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510 Chapter 18 Workforce Scheduling
Workforce Scheduling and your contact center needs
Using Workforce Scheduling, you can schedule your employees to best suit your contact center needs. You
can
• Customize schedules for your contact center groups
• Forecast scheduling requirements
• Match employee skills to the skills required for each schedule
• View the distribution of employees across schedules
• Print schedule reports
For information on scheduling considerations, and how to calculate the Shrinkage Factor and optimize
scheduling, see “Step #5 Schedule agents” on page 32.
Using Workforce Scheduling, you can create schedules for your contact center using a variety of options.
Depending on your contact center, some options may be more suitable than others. To help your company
use Workforce Scheduling most effectively, we have created configuration scenarios that describe how to
implement Workforce Scheduling, based on the type of scheduling used in your contact center.
Each Workforce Scheduling configuration scenario provides a description of the scheduling method and an
example of contact centers that typically use that method. Each scenario also provides some tips on how to
configure Workforce Scheduling for each style of scheduling. The scenarios include the following scheduling
configurations:
• Assigned shift
• Availability
• Rotational
• Forecast
Assigned shift-based scheduling configuration scenario
The assigned shift scheduling method uses fixed shifts staffed by employees who are permanently assigned
to specific shifts. Contact centers that use assigned shift scheduling have consistent call volumes. Employees
are primarily full-time staff and are guaranteed a specific number of hours of employment per week. Typically,
you plan a schedule three to six months in advance with assigned shift scheduling.
Contact centers ideal for assigned shift scheduling
Assigned shift scheduling is best suited to contact centers that have a steady and predictable call volume,
such as a contact center that runs a conventional “nine to five” operation. Examples of contact centers that
use assigned shift scheduling include banks and government offices.
To configure Workforce Scheduling for an assigned shift scheduling environment
• Create fixed shifts
• Use shift names that describe a shift's purpose, such as "9 to 5 shift" or "1st shift"
• Use mass recurrence to repeat scheduled events for multiple weeks
• Configure employee hours using shift assignment by day of week
Availability-based scheduling configuration scenario
The availability scheduling method uses fixed shifts, but unlike assigned shift scheduling, the employees that
work a given shift are not permanently attached to that shift. Contact centers that use availability scheduling
fill shifts using a pool of employees.
A contact center supervisor sets staff availability based on day of week and time of day. When staffing a shift,
the supervisor can assign any employee who is listed as available for that date and time to the shift. Typically,
you plan a schedule two to four weeks in advance when you use availability scheduling.