Draft Agenda
SWPP Annual Conference
March 4-6, 2024

Sunday, March 3

4:00-6:00 p.m. – Registration – Legends Ballroom Foyer

4:00-5:00 p.m. – Complimentary Pre-conference Session

Roadmap to the SWPP Annual Conference. New to the SWPP conference? Or just ready to meet some new friends? Come to this fun and interactive session to hear how to make the most of your time at this event. Review the agenda and learn how these key topics will give you specific takeaways for your organization and help you with business decisions down the road. – Speakers: Jessica Harris, School Specialty, & Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker – Music Row 3

5:00-6:00 p.m. – Complimentary Pre-conference Session

Speed Networking. Everyone has heard of Speed Dating. Attend this session for a variation that will help you start off the conference with a bunch of new friends! In our Speed Networking session, you will spend just a few minutes getting to know some of your fellow attendees, and exchange business cards so that you can talk more over the next few days and keep in touch after the conference is over. – Music Row 5

Monday, March 4

7:30-9:30 a.m. – Registration & Continental Breakfast – Legends Ballroom Foyer

9:30-10:45 a.m. – Welcome & Keynote Address – Legends Ballroom

The Servant Challenger. A challenger is someone who has the confidence, desire, and capability to push the boundaries of the status quo. In a world where most organizations are crippled by inertia, the ability to cultivate challengers is a rare superpower. Customer Service environments are especially ripe for this type of disruption, but with an edifying twist. Introducing the “Servant Challenger” mentality! This session will provide guidance as we work to elevate service workers to their full potential. We will explore:

  • The culmination of “The Circle of Psychological Safety” and how teams move towards it
  • How to unlock “Collective Genius” across your customer-facing ecosystem for lasting innovation
  • Developing the type of confidence and loyalty that is a trademark of world-class service organizations.

Speaker: Nate Brown, CX Accelerator

11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. – Workshops

Preparing to Forecast: Decisions and Data for the Planning Process. There are many steps in data review and analysis before the forecasting process begins. In this seminar, you will learn about the up-front essentials of forecasting workload. Hear about the sources of input data and how to decide which best represents future needs. Learn about agent work state activity and techniques to ensure you have predictive AHT data. Practice identifying and adjusting for data aberrations and other considerations for data cleanup before it enters the forecasting process. You will also hear about forecasting models and how to choose the one the best represents your business and calling patterns. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 4

Elevating Workforce Management: A Case Study in Operational Efficiency and Career Progression. This session is a must-attend for those looking to understand the profound impact of effective WFM deployment on organizational success and individual career growth. We’ll highlight key elements behind strategic planning and internal advocacy for your next WFM project. Explore a case study in operational excellence. Hear different examples of a best in breed WFM system alongside a cloud-based CCaaS platform resulted in a significant reduction in overtime costs and remarkable career advancement. — Speakers: Siulyn Jimenez Salas, Align Technology, Michelle Gaffney, Call Design, Lidier Mejia Bolaños, Align Technology, & Adolfo Pedraz, Call Design – Music Row 4

The Downward Spiral: What We Wish We Knew When We Started in WFM. The Downward Spiral (TDS) is the eventual demise of a productive contact center. This session will show how you can avoid it, or get out of it, by understanding the correlation of different KPI, teaching others how to avoid TDS, balance different strategies to impress management, and creating a Balanced Scorecard to measure and improve. Whether you are an analyst, manager, or just looking for real-world strategies, attend this session for immediate improvement in your WFM strategy! – Speakers: Dave Hoekstra & Florian Garner, Calabrio – Music Row 6

Waffles With Workforce: Cooking Up a WFM Apprenticeship. Come to this session to hear The Home Depot WFM Managers share how they created and executed their WFM Apprenticeship Program for their frontline Online Contact Center associates. From selling the value of a program like this to your stakeholders, to planning content and checkpoints along the way, learn how your WFM team can bring this type of program to life too! The presentation will include pro tips on how your organization can solicit interest, vet candidates, execute a selection process with proven success, plus a roadmap template you can customize for your team. – Speakers: Michelle Donnelly & Sean Hostetler, The Home Depot – Music Row 2

