Golf is played more slowly than other sports. With a highly unpredictable environment that requires a methodical and cerebral approach; it’s a game that reminds players to “stay the course.”

This mindset is similar to workforce management (WFM) because we spend a lot of time planning before we take the shot. We want to minimize inaccuracy or error rates, which is like taking the fewest number strokes to hit the target.

If you’re playing golf, you might be within a similar distance range from the hole this week compared to last week when you last played. However, you may need to use different clubs to take the same shot, depending on the circumstances (weather, wind speed, terrain conditions or flag pin placement). This creates the need to adjust up or down in club selections from our normal shot, which is like the spread of data around the average values within our historical contact volumes.

This volatility can help the golfer or forecaster to set upper and lower bounds for what we can expect from future shots or forecasts. The forecaster should not be creating just one forecast, but at least three forecasts — upper, middle and lower scenarios. We need to understand our best and worst-case scenarios.

Here’s a few WFM tips to help manage forecast volatility:

• Never build just one forecast. Create additional scenarios for higher contact volume and lower contact volume to plan for a range of outcomes around your ‘normal’ contact volume scenario.
• Know the trade-offs between service levels, costs and net revenue for higher staffing levels versus lower staffing levels.
• Stay in the loop with departments that impact contact volume to gather business intelligence through scheduled recurring meetings.
• Use standard deviation and correlation coefficient analyses to identify and measure volatility.
• Dive deeper than aggregated monthly or daily contact volumes as volatility works both ways. We need to understand both negative and positive values across all daily and hourly intervals; not just the total net value.

One thing we know is that forecasts will never be 100% accurate. The price of accuracy is often time. Ask yourself: Is that affordable? An accurate forecast is one of several WFM tools used to achieve service level goals. Remember, we have other ‘clubs in the bag’, including efficient schedules and nimble real-time decision making.

Do you know your ‘club length’? ⛳

To learn more about additional WFM tips on managing forecast volatility, please join us at the SWPP Annual Conference and check out this session on Changing the Conversation from Forecast Accuracy to Forecast Volatility, on Apr. 22 at 3:45 p.m. CT.

 Note:  This week’s tip is provided by SWPP Member Damon Spurlock of Fabletics. He may be reached at ds*******@te*******.com.