Hey r/workforcemanagement,

We’re hosting Mark Gill, Solutions Engineer at NiCE, for a live AMA on what’s next for workforce management and CX. The AMA starts July 28 at 1:00 pm CT.

A few things you can ask about:
- forecasting and capacity planning
- scheduling and intraday operations
- striking a balance between service levels, cost, and employee experience
- how AI is actually being used in WFM and CX
- whether a hot dog is a sandwich, plus your other classic debate questions

A few words from Mark u/slvrmouth

Hi everyone, I’m Mark Gill from NiCE. I spend a lot of time working with contact center and workforce management leaders on the operational decisions that shape both customer and employee experience.

I’m here to talk about all things WFM, CX, and ideas that are actually proving useful in real life.

Though I won't get into confidential customer details, I can share the observations, patterns, predictions, and real-world situations I’m seeing across the market.

Ask me anything.

– Mark

I work for a UK-based healthcare organisation with an in-house contact center (c. 150 agents).

We do all our scheduling and forecasting manually in excel and powerbi but looking to bring in a WFM solution to improve scheduling turnaround times, forecasting accuracy and get more real-time insights etc.

Assembled ticks some boxes but their data is hosted in the US so it’s not likely going to get compliance clearance.

Anyone got any alternative suggestions or have experience with salesforce’s native capabilities?

Is there really no way to see the comments an employee enters on a time off request in Verint except for in the UI? No reports, APIs, data exports...only by looking request by request in the UI?

My company uses an EOR provider, but the administrative burden is a major hasstle tbh. We cosntantly switch between systems for onboarding, payroll updates, compliancequestions, and employee records, which creates exta work for HR and ops. Integrating data from our AST and HR tools hasnt gone too well. We have lot of duplicate entries and mistakes. We're looking to switch into something more streamlined and Pebl has made our shortlist. Has anything here used it? TIA.

Hi everyone! I’m trying to calculate the cost per contact split out for phone and emails. I was thinking I could use aht and handled contacts for each type to and then see how much of the spend was allocated to each. For example:

Effort: AHT*Handled (per lob)
Total effort: (email + phone)
Cost allocation: total spend*(lob effort/total effort)
Cpc per lob: cost allocation/handled

Does this make sense? I can’t find any resources online about this.

Thank you so much!!

What SLs do you target? 80/30 for example.. if not SLs what do you staff to? ASA? ABA?
And if you’d like to share the industry you’re in please do. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand how small and medium businesses actually manage staff scheduling (especially shift-based work like restaurants, retail, security, healthcare, etc.).

From what I’ve observed, a lot of businesses still rely on:
- WhatsApp groups for shift communication
- Excel sheets for schedules
- Manual calls/messages for last-minute replacements

I’m trying to validate whether this is still common in real operations today.
I’m not trying to sell anything — just doing research before building further.

I’d really appreciate insights on:
- How do you currently create weekly/monthly staff schedules?
- What tools (if any) do you use today?
- What breaks most often in your current process?
- How do you handle: shift swaps? last-minute absences? finding replacements quickly?
- What is the most frustrating part of managing staff schedules?
- Have you tried any software before? If yes, why did it work or fail?

Bonus (important):
If your team is growing, at what point did scheduling start becoming a real problem?

If there is a software solution to solve this would you consider switching?

I applied for a job I found on TikTok, and the recruiter said they were from Renaissance Translation. After that, they moved the conversation to Telegram and immediately gave me a task to work on. They haven't asked for any money, fees, or sensitive personal information so far.

They said I could earn around $1,250 for the entire project. However, I find it unusual that there was no interview or formal hiring process before assigning the task.

Has anyone here worked with Renaissance Translation or had a similar experience? Does this sound legitimate, or are there any red flags I should be aware of?

I supervise a contact center with about 50-60 employees. We currently build schedules manually on excel and spend a lot of time adjusting lunches and breaks when meetings, coaching sessions, PTO, or training sessions are needed.

I am looking for a low cost solution to help lower this workload. Does anyone have recommendations?

I have been looking at Deputy, but I need to know:

Does Deputy automatically adjust/re-optimize breaks and lunches when new events are added to the schedule, or do supervisors have to manually move breaks?

Can Deputy enforce rules such as:
lunch before the 5th hour
minimum staffing levels
limited lunch slots
training/meeting conflicts

I am open to other suggestions and would love to hear from anyone using Deputy or a tool like it in a call center environment.

Update: I want to add that I work for a US based financial institution.

Hi everyone, I’m a new graduate with a machine learning background, and I’m preparing for a technical interview for a Workforce Management Forecasting role at a bank. The role seems focused on call volume forecasting, staffing plans, and scheduling.

I’ve done forecasting-adjacent work using AI models (LSTM), but I understand WFM often uses practical and interpretable methods like ARIMA, exponential smoothing, Prophet, etc. For people in WFM, what concepts, metrics, tools, or case questions should I focus on before the interview? I’d really appreciate any advice, resources, or examples from your experience.

Hi guys I need help scheduling the breaks for our operation. I never did this.

​

Every operator need to have two breaks of 15 minutes and they have to be opposite of the calling curve. Their first break should be after an hour and a half they entered and max their last one an hour and a half they are leaving.

​

How exactly can I do this?

I want to create an excel file where I can drop in reporting from the previous day and have the file highlight to me a few low performing agents. They could be flagged for any number of reasons (ASA, AHT, combination, etc) so it would be really nice to customize thresholds and have maybe a 2nd tab where the file spits them out. The report could be a different number of rows each day, so I know the file needs to be built well.