Ten Great Tips and Tricks for Improving your Capacity Plans. The capacity planning process, especially if it is managed in a spreadsheet, is a process often fraught with assumptions and simplifications. In this session, we will discuss tricks to make your capacity plan better and ways to ensure your plan is accurate and correct. We will discuss how to plan when there is uncertainty in your forecasts, what to do when you start missing your forecasts, and great analyses you can do to add smarts to your presentations. – Speaker: Ric Kosiba, Real Numbers – Cumberland 5

Bridging the Gaps Between Operations and WFM – How to Explain the Why. Regardless of whether you are in a virtual or in-office environment, there are many gaps in communication between Operations and WFM. Come to this session for a discussion on the best approach to communicate with Operations. We will talk through some roadblocks we have faced and conquered, and encourage you to share your own struggles. – Speakers: Tommy Templin, ttec digital – Music Row 3

Generation WHAT? Understanding Generations and Their Impact on WFM in the Modern Contact Center. Gen Z, Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X – some have names and letters? The years change, and what is a Xennial? Does any of this matter? What is a Yeet? The most awkward moments can come at a holiday meal when you sit around and the now grown up kids are home from college, and their parents are sitting with them, and the grandparents and everyone tries to connect; or it can happen in a Zoom – or in a shift bid. Generations and context matter because the world evolves – change is rapid, but the human experience is constant. In this session we will talk about some of the things that impact how each of the main cohorts in the workforce today can influence what you do, and how they impact your role and even your work as a team. No single session can cover all of generational theory, but we can equip you with some strategies to have some meaningful moments, give some understanding to what the current definitions are, and maybe avoid some cringe. No Cap – I mean, for real. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Music Row 5

Where Are We Going? Looking Into the Future of the Industry. Will bots be doing WFM in the future? Will we have UBER agents working from tablets and mobile devices while they catch Pokémon in between calls? Technology is changing seemingly at the speed of light and what do you need to be prepared for and thinking about to stay one step ahead, not just in WFM, but in partnering with an ever-changing workforce. A panel of long time industry veterans shares not only what they see in our future, but how they maintained “fresh space” to keep an eye on the prize while navigating the sea of change. – Panelists: Jonathan Rasiah, TD Bank, Todd Hixson, E2EO2, & Dan Smitley – Cumberland 6

12:15-1:45 p.m. – Luncheon & WFM Professional of the Year Award – Legends Ballroom

1:45-3:00 p.m. – Workshops

Forecasting Basics: Predicting for Months, Weeks, Days, and Intervals. In this seminar, you will learn the step-by-step process of applying Time Series Analysis to predict future workload. Learn how to identify trend rates and seasonality patterns for a monthly call forecast. After the monthly forecast is in place, the next step in the planning process is to break down the predictions to weekly, daily, and interval numbers. Hear the process and calculations to use to distribute a monthly workload all the way down into intervals for scheduling. Finally, take a look at some right and wrong ways to review forecast accuracy to fine-tune future predictions. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 4

Using Technology to Promote a Healthy and Empowered Workforce. Your contact centers are the front line to delivering great brand experiences, and AI-driven solutions are set to streamline mundane tasks, unlocking a new level of self-service efficiency. However, as automation takes over routine queries, human agents will face more emotionally charged and complex interactions. Each customer call will become a “Moment of Truth,” where the agent’s performance can make or break your brand’s reputation. That compounded pressure for an agent can lead to increased agent stress, burnout, and high attrition rates that already plague the industry. Join us to explore the pivotal role of automation in shaping the future of contact centers, specifically how to support agents. It’s not just about productivity – it’s about their success and wellbeing. During this session, you’ll learn how automation can ensure your agents are well-trained to provide customers with exceptional service, understand how AI can proactively identify signs of burnout and attrition risk, providing supervisors with invaluable insights to support their teams, and explore why it is time to redefine the role of agents in the era of AI, focusing on the critical importance of agent well-being and engagement. – Speakers: Larry Swift & Ted Lango, Intradiem, & Jim Simmons, Queueless – Music Row 4

Using ACR to Reduce Contacts and Improve Operations and Customer Experience. With motivation from the knowledge received from a recent SWPP conference presentation, the team at Principal Financial Group leveraged existing interaction data to build out a new Active Contact Resolution (ACR) metric. In building the metric, creating an informative report display, and communicating the valuable insights to contact center leaders, Principal was able to identify agent behaviors that detract from the customer experience, and can generate additional calls and/or workload for the contact center. Join this session to see what data they used, reports they built, and insights they shared to turn customer behavior and interaction data points into a mechanism for improving their operations and customer experience. – Speaker: Tony Graczyk & Maureen Orsborn, Principal Financial Group – Music Row 5

