – Panelists: Matthew Hays, Northwestern Mutual, Marisa Wilkinson, Transamerica, & Bob Dobson – Music Row 6
12:15-1:45 p.m. – Luncheon & WFM Professional of the Year Award – Legends Ballroom
1:45-3:00 p.m. – Workshops
Forecasting Basics: Predicting for Months, Weeks, Days, and Intervals. In this seminar, you will learn the step-by-step process of applying Time Series Analysis to predict future workload. Learn how to identify trend rates and seasonality patterns for a monthly call forecast. After the monthly forecast is in place, the next step in the planning process is to break down the predictions to weekly, daily, and interval numbers. Hear the process and calculations to use to distribute a monthly workload all the way down into intervals for scheduling. Finally, take a look at some right and wrong ways to review forecast accuracy to fine-tune future predictions. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 1
Generation WHAT? Understanding Generations and Their Impact on WFM in the Modern Contact Center. Gen Z, Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X – some have names and letters? The years change, and what is a Xennial? Does any of this matter? What is a Yeet? The most awkward moments can come at a holiday meal when you sit around and the now grown up kids are home from college, and their parents are sitting with them, and the grandparents and everyone tries to connect; or it can happen in a Zoom – or in a shift bid. Generations and context matter because the world evolves – change is rapid, but the human experience is constant. In this session we will talk about some of the things that impact how each of the main cohorts in the workforce today can influence what you do, and how they impact your role and even your work as a team. No single session can cover all of generational theory, but we can equip you with some strategies to have some meaningful moments, give some understanding to what the current definitions are, and maybe avoid some cringe. No Cap – I mean, for real. – Speakers: Marshall Lee, ttec, & Allen Manchester, Paychex – Music Row 2
Surveying Your Agents to get Feedback for WFM. We survey our customers all the time to get their feedback on our service. The WFM team should also be surveying our agents to hear what we are doing right, and where can improve. There are also opportunities to ask about preferred schedules and find new opportunities for creative options in scheduling. – Panelists: Jessica Harris, EPIQ Global, & Jason Persico, Wyndham Destinations – Music Row 5
4 Major WEM Trends to Watch For in 2024. Any workforce professional is aware of the price you pay by not accurately planning. Although no one can predict the future with precision accuracy, workforce management teams can proactively plan, manage and track performance against anticipated trends. Emerging from the pandemic, many contact center management teams are asking themselves how they can adapt to get ahead of potential challenges in 2024. The most proactive organizations are bound to gain a competitive edge in the market by doing so. Join us for an engaging panel discussion where we’ll cover how workforce planners can benefit from implementing WEM trends and utilize people-empowered solutions to evaluate how and if they’re returning to the office, assess areas to increase operational efficiencies, prepare for a possible economic recession and its impact on the workforce, and increase candidate attraction and employee engagement. – Speakers: Andrew Gilmer, Comcast, Michael Malerich, Consumer Cellular, Kim Potokar, Alliant Credit Union, & Eric Hagaman, Alvaria – Music Row 1
Preparing for a Smarter AI-Driven Employee Journey. Contact centers are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to automate and improve their operations. These AI-driven solutions are impacting contact center employees in a myriad of ways, from onboarding and enablement to speed and efficiency of handling daily workloads. In this session, the team from Genesys is going to walk you through an AI-driven employee journey that will demonstrate how AI is enhancing human qualities in the contact center. – Speaker: Robert Beasley, Genesys – Music Row 3
Workforce 3.0: Integrating and Managing Your Human, Digital, and Virtual Agent Workforce. You get customer service. You get people. You get results in the contact center. But your workforce is no longer just people. It’s digital and AI, too. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to optimize your workforce to drive cost efficiencies and solve for staffing shortages; how to triage issues and rebalance for optimal performance; and what KPIs span the live agent, virtual agent, and digitial channels – and which KPIs don’t matter anymore. – Speakers: Owen Robinson & Sarah Reitsma, Waterfield Technologies – Music Row 4
Speaking WFM to the Non-WFM Speaking Audience. In this highly interactive and fun sharing session, we will dig deep into the communication challenges that we usually don’t talk about, because frankly, we don’t know how to. We will discuss how to communicate with all levels in your organization from executives to agents, and Operations to HR. We will also talk about the importance of acronym glossaries and clear definitions that are meaningful, not convenient. Come to this session and walk away with new tools in your communication tool box. – Panelists: Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker, & Justin Robbins, Metric Sherpa – Cumberland 2
