Workforce optimization (WFO)

What is workforce optimization (WFO)?

Workforce optimization (WFO) is a contact center strategy implemented to automate essential processes, maintain data visibility, comply with legal/compliance ordinances, and proactively resolving staffing issues.

The process involves analyzing data from different departments, finding loopholes in existing processes, and streamlining the workflows based on the analysis, in accordance with the observation.

How does workforce optimization benefit an organization?

1. Improves customer service: Awareness about incoming customer demands can helps in proactively customizing  communication to better navigate and resolve customer issues.
   
2. Helps with compliance: Optimizing workforce Complying with standard practices as well as with local, state, and federal employment laws becomes easier  optimized workforce.
3. Reduces labor costs: Proper workforce optimization techniques will allow you to gain greater control over how employees work and also the costs associated with them.‍
4. Boosts productivity: Simple analytics and insights provided by workforce optimization software show a company how its business and employees operate on a regular basis. Therefore, it becomes easy to make slight adjustments to boost their productivity.

What are the techniques for proper workforce optimization?

1. Involve key stakeholders: For a successful workforce optimization strategy, it’s important to involve everyone in the organization, from employees to managers, and even the owners, since the change in processes is extensive and affects every department.
   
2. Improve scheduling: Using the best WFO software and tools to streamline and perfect scheduling. It allows an organization to effectively match individual team members skills to specific jobs at hand.
   
3. Task assignments: Providing a set of tasks with realistic deadlines is an ideal way to improve team focus and meet targets.
   
4. Manage work volume: With the help of contact center AI, it’s much easier to track the distribution of customer interactions among agents. This helps in understanding system flaws and loopholes to develop a successful workforce optimization strategy.
   
5. Improve communication: Communicating with different departments and team members is crucial for proper and timely relaying of information. Organizations need a robust communication structure in place for this.