Getting WFM a Seat at the Decision Table. Come to this session to hear strategies and ideas for the WFM professional to move beyond the basics and become the linchpin that your organization needs. Contact centers have changed, but WFM professionals are often still operating in their comfort zones – forecast accuracy, schedules, schedule bids, and reactive real-time processes. Though those core competencies will continue to be important, our leaders and internal customers are desperate to find “bigger” thinkers who make the time, form the relationships, and passionately push themselves and their departments into greater relevance. Through stories and real-life experiences, this session will challenge you to burst out of the WFM “bubble “and motivate you to become the change leader that your organization needs. – Speaker: Bryce Ackerman, Roche – Music Row 2

Machine Learning and AI: Transforming Contact Centers and Workforce Management. Join the WFM Leadership Team from General Dynamics IT (GDIT) to discuss how machine learning and AI are transforming the way contact centers and workforce management operate. This panel will discuss how WFM software leverages these technologies to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and customer satisfaction. We will also address using machine learning and AI for various tasks such as forecasting, capacity planning, and schedule optimization. Moreover, we will explore the potential of conversational AI in contact centers and how to plan staffing accordingly. Finally, we will address the challenges and opportunities of machine learning and AI in the context of human factors and customer behavior. – Speakers: Aaron Lundsten, Justin Emond, Timothy Carbine, & George Pentzakis, GDIT – Cumberland 5

Using Extra Capacity to Find More Capacity. In the latest world of increasing automation and AI technology, extra capacity can be created in your operational areas. How do we take that extra capacity and put it to work in other areas? Come to this session to hear how Elevance Heath has used this extra capacity in their organization, including tasks such as upskilling to focus on process optimization, doing inventory monitoring, and working to know your customers. — Speakers: Gregory Gowern, Elevance Health – Music Row 3

Extending Workforce Management Support to the Back Office. The only thing consistent about the businesses we support is change. Workforce management teams are often asked to support the ever-changing environments of the business. In this session, you will hear how several organizations have tackled the movement of WFM from just inbound call handling to multi-media contacts and now to the back office environment. Hear tips and techniques to make this a more successful and smooth transition. Panelists: Kirwyn Adderley, Walgreens, Tyler McGary, Cinch Home Service, & Chad Pierce, Gerber Life – Cumberland 6

The Last Mile of Operational Efficiency. For the last twenty-plus years, contact centers have been reaping the economy-of-scale benefits of skill based routing (SBR). More recently, the pandemic drove the necessity of extending SBR economies-of-scale into digital channels. As a result, contact centers have been addressing the challenges of blending digital asynchronous work with traditional voice and live chat synchronous work to achieve additional operational efficiency. So, what’s next? Based on what we hear from our customers, the “last mile of operational efficiency” will be found in the blending of contact center work (both voice and digital) with back office work. But what does this look like? What are the tools required to effectively blend work? What productivity insights can be delivered for the back office teams? Join this session to see what a technology-enabled fully blended operation looks like. – Speaker: Nathan Stearns, NICE – Music Row 6

3:00-3:45 p.m. – Afternoon Break – Legends Ballroom

3:45-5:00 p.m. – Workshops

Essentials of Staffing: Models and Calculations for Contact Center Staff. Managing a contact center means managing by the numbers and the most important number is the right number of staff in seats at the right time. Learn the essentials of calculating staff requirements, including how to assemble workload and apply Erlang techniques to determine staffing to meet service goals. In addition to staffing for incoming telephone calls, learn how to calculate workload and apply the proper staffing techniques for outbound calling, email, and chat contacts. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 4

AI: The Beginning of the End of the Contact Center? Over the coming decade, AI will not only disrupt but fully reshape customer service as we know it. What happens to the contact center – and those that support it – when customer service no longer requires customer contact? Join us for a lively discussion covering the three key phases of transformation and when they will happen, how to spot the signs that we’re transitioning to the next phase, your evolving role in AI, and the steps you need to take today to prepare personally and professionally for what’s next. Customer service, customer experience and IT leaders and practitioners must adapt the way they think about the contact center, AI, and their role in the business and societal evolution that is upon us. This session will help you do just that. – Speaker: Sarah Reitsma, Waterfield Technologies – Music Row 4