Taking Your WFM Career to the Next Level. An engaged, ambitious professional will always want to know how to improve in their job. Whether you’ve been in workforce management for a few months or few years, you should always be listening, learning, and looking for ways to advance your WFM career. This session will provide tips to improve your career outlook and offer sound advice to improve your relationships with your customers, colleagues, and leaders. – Panelists: Bryce Ackerman, Roche, & Sandra McFatridge, Nissan – Music Row 6
3:00-3:45 p.m. – Afternoon Break – Legends Ballroom
3:45-5:00 p.m. – Workshops
Essentials of Staffing: Models and Calculations for Contact Center Staff. Managing a contact center means managing by the numbers and the most important number is the right number of staff in seats at the right time. Learn the essentials of calculating staff requirements, including how to assemble workload and apply Erlang techniques to determine staffing to meet service goals. In addition to staffing for incoming telephone calls, learn how to calculate workload and apply the proper staffing techniques for outbound calling, email, and chat contacts. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 1
WFM, WFO, WEM – Isn’t it All the Same? As leaders in the contact center space, it is critical we identify and understand the differences between disciplines and solutions. In this session, hear why WFM solutions alone can’t save you and what you need to know about the future of contact centers that may shift the WFO Discipline entirely. – Speaker: Juanita Coley, Solid Rock Consulting – Cumberland 2
WFM’s Role with Business Continuity. Have you ever wondered what you or your organization would do if you had to evacuate one or more of your work sites and/or experienced high shrinkage within your WFM team for an extended amount of time due to an emergency event? This session will discuss WFM Roles including the three P’s (Planning, Preparation and Partnership) in managing the business as well as managing WFM during an event. This discussion will also assist to provide insight into Business Impact Analysis to determine overall criticality rating and maximum tolerable outage. – Speaker: Kirwyn Adderley & LaShaunda Bowdry, Walgreens – Music Row 4
Getting it Right: The Power of Having the Right WFM Team Structure. Does something not feel “right” about your WFM team’s interactions with your customers? Are your customers or team members often frustrated? Perhaps it’s time to look under the hood at your team’s organizational structure. This workshop will dive into what several companies have learned about team organization and support. We will highlight our successful team structures, roles and responsibilities, and the way we promoted our team to build respect and positive working relationships. – Panelists: John Watkinson, Rick Seeley, McKesson, & Debbie Davis, ONEGas – Music Row 5
Meet the Board SWPP Meet. Join the SWPP Board of Advisors for a SWPP Meet, as they present issues and solutions in today’s call center. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to network with your workforce management peers and discuss your toughest workforce management problems. It’s also a great time to meet the Board members and find out more about this group of industry leaders that directs SWPP’s activities and programs. – Panelists: Bryan Hovasse, Constant Contact, Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker, Jason Persico, Wyndham Destinations, Kristi Holcombe, Travelers, Todd Gladden, PlanMen, Lousie Andrew, Accor Hotels, Sandra McFatridge, Nissan, & Jeff Bretana, Navy Federal Credit Union – Music Row 3
Agent Behavior is the Least Important Reason to Track Adherence. So… What’s Important? Adherence is obviously an important metric, but there’s much more to it than just managing agent behavior. Tracking information around adherence and the data it provides creates valuable insights and accountability for all the work being completed within your contact center. In addition, keeping accurate adherence data provides a month-by-month breakdown of all activities, which helps with budgeting and strategic planning. We encourage you to attend our session to learn all things adherence and why it remains an important metric to measure correctly. – Speakers: Eric Thurber & Roger Woolley, CommunityWFM – Music Row 1
The New Age of Planning Your Contact Center Workforce. Join this discussion to learn how your organization can save time and energy when building your mid to long-range headcount plan. We’ll highlight the importance of your planning hierarchy, a reliable way to re-forecast, and a seamless way to track accuracy. We’ll also walk through several real-life stories of companies that in years past used excel and time-consuming processes to generate their mid to long range plans and how they were able to grow into a modern age process that connects all of their planning across their organizations. We’ll end the session with how to implement a change like this and open the floor to a group discussion where attendees can share what they have seen to be successful when thinking about their mid to long range plans. – Speaker: James Wilby, Keyrus – Music Row 2
