Workforce Management has always been considered a ‘dark art’, and with good reason. The unique blend of science, instinct and influence is somewhat similar to walking the plank blindfolded, with your legs tied together, holding an excited puppy who won’t stay still.
Over time, we WFM nerds learn to apply this unique blend of talents to deliver consistent business performance and insights, arming our people with the best possible chance of achieving greatness. Much of our success in the execution of this comes from absorbing and dissecting the past – finding nuggets of gold that help us learn how our customers behave, so that we can program our crystal balls to predict the future.
Then came 2020.
Here we are facing a complete upheaval in every possible context.
Our customers are behaving differently.
Our people are working differently.
Our operating model has shifted.
Our data is irrelevant.
And it’s extremely likely that these things will never completely go back to how they were.
So we’re now faced with the unthinkable. A blank spreadsheet, a list of unvalidated assumptions as long as Shaquille O’Neal’s arm (that’s long), and a team relying on us to have the answers. The right answers. Right now.
Some of us have the benefit of fancy tools that can do lots of fancy things, but they are rendered useless without the inputs that make those fancy things accurate and useful.
Sounds like fun, eh?
The Untravelled Path
As we embark upon this untravelled path, we will need to forge new pathways.
This starts, first and foremost, with a focus on the now. Now is where we support our team to best support our customers. Now is where we react and respond to minimise inevitable performance impacts. Now is where we start to capture and absorb the knowledge that will help us start to form a brand-new view of the future.
This may mean changing the game, the rules, and the players.
Practically speaking, it may require changes in technology, strategy, reporting, and resourcing. Changes that enable and empower us to understand the emerging trends that will inform our future success strategies.
Let’s dive a little deeper into what those changes might look like, shall we?
Technology
I’ve always said that the true measure of a workforce planner is found in someone’s ability to run their operation without WFM tools. There is an innate understanding that comes with the ‘manual labour’ of cleaning data, building assumptions, forecasting and rostering by hand that leads to mastery in this intricate craft.
In 2020 however, technology is going to be paramount. We are facing uncertainty, and successfully navigating uncertainty requires the capacity and capability to model and remodel many possible futures. This is simply impractical without the processing power that comes from technological enablement.
For those readers who already have WFM technology in place, don’t breathe your sigh of relief just yet!! You too have work ahead of you - as you will very likely need to adjust how you are using your existing platforms to enable modelling of your new future.
I would start by:
1. Assessing the capability of my existing platform to ensure it had the functionality I needed for the next few steps
2. Creating a playpen environment where I could feed in revised data sets and assumptions without breaking the live environment
3. Building a set of core assumptions, and adjusting the live environment to help me validate those assumptions
4. Modelling outcomes based on a variety of combinations of best- and worst-case scenarios for each of those assumptions
Strategy
Traveling new pathways gives us an incredible opportunity to revisit our operations strategy. Do we have fit-for-purpose performance targets, skilling strategies, resource allocations, support frameworks, team ratios…and so the list goes on.
While this is not the time to reinvent the wheel or make change for the sake of change (we’ve already had quite enough of that for one year), it is the right time to consider some core questions and revisit some key assumptions to ensure that we have an approach that is aligned to both customer and organisational objectives.
Additionally, I have no doubt that most of you are under immense pressure to find or create budget relief. We are all used to the age-old ‘doing more with less’, but the current financial pressure most organisations find themselves in takes that concept to whole new depths.
Revisiting your operations strategy is the most effective approach to finding significant budgetary shifts, rather than looking for small pockets of change behind the couch cushions of your budget.
I would start by:
1. Sketching up a ‘blank page’ operations strategy
2. Revisiting all existing assumptions and targets
3. Modelling the financial and service impacts of a few key changes
4. Plotting the course from current state to fit-for-purpose operations strategy, focussing first on the ‘big rocks’ that will deliver the required budget relief
Reporting
Navigating a new pathway requires new information. We need data broken down in new ways to tell us what is driving customer behaviour, so that we can better model the future. We also need data that informs our strategic decisions on future automation or outsourcing decisions, which will very likely form part of our budget relief strategies.
This may be as simple as building a new data query or custom report in your reporting platform. Or, it may require technical or operational changes to enable segmentation of the information we need to capture.
I would start by:
1. Developing a wish list of information I’d like to have access to
2. Identifying the source data that would need to be captured to create that information
3. Conducting a gap assessment on what we have vs. what we need
4. Working out the simplest, fastest and most sustainable way to close the gap
Resourcing
The skills required to pioneer new pathways are not the same skills needed to stay the course on a well-worn path. Some of your existing team will thrive on the challenge of what lays ahead, and some will buckle under it. You may even have some who thrive on the challenge, but don’t possess the skillset needed to navigate through the obstacles.
The skillset can be taught or mentored, however the innate force that drives someone to thrive or buckle in a high-pressure environment cannot. Now is the time to have an honest look at the players you have on your team and determine where they are best positioned.
This applies to the entirety of your operation. Frontline team members, leaders, and support crew should all be considered and repositioned into a function where they can be of greatest service to the whole.
I would start by:
1. Identifying the critical skills and functions within my operation
2. Identifying who is best to lead those critical functions through times of extreme disruption
3. Identifying what supporting skills those specific leaders need to be successful
4. Identifying who or how to provide those support skills
Where To Now
The road ahead will not be easy. We will pivot, we will embed, and just as we start to gain some consistency the world will change again. This may happen a few times as our customers, our staff, our colleagues and our organisations adapt to and find their ‘new normal’.
Your WFM function has never been more critical (and it was already pretty damn important!). Getting this right, and getting it right early will be the make-it or break-it trigger for many operational teams.
Having the right people with the right tools doing the right things is the only way to navigate successfully through the challenges to come.
We’re here to help however we can. Reach out anytime.
About the Author
Frances Quinn is an award-winning CEO & Founder, an experienced speaker, facilitator and mentor, and a passionate customer futurist.
Starting from humble beginnings - leaving school and home at 16 to make her way in the customer contact world, Frances forged a successful career path for herself, quickly climbing the corporate ladder and gathering a strong reputation for excellence along the way.
After 20 years in the corporate world, Frances set out on her next adventure as an entrepreneur and business owner, applying her versatile set of skills to building a successful high-growth consulting firm.
Frances' passion and expertise lies in creating customer loyalty, driving operational efficiency and excellence, and implementing successful and sticky change in organisations large and small. She has worked with large global brands and startups alike.