Workforce for Workforce: How to Build the Ultimate WFM Team. Right person, right place, right time – that’s the goal of every great workforce team. How does one build such a team? Getting the right workforce team in place, with the right mix of skills and experience, takes more than mastery of Excel and Erlang. Assembled has worked with workforce teams of all shapes and sizes, from different industries and organizations with different cultures. We’ll talk through the different types of team structures we’ve seen, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each. Surprise, there’s no one-size-fits-all. We’ll also talk about how technology shifts, AI or otherwise, will affect Schedulers, Forecasters, and Real-time Analysts looking to make their way in the world of workforce. You’ll leave with actionable takeaways on evolving your team structure, as well as career advice and best practices, regardless of your role or level. – Speaker: Ryan Wang, Assembled – Music Row 6

With the Adoption of AI Promising to Transform Operations, How Ready are Service Operations for Using Data Intelligently? If you, like many others, are wondering how to brace your operations, keep a clear view of data, and better yet…use data to your advantage, then join ActiveOps as we share the latest findings from our global research looking at operational readiness for AI in Service Operations. – Panelists: Michael Cupps, ActiveOps, Jasen Durand, Elevance Health, Olivia Zayas, Humana, and Sally Miller – Music Row 3

Hold On For the Ride! Redesigning a Large WFM Team. Our large WFM group at TD Bank Group recently underwent a significant WFM team re-design. Hear about the journey, what they got right (and what they didn’t), and where they are heading next. They re-built everything – including processes, structure, technology. Larger contact centre organizations can come to this session to learn from their journey and mistakes along the way. Buckle in for quite the ride! – Speaker: Vinay Koushik, TD Bank – Music Row 2

Throw the Book at it: A Machine Learning Approach to Time Series Forecasting. There are a lot of different forecasting models, and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. The forecasting model chosen has a big effect on decision making, cost, happiness, and productivity. A machine learning approach to time series forecasting could be better than traditional “black box” software solutions because you can try multiple time series models and choose the model that best fits the data and the prediction task at hand. Despite the name, these models are easier to understand and outperform most “black box” models especially for complex prediction tasks. Attendees will get an overview of the machine learning approach to time series forecasting, a notebook example where a real-life time series is analyzed using StatsForecast, and a healthy discussion about the benefits of the method in workforce planning. – Speakers: Joey Campbell, Google – Cumberland 5

Approaches and Strategies for WFM Leaders. Trust and engagement are crucial elements when building an effective workforce management team. But once you have your team established, how do you keep them fully engaged? In this session, learn how to build and sustain a team that is collaborative, productive and inspired, all while focusing on their personal health and happiness. – Panelists: Rick Seeley, McKesson, Jessica Harris, School Specialty, & Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker – Cumberland 6

Where Do Your Goals Come From? While there is no “industry standard” for many of the metrics that we measure, our management teams are always asking us what other companies are doing. Come to this session ready to share your key metrics – and how they were determined — and hear the same information from the other attendees as well. – Panelists: Bob Dobson, Webster Bank, Jessie Cessna, Worldpay, & Sandra McFatridge, Nissan – Music Row 5

5:00-7:00 p.m. – Networking Reception – Legends Ballroom

Tuesday, March 5

7:45-9:15 a.m. – Breakfast – Legends Ballroom

8:00-9:00 a.m. – Behind Closed Doors with the Sponsors

Verint – Cumberland 6
Waterfield Technologies – Music Row 3
Keyrus – Music Row 4
Calabrio – Music Row 2
Alvaria – Cumberland 5
Genesys – Music Row 5
NICE – Cumberland 4
CommunityWFM – Cumberland 6

9:15-10:30 a.m. – Workshops

Staffing Tradeoffs: Achieving a Balance of Service, Occupancy, and Cost. After determining base staff requirements, it is critical to review all the tradeoffs that impact contact center stakeholders. Learn about how callers are impacted by staffing decisions that drive speed of answer and quality of service. Review how staffing levels impact frontline staff in terms of productivity or occupancy. Finally, see how staffing levels and telecommunications factors affect revenues and costs. Hear about how one person can make an impact on service, occupancy, and cost, as well as the factors to consider when making decisions about agent group size, multi-skilling, or consolidation of sites or groups. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 4