Busting Industry Standards with WFM. Have you ever set out on an adventure to find out what the “Industry Standard” is? In this session we will see how industry standards can be misleading and not suited for your business and how to use the power of WFM to break through. We will also discuss the ways to get buy-in from your leadership team and in-turn, drive positive change in your organization. – Speaker: Dave Hoekstra, Calabrio – Music Row 6
5:00-7:00 p.m. – Networking Reception – Legends Ballroom
Tuesday, May 16
7:45-9:15 a.m. – Breakfast – Legends Ballroom
8:00-9:00 a.m. – Behind Closed Doors with the Sponsors
Alvaria – Cumberland 1
Calabrio – Music Row 1
Community WFM – Music Row 6
Genesys – Music Row 5
Keyrus – Music Row 3
NICE – Cumberland 2
Verint – Music Row 4
Waterfield Technologies – Music Row 2
9:15-10:30 a.m. – Workshops
Staffing Tradeoffs: Achieving a Balance of Service, Occupancy, and Cost. After determining base staff requirements, it is critical to review all the tradeoffs that impact contact center stakeholders. Learn about how callers are impacted by staffing decisions that drive speed of answer and quality of service. Review how staffing levels impact frontline staff in terms of productivity or occupancy. Finally, see how staffing levels and telecommunications factors affect revenues and costs. Hear about how one person can make an impact on service, occupancy, and cost, as well as the factors to consider when making decisions about agent group size, multi-skilling, or consolidation of sites or groups. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 1
The Hard and Hidden Costs of Attrition in Contact Centers. Agent attrition is arguably the most significant unwanted expense in the contact center industry. Yet, few executives know attrition’s monetary impact because most estimates exclude its hidden and indirect costs, causing an underestimate of $6,000 to $10,000 per agent. Miscalculating attrition-related costs creates a false sense of security that undermines decision-making and capacity planning. In this session, we will separate fact from fiction by discussing six widely-held myths about the cost of attrition. Attendees will learn a more accurate way to calculate their center’s hiring, training, nesting, and attrition expenses. – Speakers: Mark Alpern, Cinareo, & Brent Holland, Intelliante – Music Row 3
Getting What You Want from Your Workforce Data. Storing data in Excel is most helpful when you can easily organize and analyze data based on variables that you want to examine. We will walk through creating pivot tables and charts, use the basic functions of Excel within this context, format and filter information we want to analyze, and create calculated fields of new data for information. In addition, we will be reviewing examples of what you can use this for within workforce data. A sample dataset and step-by-step guide for creating Pivot tables and Charts in Excel 2010 will be provided for attendees. (Attendees should already have an understanding of the basic formulas of excel spreadsheets, formatting, filtering, and basic creation of charts.) – Speaker: Kristi Holcombe, Travelers – Music Row 2
Extending Workforce Management Support to the Back Office. The only thing consistent about the businesses we support is change. Workforce management teams are often asked to support the ever-changing environments of the business. In this session, you will hear how several organizations have tackled the movement of WFM from just inbound call handling to multi-media contacts and now to the back office environment. Hear tips and techniques to make this a more successful and smooth transition. – Panelists: Kirwyn Adderley, Walgreens, & Jeff Bretana, Navy Federal Credit Union, & Tyler McGary, Cinch Home Services – Cumberland 2
Leveraging Automation to Offset Emerging Challenges. The customer has always been king, and savvy contact center leaders recognize that the satisfaction of their frontline agents is just as critical. With the ongoing labor shortage and the widespread adoption of the work-from-home model, keeping agents engaged is more challenging than ever. We invite you to join this session to learn what tactics to use to address high attrition, how to support your in-person, hybrid, or fully remote workforce, and how to ensure agents are prepared to handle more complex voice inquiries. – Speakers: Josh Norfleet, Anthology, & Derek Eck & Larry Swift, Intradiem – Music Row 1
Solving the Workforce + Vendor Management Puzzle: Managing a Network of BPOs. Join us for a discussion about the growing need to manage BPOs more efficiently in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. With global spending on outsourced CX services expected to exceed $110 billion by 2024, teams across all industries must learn how to scale to meet rising demand while maintaining high standards for support. Our special guest speakers will share best practices for maintaining a clear line of sight into your BPOs’ activities to ensure effective collaboration and smooth operations. You’ll leave with actionable takeaways for scaling high-quality support and an understanding of the latest cutting-edge tools to help support teams and BPOs deliver seamless, exceptional customer experiences. – Speaker: Ryan Wang, Assembled – Music Row 4