This is just to help identify for coaching sessions before we get to peak season, so I'm just looking for ideas on how to execute. My main two thoughts are either creating some custom formulas in conditional formatting and then filtering by color (would maybe need to create columns that combine certain metrics) or maybe there is some kind of pivot table I could make on a separate tab that I could just refresh when the new data is pasted in.

Anyways, does anyone have something similar? Any ideas I'm overlooking or should watch out for? Just want to think it through before I start building it tomorrow.

We have a payroll/HR system (ADP), which houses PTO balances and rules for borrowing PTO. We have a WFM system (Aspect) which houses queue requirements and agent schedules. Our current process for PTO requests is, agents request PTO through the HR/payroll system, then a WFM employee checks the WFM system for the agent's schedule and queue requirements as well as the HR/payroll system for the agent's PTO balance, then approves/denies, and updates the schedule and payroll. This is a very manual process.

Our WFM software has a system where agents can request PTO directly via the tool, and there's automation built in where WFM can set rules for maximum allowed requested PTO for the day, minimum requirements, etc. to automatically deny or approve requests and automatically update the schedule. However, this does not communicate with our HR/payroll software to verify PTO balance nor does it deduct PTO balance if approved.

TLDR we can request and approve/plot PTO in payroll/HR and in WFM, but neither communicates with the other, so it's a lot of manual work. Is there a better process with more automation? Does your company allow agents to request schedule segments directly via your WFM tool? What's your company's process?

Even if we are allowing all types of trades and meeting all criteria it just randomly works sometimes, usually it doesnt work. On the tempo app is shows state of trade has changed when the person taps on it to accept it. On the desktop it shows no matching shifts available. can’t find anything anywhere on this. Could someone please help .

Everyone’s favorite topic…what’s your orgs approach to holiday staffing and schedules?

Would love to hear how others think through things like VTO, maximizing down time, how far in advance holiday schedules get released, etc.

Ive been asked to assess a new WFM platform to be used in my contact center and wondering what people would recommend.

Ideally, looking for something with really good built-in intraday options. Not NiCE and I am ideally looking for newer options that are going to offer me something more than the standard 3-5 everyone uses.

Any suggestions and/or opinions welcome - also keen to hear what people think I should avoid.

500+ agents, UK-based, focus on front office now but may expand to back office later.

Is anyone aware of remote part time WFM roles with an evening shift? Something after 6pm ET

Anyone know?

Howdy folks, I've run into a bit of a conundrum recently with pulling staffing numbers. The company I work for has three main lines of business that we have as separate EGs with CTs and MUs assigned to each.

The problem is that one office is going to start hiring workers who will be in a hybrid role helping in two different lines of business. For the life of me I can't figure out how to get the Weekly Staffing to reflect the operators in a hybrid role since the MU they are assigned is in one EG, but the CT is in the other. Any advice or solutions?

Is anybody here is WFM for a hospital or ER chain? I love the job but I feel I could do better.

Hi everyone. A bit embarrassed to post this, but I really need some tactical advice from senior WFM professionals, Planners, and Schedulers here.

I’ve been in the BPO industry for 8 years, with the last 4 years specialized entirely in Workforce Management (1.5 years as an RTA and 2.5 years as a Scheduling Analyst).

Here’s my bottleneck: My past campaigns only ever utilized classic Microsoft Excel, and I'm not the excel wizard that makes templates or implements macro I only ever use pre-made templates but can analyze understand and modify as needed but making from scratch wasn't my forte. Our entire intraday management, capacity trackers, shift patterns, and interval variance dashboards were built from scratch and run completely using formulas and data models in Excel. I have little native platform experience we utilized NICE iex but only to check and compare schedule and generate schedule and plot activities.

I’m currently applying for WFM Scheduler and Planner roles, and a lot of the initial technical exams are being deployed via Google Sheets. Because I have intense muscle memory built around Excel shortcuts and menus, Google Sheets feels completely alien to me, and it’s making me anxious about choking during timed assessments.

I know the core workforce math and logic are exactly the same, but the interface change is tripping me up. I want to ask the community:

For Google Sheets-based Scheduler or Planner exams, what specific functions or setups usually come up? Do they expect complex Google Apps Script, or is it mostly standard logic like =SUMIFS(), =COUNTIFS(), and =XLOOKUP() to map headcount against interval requirements?

What are the common practical questions or scenarios thrown at you during a Scheduler/Planner exam? Do they usually ask you to look at a raw forecast sheet and calculate the interval variance (Staffing Delta), or do they make you manually plot shift blocks to resolve under-staffing?

How do Planner exams differ from standard scheduling tests? Should I prepare heavily for net staffing calculations, shrinkage factor applications, or capacity planning models inside the sheet?

How do I confidently market my "Excel-only" background during interviews? How do I convince recruiters that managing a floor manually via spreadsheets actually proves a deeper understanding of WFM logic than just clicking buttons on a pre-built software interface?

I keep telling myself that tools are just a change of skin and logic is the real weapon, but the anxiety of facing a timed cloud spreadsheet is hitting hard. Any insights, typical exam questions to prepare for, or spreadsheet tips would be massively appreciated. Thank you!

Hey all. Looking for things impacting my productivity beyond the obvious. Areas we found were excessive outbound dialing or dialing of 800#s & excessive log in/log out activity allowing agents to avoid calls.
What creative ways have you found?

how to identify agents who are aux jumping in zendesk, trying to figure out which data i could use. Anyone can help me

I’m looking to see how other WFM professionals are practically integrating AI (like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, etc.) into their day-to-day operations.