Plan for the Future – How to Balance Business Needs, Customer Needs and Employee Needs With AI and WEM. Contact centers can be extremely tough work environments to manage with absenteeism, high turnover, and complicated tools and processes. Adding to that challenge is a new workforce paradigm driven by digital and hybrid work that has changed employee expectations. The status quo is under pressure and traditional workforce optimization is no longer as useful. Learn how companies can use AI to simplify workflows and improve employee experience, customer experience, and workforce planning accuracy – giving employees the support they need at the moment, the flexibility they want, and the development opportunities desired. – Speakers: Robert Beasley & Eric Hagaman, Genesys – Music Row 4

Qualfon Uses a WFM Mobile App to Ensure Nothing Gets Lost in the Chaos. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Qualfon, a global provider of call center, back-office, and business process outsourcing services, took this saying to heart when rolling out a WFM mobile app across 7,500 agents. Join this session to learn how it rethought and revamped the mobile app for request management after having first gained little traction. Hear how it worked cross-functionally with internal teams and external clients to check all the boxes, gain buy-in, and achieve validation and approval. Further, hear how request management via the mobile app is now a more efficient process with changes immediately posted to schedules and time savings enabling expansion to overtime, tickets, and more. As a result, Qualfon has seen a number of operational improvements and employee satisfaction go through the roof with its newfound ability to ensure nothing gets lost in the chaos! — Speakers: Eric Bigelow & Emily Braik, Qualfon, & Nicole Nevulis, Verint – Music Row 6

Workforce Management Certification Workshop. This workshop provides attendees with information on the certification preparation and process to attain the title of Certified Workforce Planning Professional (CWPP). What is CWPP Certification from SWPP all about? What will it do for you in the workforce management field? What are the requirements for certification? How do you prepare? These and other questions are answered by a panel of workforce management professionals who have already achieved the CWPP designation. – Facilitators: Todd Gladden, PlanMen, Ava Baxter, Citizens Property Insurance, & Bob Goulart, Securian – Music Row 2

Saving Time and Money with Automation: A Case Study from Cigna. Are you tired of wasting valuable resources on repetitive tasks such as rescheduling callback times or messaging support staff? Automation has been a game-changer for Cigna’s call centers. A dedicated team has been formed to identify and automate several routine and time-consuming tasks such as incremental VTO throughout the day, allowing agents to choose their own breaks without an adherence hit, ensuring callbacks are completed by the right agents only as time is needed, confirming schedules are compliant with state labor laws, and many more. In this session, Cigna’s WFM team shares their journey in identifying automation opportunities, eliminating operational and WFM pain points, and improving the agent experience. – Speaker: Shannon Scott & Kevin Pickett, Cigna – Cumberland 5

Service Level: Non-Existent to Consistent. In this session, hear about our experience as our WFM team went from delivering poor service level (SLAs) to consistently performing and out-performing our peer group. Learn about the operational challenges we faced, how they were overcome, the new tools introduced and the effect they had, and finally the reporting capabilities introduced. Any organization that is underperforming and looking for tips and tricks (or commiserations) on how to resolve – join us to learn from our mistakes along the way! — Speaker: Matt Lovatt, TD Bank – Music Row 5

How to Successfully Manage WFM Utilizing BPOs. Have you ever thought of working with BPOs within your contact center or are you currently working with them but have trouble keeping them organized? Come see how Priceline tackles an ever-changing business in a global economy through the use of outside partners. We will review the “ins and outs” of working with BPOs at the WFM level and how we keep consistency across the board, even with multiple partners. – Speakers: John Renaud & Ryan Phillabaum, Priceline – Music Row 3

Taking Your WFM Career to the Next Level. An engaged, ambitious professional will always want to know how to improve in their job. Whether you’ve been in workforce management for a few months or few years, you should always be listening, learning, and looking for ways to advance your WFM career. This session will provide tips to improve your career outlook and offer sound advice to improve your relationships with your customers, colleagues, and leaders. Panelists: Chad Murray, Cinch Home Services, Jeff Bretana, Navy Federal Credit Union, & Sandra McFatridge, Nissan – Cumberland 6

10:30-10:45 a.m. – Break – Legends Ballroom Foyer & Cumberland Foyer

10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Workshops

Scheduling Strategies: Definitions and Decisions for Successful Schedules. A successful schedule plan involves many decisions on the front end that can impact the long-term and short-term effectiveness of the work shifts. In this session, learn about the fundamental concepts of calculating and applying shrinkage to arrive at schedule requirements, along with considerations of defining schedule components. Hear about how to decide on optimal schedule horizon, shift definitions, and schedule constraints, as well as some of the best strategies for optimizing schedule coverage and minimizing cost. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 4