Tips and Tricks for Small WFM Teams. Are you a WFM team of 1-5 people? Do you constantly feel understaffed and overwhelmed with the work you have to do? Have you learned some tricks that you’d love to share? Join us for a session that’s tailored specifically to “fun-sized” teams. We’ll discuss things like operations onboarding of WFM, becoming partners with your software and telecom team, and of course, we want your input as well. – Panelists: Mary Kathryn Dorr, Trimble Transportation, & Chelsea Cupery, Monat Global – Music Row 6
Approaches and Strategies for WFM Leaders. Trust and engagement are crucial elements when building an effective workforce management team. But once you have your team established, how do you keep them fully engaged? In this session, learn how to build and sustain a team that is collaborative, productive and inspired, all while focusing on their personal health and happiness. – Panelists: Todd Gladden, PlanMen, & John Watkinson – Music Row 5
10:30-10:45 a.m. – Break – Legends Ballroom Foyer
10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Workshops
Scheduling Strategies: Definitions and Decisions for Successful Schedules. A successful schedule plan involves many decisions on the front end that can impact the long-term and short-term effectiveness of the work shifts. In this session, learn about the fundamental concepts of calculating and applying shrinkage to arrive at schedule requirements, along with considerations of defining schedule components. Hear about how to decide on optimal schedule horizon, shift definitions, and schedule constraints, as well as some of the best strategies for optimizing schedule coverage and minimizing cost. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 1
The Pizza Party Problem – Why Incentives and Rewards Fail. One of the biggest challenges in the contact center is inspiring employees to deliver exceptional service. Is it because they want to fail in their job? Of course not! But then why do so many incentive programs fail to produce sustainable results? In this session, you’ll learn the most common mistakes made when offering incentives, gain insight on effective ways to drive performance, and have an opportunity to share and discover reward and recognition best practices from other contact center leaders. – Speaker: Justin Robbins, Metric Sherpa – Music Row 2
The 10 Things They Won’t Tell You About Forecasting. There is a lot of myth and mystique about forecasting. They tell you that there are complicated formulas and methodologies, that are so involved that you need complex software to be able to forecast. But is that really the case? Jonty Pearce shares the real-life secrets that people don’t tell you about forecasting including trend and seasonality vs volatility, removing outliers, forecasting with limited data, ARIMA vs Exponential Smoothing, the latest forecasting techniques from the academic world, and the big secret about forecast accuracy. – Speaker: Jonty Pearce, Call Centre Helper – Music Row 5
A Panel Discussion on the Migration to Work-From-Home and Hybrid Schedules. The past few years have brought many challenges, but the WFM effort of staff logistics has been a unique one. We have pivoted as agents moved to full-time work-from-home and then some have gone back to the office full-time, while others have a hybrid schedule. In our panel, we will discuss variances in processes and procedures factors such as performance metrics, attrition rates, schedules flexibility, and hiring and training processes. Pros and cons of at-home vs. in-office vs. hybrid will be examined as well as various recommendations and conclusions from the panel members. – Panelists: Jason Persico, Wyndham Destinations, Kim Felice, Conduent, & Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker – Cumberland 2
Integrating Capacity Planning and Automating Associated Processes. Why is it important and is it even possible to manage capacity planning without spreadsheets? With the ever-growing cost pressure on businesses around the world, WFM teams are often expected to churn out various planning scenarios faster than ever. In a spreadsheet-based environment, this complex process is not only time-consuming and non-scalable, but it also leads to inconsistency and manual errors resulting in additional workload for WFM teams. In this session, we will discuss the most common pitfalls of a spreadsheet-based capacity planning process and how can you address them through integration and automation. – Speaker: Mohit Shah, Datanitiv – Music Row 1
