SWPP announces the 2026 curriculum on the Fundamentals of Workforce Management. These web seminars will begin in March and be offered throughout the year. The courses will provide practical knowledge and skills in all aspects of workforce planning and management, including extensive coverage of topics covered in the CWPP Certification Exam.
SWPP will offer the classes as 90-minute web seminars to be delivered at 1pm Central/2pm Eastern time. Each class can be attended by an unlimited number of students from a single location. These web seminars are provided at no cost for SWPP members. However, non-members may attend at a cost of $300 per web seminar. Non-members can contact Vicki Herrell at vicki.herrell@swpp.org to register.
These web seminars will not be recorded but those who register will receive an article afterward that details the exact content of the session. The presentation materials will not be available either, but the article will provide all the session information needed.
The classes and materials will cover all topics covered in the CWPP Certification Exam. Those workforce professionals intending to take the exam will benefit from seminar content, as well as the additional learning guides and sample test questions in preparation for the certification process.
The Fundamentals of Workforce Management seminars are presented by popular industry consultant and author Penny Reynolds. Reynolds was a Co-Founder of The Call Center School, where she and Maggie Klenke developed and taught classes to thousands of contact center professionals from 2001 to 2012, including a popular series on workforce management.
The following courses are included in the series designed specifically for SWPP members. SWPP members can click here to register for the full series:
https://swpp.webex.com/webappng/sites/swpp/webinar/webinarSeries/register/f4aa719c3d6647fb8b82d2c49f1716e3
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 clean-up before it enters the forecasting process.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r3558762d2a88736024fc476a1342c57d
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. In addition to analyzing history to predict the future, this seminar will discuss how to identify and assimilate business drivers into the forecasting process to fine-tune monthly projections. 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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r7d4ffb46a8923d02bf66109335ad2319
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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/rc9352e139017088a63a88f591f012f57
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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r805811f4cd7f000391c5f9d3487e22ba
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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r4de2abec6704efafe527f37b1cb91395
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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r9d82a18cf2870c9b2c632314a3ed0fe9
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 intact 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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r5519e7c5ba824965d540c8cd5897b508
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.
Seminar attendees will learn to:
Click here to register: https://swpp.webex.com/weblink/register/r6fb26d46219568f52b4378e09d244f1f