Happy Agents, Happy Customers. Learn how ezCater achieved an .8% agent attrition rate, while increasing service levels by more than 40%. ezCater has cracked the code on maximizing agent performance to drive customer satisfaction. With “Go Beyond Helpful” being one of their core cultural values, ezCater applies creative WFM approaches to exceed traditional WFM expectations. Agent Autonomy, Adherence, BPO Partner Alignment, IEX, and more will be covered in this session, co-hosted by ezCater and ICS.cx. – Speakers: Kelley Bond, ezCater, & Julie Rupp, ICS.cx – Music Row 4

The Evolution of Shrinkage: Origins, Arithmetic, and Strategies. The term “shrink” or “shrinkage” originated in the retail industry when a store had fewer items in stock compared to the inventory list, mainly due to clerical error or damaged or lost items. The contact center industry adopted this term years ago when calculating actual staff planning requirements for specific shifts or intervals. If you don’t consider and calculate accurate shrink when generating schedules, you are mostly likely going to be understaffed and struggling to meet service levels. In this session, you will learn the difference between discretionary and non-discretionary shrinkage, how to calculate shrinkage and the math behind it, and understand the cost savings (along with how you can impact it). This session will be delivered by two outstanding onboarding consultants that get asked these questions every week! – Speakers: Eric Thurber & Ryan Schanck, CommunityWFM – Music Row 6

Workforce Management Certification Practice “Bee.” Play this fun, interactive game to test your knowledge and get a flavor for the questions included in the Certified Workforce Planning Professional (CWPP) exams. Attend this session to see what you need to know in order to be successful in the pursuit of CWPP certification through SWPP. – Facilitators: Todd Gladden, PlanMen, Ava Baxter, Citizens Property Insurance, & Bob Goulart, Securian – Music Row 2

How to Easily Explain WFM to Everyone. People who aren’t familiar with WFM have so much to learn, including things like the different roles in WFM, what the stats mean, and the “why” behind them. Percentages and numbers can tell part of the story, but what are some ways you can really explain things to your colleagues? By breaking data down into bite-sized chunks and dissecting it, you can present WFM information in an easily-understandable format. Come to this session to learn how to explain WFM to leadership and other departments in your organization. – Speaker: Matt Millner, Nelnet – Music Row 5

Ask The Workforce Wizard. This session is your chance to ask our panel of experts anything WFM! This interactive panel will answer questions submitted and chosen by conference attendees. If you have a question or an issue that has been a challenge to your team, bring your question to this session! The audience will also get a chance to give some input. This session will be dynamic and informative, but the topics covered will be chosen by you and your peers at the event. Panelists: Sandra McFatridge, Nissan, Jessica Harris, School Specialty, Victoria Marcella, Warby Parker, Bob Dobson, & Marshall Lee, ttec – Cumberland 6

The Components of a Great Capacity Planning Process. Although few of us discuss it this way, the capacity planning process is a really a modeling exercise, and the best capacity planning systems include three or four significant math modeling processes. These include, at least, accurate simulation models, forecasting models, and optimization models. In this session, we will discuss how they work together, how to judge whether your models are any good, and the awesome analytics you can do when you have all of these models working together. – Speaker: Ric Kosiba, Real Numbers – Cumberland 5

Getting What You Want from Your Workforce Data. Storing data in Excel is most helpful when you can easily organize and analyze data based on variables that you want to examine. We will walk through creating pivot tables and charts, use the basic functions of Excel within this context, format and filter information we want to analyze, and create calculated fields of new data for information. In addition, we will be reviewing examples of what you can use this for within workforce data. A sample dataset and step-by-step guide for creating Pivot tables and Charts in Excel 2010 will be provided for attendees. (Attendees should already have an understanding of the basic formulas of excel spreadsheets, formatting, filtering, and basic creation of charts.) Speaker: Kristi Holcombe – Music Row 3

12:00-1:30 p.m. – Luncheon & WFM Jeopardy – Legends Ballroom

1:30-2:45 p.m. – Workshops

Managing Schedule Adherence: Creating an In-Place and On-Time Culture. An accurate forecast and perfectly constructed schedules don’t mean much if the frontline staff are not following the plan. In this session, you will learn various measures of how to measure adherence and quantify the problem of schedule non-adherence. See how common principles of performance management can be applied to identify reasons for non-adherence and what you can do to change adherence behaviors. Hear how some centers have created an adherence culture that works. – Speaker: Penny Reynolds – Cumberland 4