Instacart Optimizes Internal and Outsource Staffing, Managing Cost and Improving Productivity. Join this session to hear how Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, successfully manager staffing effective of thousands of agents across multiple outsourcer partners globally. From managing vendor selections, deciding who’s best to handle a particular channel to ensuring there’s the right balance of collaboration, Instacart has considered the outsourcer into every facet of their capacity planning. By leveraging the Verint Workforce Management and Desktop Analytics solutions, they have been able to optimize internal resources as well as both onshore and offshore outsourcers to improve overall visibility into staffing while maintaining anonymity between vendors. Also, learn how the company’s approach has helped it more effectively address overstaffing, understaffing, and shrinkage – and, in concert with Verint Desktop Analytics, monitor and improve productivity. Leave the session with insights, ideas, and best practices on how you too can benefit by optimizing your staffing, whether your contact center is big or small! – Speaker: Aaron Brussat & Kelly Hammond, Instacart – Music Row 3
Understanding how Real-Time Adherence Affects Your Contact Center. Schedule Adherence is a metric revealing whether or not contact center agents are following (adhering) to their assigned schedules. Schedule Adherence plays an important role in a contact center’s performance and has a large impact on your company’s ROI. Come to this session to hear tips on how to track and manage schedule adherence. – Speaker: Tommy Templin – Music Row 4
Ask the Workforce Wizard. This session is your chance to ask our panel of experts anything WFM! This interactive panel will answer questions submitted and chosen by conference attendees. If you have a question or an issue that has been a challenge to your team, bring your question to this session! The audience will also get a chance to give some input. This session will be dynamic and informative, but the topics covered will be chosen by you and your peers at the event. – Panelists: Marshall Lee, ttec, Bryan Hovasse, Constant Contact, Todd Gladden, PlanMen, Rick Seeley, McKesson, Sandra McFatridge, Nissan, & Louise Andrew, Accor Hotels – Music Row 6
12:00-1:30 p.m. – Luncheon & WFM Jeopardy – Legends Ballroom
1:30-2:45 p.m. – Workshops
Managing Schedule Adherence: Creating an In-Place and On-Time Culture. An accurate forecast and perfectly constructed schedules don’t mean much if the frontline staff are not following the plan. In this session, you will learn various measures of how to measure adherence and quantify the problem of schedule non-adherence. See how common principles of performance management can be applied to identify reasons for non-adherence and what you can do to change adherence behaviors. Hear how some centers have created an adherence culture that works. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 1
Signs of Success: Metrics and Measures of WFM Performance. Almost every contact center employee has a performance scorecard, outlining expected levels of performance in many different areas. The workforce management team is no exception. While the tasks may vary from center to center depending on size and functional design, there are common ways to define metrics that point to good performance and a job well done. Learn about the four components of WFM success, along with different ways to measure and report the numbers. See measurement case studies, along with best practices for defining WFM metrics. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 2
Let’s Talk about Shrinkage. Shrinkage is something that we try to quantify, want to own, attempt to plan, but always fight. In this session we will discuss shrinkage planning, categorization, and how you can become the ally you need to be to your operations team. Like a good cup of coffee, whether it is iced, hot, or mocha, it’s about what works for you when you need it. So come join us as we brew up a special blend of method, practice, and communication around shrinkage planning. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Music Row 5
Workforce Management Certification Workshop. This workshop provides attendees with information on the certification preparation and process to attain the title of Certified Workforce Planning Professional (CWPP). What is CWPP Certification from SWPP all about? What will it do for you in the workforce management field? What are the requirements for certification? How do you prepare? These and other questions are answered by a panel of workforce management professionals who have already achieved the CWPP designation. – Facilitators: Kristi Holcombe, Travelers, Louise Andrew, Accor Hotels, & Todd Gladden, PlanMen – Music Row 2
The Survey (and You!) Said… Top Workforce Management Trends. What’s hot and what’s not in workforce planning and management? Join us in this interactive session that showcases the survey results and best practices from the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP). Each quarter SWPP surveys the workforce management community on critical topics. Hear the results of some of the most interesting surveys from the past few years. We will also open up the discussion to encourage attendees to share your own experiences as well. See the trends in our industry today from SWPP members – and your own organization! – Speakers: Jessica Harris, EPIQ Global, Jeff Bretana, Navy Federal Credit Union, & Rick Seeley, McKesson – Music Row 3
Maximizing Agent Investments with WFM. Businesses have transformed in the way they connect to customers, and that means your workforce processes also need a makeover. On top of that, with the current state of the economy, maximizing agent investments in a cost conscious environment has become critical. Join us to discuss how you can maximize your investments in your WFM solution. We will also hear from a Playvox valued customer, Angi, who will discuss how they have been increasing accountability with their BPOs, review their current state of process maturation, and where they want to be in the future. – Speakers: Chrissy Calabrese, Playvox, & Rob Lajeunesse, Angi – Music Row 1
Overcoming the Recession with Workforce Management. After the last few years, companies must consider how they are going to adapt to the rapidly evolving state of the economy. As rumors of a recession circulate, companies must consider how to operate more cost-effectively, but also how to ensure their current employees are engaged. It’s imperative for organizations to proactively create strategies that attract, retain and help promote employees –all while providing them with the right technology to achieve success. No one is left completely unscathed by the impact of a recession but ensuring you get the most value out of your strategic technology investment and focusing on keeping employees engaged means higher retention and better customer satisfaction overall. Join us for an enlightening discussion where we’ll cover how workforce planners are combatting the impact of a recession by reducing operational costs and getting more from their technology investment, promoting opportunities for employee growth for higher retention, and offering employees more flexibility and control of their work/life balance for greater engagement. – Speaker: Eric Hagaman, Alvaria, & Zachary Haddenham, eBay – Music Row 4
New Data to Optimize Remote, Office, and Hybrid Call Centers. New data to optimize remote, office, and hybrid call centers – A panel of senior executives from leading North American Healthcare & Financial Services organizations will explore how a new stream of data is enabling them to further optimize their call centers. By complementing traditional ACD data with agent endpoint data (desktops etc.), these organizations are able not to provide previously unobtainable insight into agent performance. With remote and hybrid agents and managers, understanding the drivers behind agent performance has never been harder. This new insight provides managers with shrinkage, AHT, Wrap, idle time, etc. insight to enable change to deliver pre-pandemic (and better!) performance. – Moderator: Michael Cupps, ActiveOps – Panelists: Melissa Gagnon, TD Bank, Gregory Gowern, Elevance Health, & Darren Taylor – Music Row 6
2:45-3:45 p.m. – Ice Cream Social with the Sponsors – Legends Ballroom
3:45-5:00 p.m. – Workshops
Managing Daily Service: An Intra-Day Plan to Keep Staffing and Service on Track. Achieving intra-day success involves a process of monitoring, tracking, assessing, and acting to ensure staffing levels stay in tact to deliver service regardless of the events of the day. In this session, you will learn about ways to monitor and track call volume, handle time, and staffing throughout the day in time to make changes as needed to impact service. Hear about communications and reaction strategies to affect both under-staffing and over-staffing with minimal disruption and maximum coverage. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 1
Quiet Quitting and the Role of WFM in the Back Office. The trend of “quiet quitting” certainly took 2022 by storm. With our back office models often dependent upon productivity rates derived from self-reported tools, how can we ensure we’ve got enough staff to do the job without overburdening our firm’s expenses? Learn how one WFM team leveraged advanced capabilities from their WFM tools to automated productivity tracking, remove noise from productivity measurements, and deliver reduced staffing cost to the organization. – Speaker: Cory Koehler, Cigna – Music Row 4
By Their Design, Contact Centers Carry Latent Capacity – True? Well, maybe… Hear from TD Bank about how they used some new technology to uncover and utilize spare capacity to deliver significant cost savings across the business. For the past 15 years, the way in which organizations have deployed WFM practices hasn’t changed greatly. Hear how TD Bank adopted something new across the front and back office that changed the way the business services customers, increasing customer experience, and reducing cost. – Speaker: Thomas Frosina, TD Bank – Music Row 6
Schedule Alignment One: The Work-Force Awakens. In a constant battle between the dark and light side of business need and agent preference, a new hope has arisen! When the warriors of truth and justice serving the all-powerful workforce seem overwhelmed by the unending demands placed on the resources, there is a new light dawning. Scheduling in the modern contact center may not literally be as complicated as hitting the one shot that destroys the Death Star while avoiding a certain breath masked villain, but the ever changing complexities certainly. Make it feel that way. In this session, hear how to build a successful culture and processes around staffing alignment in contact centers of all sizes and channels. Come ready to share and learn as we talk through how to best move through the ever-changing world of scheduling. The Work-force will be with you. – Speakers: Marshall Lee, ttec, & Jeff Bretana, Navy Federal Credit Union – Cumberland 2
Workforce Management Certification Practice “Bee.” Play this fun, interactive game to test your knowledge and get a flavor for the questions included in the Certified Workforce Planning Professional (CWPP) exams. Attend this session to see what you need to know in order to be successful in the pursuit of CWPP certification through SWPP. – Facilitators: Kristi Holcombe, Travelers, Louise Andrew, Accor Hotels, & Todd Gladden, PlanMen — Music Row 2
Omni Channel Impacts to Service Level and Revenue. Contact centers continue to open new channels for customers, but is there a strategy developed for each channel? During this session, we will discuss common contact center challenges that arise from under-developed channel strategies and how your WFM team can develop a forecasting and scheduling strategy that best suits the needs of your organization. – Speakers: Juanita Coley, Solid Rock Consulting, & Tatiana Goff-Morrell, Google – Music Row 5
Building a Successful WFM Team Through Building WFM Bench Strength. Ever have the problem that there’s just not enough time in the day to achieve your WFM goals and grow as an WFM employee? If so, you are likely not alone. Adapting to an increasing focus on employee satisfaction while still having to provide timely service using a cost effective business model, it can seem like there’s never enough time to get ahead and grow. This session will walk through our journey of leveraging Contact Center employees to increase WFM bench strength, which has in turn led to increased development of WFM employees, allowed Contact Center staff to grow their competencies and act as ambassadors for the WFM team, and ultimately led to positioning the team to meet the increasing demand of the organization. – Speakers: John Bradshaw & Philip Patzwahl, Medical Mutual – Music Row 3
Breaking the Chains of WFM Paradigms. Your customers have a lot of ways to communicate with you; with easier contacts often diverted to bots, the interactions your agents are handling are longer and more complicated than ever. But when information about the contact isn’t available until after the interaction ends, it’s almost impossible to plan work across intervals. Traditional WFM paradigms create silos of inaccurate data that get in the way of your ability to manage your teams in today’s blended digital office. Attend this session to learn more about how NICE WFM True to Interval is breaking the chains of the WFM Paradigm. – Speaker: Nathan Stearns, NICE – Music Row 1
6:15 p.m. – Depart for Evening Event – Fifth Avenue entrance to the Omni Nashville
6:30-9:30 p.m. – Evening Event at Margaritaville
Wednesday, May 17
7:45-8:45 a.m. – Breakfast – Legends Ballroom
8:45-10:00 a.m. – Workshops
Skill-Based Routing Fundamentals — Part I. Skill-based routing is a powerful tool that can help call centers with many different call types handle them more effectively from both a customer and staff perspective. It can be equally powerful when applied to multiple contact channels – calls, emails, fax, and web chat – that most centers must handle today. This session provides a map to guide you through a process of applying skill-based routing fundamentals to the multi-channel environment. You’ll learn how to determine and assign priorities in order to manage service differences and make the most of your staff skills. Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 1
60 Ideas in 60 Minutes – WFM Tips & Techniques from Real-Life Experiences. This fast-paced session with a panel of your WFM peers will have you writing furiously as you try to capture an idea a minute on paper! This format will give you some last minute tips to take home and implement immediately – if you can catch them all! – Cumberland 2
Finding Your Voice in Non-Voice WFM. Are you being asked to tackle non-voice and back office workforce planning? Is call center, and voice your expertise, but things that move, are paper, social media, chat, or other things that don’t talk back – not really your thing? Come find how to speak a different language other than voice. In this session we will learn how to answer the “ but I am different “ challenge and how to build a culture of change for WFM when it is introduced into a new space, or readapted to a non-voice world. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Music Row 5
Attrition & Recruitment in the New Normal: A Gerber Life Case Study. As we enter the “New Normal” after the past few years, we now have a brand-new level of employee empowerment. How do we compete with the gig economy and still meet our Service Levels, or cope with a consistent shortage of staff? We will talk about how we went from a big fish in the remote hiring pool to just one of many competing companies and the adjustments made to ensure our customers are still getting top notch Customer Service. – Speakers: Teresa Howe & Chad Pierce, Gerber Life – Music Row 1
Adhering to a Back Office Plan. Operationalizing the back office to conform to WFM principles can be a challenge. Join Green Shield Canada as they share their success story on how to deploy an “earned work model” that drove productivity increases, reduced wage cost, and improved accountability to back-office production areas. Learn the math, share in the experience, and engage with questions so that YOU can roll out an effective back-office measurement strategy! – Speakers: Brandon Emms, Ashley Cooper, & Stephen Blair, GreenShield – Music Row 3
Outsourcing Challenges Examined. This session focuses on outsourcing relationships from a workforce management point of view. Whether you are currently outsourcing or just thinking about it, be sure to join this interactive panel discussion and hear from industry experts with a wide range of outsourcing experience. Key topics will include forecasting, scheduling, and real time management. – Panelists: Bob Dobson, Allen Manchester, Paychex, & Kim Felice, Conduent – Music Row 2
I’m not a Unicorn 2023! Let’s Talk Diversity in WFM. Join our group for an open discussion about inclusion, equity and diversity’s role in workforce management. Why is diversity important in WFM? How can we foster more inclusion and equity? What has your contact center been doing about diversity? What are your obstacles and how have you overcome them? – Panelists: Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker, Kirwyn Adderley, Walgreens, Tiffney Spicer, EverService, & Juanita Coley, Solid Rock Consulting – Music Row 4
10:00-10:15 a.m. – Break – Legends Ballroom Foyer
10:15-11:30 a.m. – Workshops
Skill-Based Scheduling Case Study — Part II. In Part II of this workshop, you’ll see the basic skill-based routing principles applied using two case study examples. We’ll review two different types of centers with varying sizes and mixtures of skills. These examples will demonstrate a variety of challenges and how they can be effectively met in the routing design and the schedule planning. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own SBR designs, plans and challenges for discussion in this problem-solving session. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 1
60 Ideas in 60 Minutes – Tips & Techniques for Making the Most of Your WFM Software. This fast-paced session with a panel of vendor experts will provide you with a practice idea each minute. This is not a sales pitch for products. These are the vendor experts that can provide tips on how to get the most out of a WFM investment from the early planning stages, implementation, training, and ongoing use. This format will give you some last minute tips to take home and implement immediately! – Cumberland 2
Power of One Training to Inspire Agents. Are your agents functioning in auto-pilot, not fully understanding the tremendous impact that they can make? In this session, we will collectively discuss information that can be shared and activities that can be planned to help agents visualize and accelerate their contribution in the contact center. – Speaker: Darlene Green Parks, Travelers Insurance – Music Row 5
Storytelling with Data. Data storytelling can help turn data insights into action. When we tell stories with data, we can have a profound impact. Data helps us understand where we’ve come from, and gives us the hope we’ll make the right decision as we go forward. When we choose to tell stories with data, we can harness both of these tools. – Speaker: Tammy Rasmussen, Wellmark – Music Row 1
Hitchhikers Guide to WFM. Do you ever feel like you need a guide on your quest to map out processes and communications for your WFM team? In this session we will discuss how a traveler through the galaxy of WFM can explore team structures, roles, and methods of applying WFM, then create a manual to communicate it to your stakeholders and team. So don’t panic, always carry a towel, and meet us here with an open mind and lots of questions so we can guide you on how to build the ultimate playbook, and guide to bring order to your team. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Music Row 2
Embracing Change. CHANGE! We face change from every direction. From dealing with changes in employees (remote vs. onsite), to navigating the massive changes during COVID, to just simple ordinary changes in our surrounding environment, everyone tries to navigate change successfully. So how do we embrace change? How do we prepare ourselves to adapt and thrive in this new environment? Come to this interactive session to learn about the human aspect of embracing change and some practical principles to embrace change. – Panelists: Jason Hilliard, Radio Systems, & Justin Robbins, Metric Sherpa – Music Row 3
It’s all about Balance – Is There a Secret Formula? Frontline leaders are constantly challenged with balancing service goals with the development of the employee. Is there a way to achieve both? Hear from industry leaders share their tips to maximize training/development plans and the customer experience. – Panelists: Bob Dobson, & Rick Seeley, McKesson – Music Row 4
11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Closing General Session – Legends Ballroom
12:00 p.m. – 2023 SWPP ends