Signs of Success: Metrics and Measures of WFM Performance. Almost every contact center employee has a performance scorecard, outlining expected levels of performance in many different areas. The workforce management team is no exception. While the tasks may vary from center to center depending on size and functional design, there are common ways to define metrics that point to good performance and a job well done. Learn about the four components of WFM success, along with different ways to measure and report the numbers. See measurement case studies, along with best practices for defining WFM metrics. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 5

Reduce Costs and Create Efficiency through Increased Visibility. Costs are top of mind for every business. Creating an efficient approach, even when leveraging internal teams and business process outsourcers (BPOs), is not always easy. Join Playvox customer Thomas Kim, Senior Manager of Workforce Management at DraftKings, to learn more about their challenges and the significant return they saw on their investments. Thomas will discuss how they identified their baseline production rate, gained additional visibility into internal and BPO staffing leading to significant savings, and are looking to drive more efficiencies in the future. If cost saving and efficiency are top of mind for you, you won’t want to miss this session! – Speaker: Thomas Kim, DraftKings – Music Row 3

How to Incorporate Agent Self-Scheduling and Intelligent Automation into your WFM Practices. Building trust is imperative to the success of any organization, regardless of industry. In this session, Mark Gill of NICE, Brian Vogel of PSCU and Gregory Gowern of Elevance Health will share how they’ve revitalized employee satisfaction and earned the trust of their workforce and reduced WFM admirative tasks- all while delivering agility for agents and accuracy for the business. Gain insight into keeping your team engaged and happy and learn how to optimize schedules and establish solid processes that build confidence and empower your agents. Join us for a lively conversation on building trust and create a force to be reckoned with. – Speaker: Mark Gill, NICE, Brian Vogel, PSCU & Gregory Gowern, Elevance Health. – Music Row 4

Partnering to Plan: Interactions with Finance, Vendors, Operations, and HR. How often have you encountered the excuse, “We’re just slow to make decisions around here,” within large organizations? In this session, we’ll examine the case of one of the largest healthcare services organizations in the country that rejected the notion of slow decision-making as the standard in their workforce structure. During this discussion, we’ll explore how United Healthcare has begun the journey to connect the planning activities across their Workforce, Marketing, HR, Vendor, and Finance teams to expedite their capacity planning process and allow interconnected decision-making across the enterprise. – Speakers: James Wilby, Keyrus, & Dave Hornor, United Healthcare – Music Row 6

Evolution of Phone & Back Office Reporting and Analysis: Using PowerBI for Data Display and Automation. Join us for a refreshing new way to gather, analyze, and display data. We’ve created self-service dashboards that allow our business partners to monitor the KPI’s most important to their organizations. PowerBI assists turning data into visuals that make sense, and we will walk you through examples we’ve created. Call center and back-office forecasters, schedulers, analysts, and leaders need to look at data easily in a fast-paced environment to make decisions around staffing and call center performance. We have been able to provide data to operations in a self-service manner quickly and efficiently. Regardless of your company’s size or industry, providing an easy-to-read and use dashboard for the metrics that matter most will improve performance and decision-making. – Speaker: Becky Denman, Progressive Insurance – Music Row 5

Finding Your Voice in Non-Voice WFM. The only thing consistent about the businesses we support is change. Workforce management teams are often asked to support the ever-changing environments of the business. In this session, you will hear how several organizations have tackled the movement of WFM from just inbound call handling to multi-media contacts and now to the back office environment. Hear tips and techniques to make this a more successful and smooth transition. – Speaker: Marshall Lee, ttec – Music Row 2

What is Normal about History? Forecasting is easy and simple. Our tools just take historical data and recreate the future, with maybe some growth or events added in. Wait—what if your history isn’t correct. AI is supposed to be the answer and replace all the that has been our word in WFM! Reality is based on the age-old idiom, “Garbage in, garbage out!” This session shares how to ensure you have solid inputs—not just for volume, but for AHT and even shrinkage! It addresses the analyzation of abandon contacts and hot to adjust the impact in depth! You will abandon again, but how much—and why! You’ll walk away with a way to put limps of coal in and get diamonds out of your process! – Speaker: Todd Hixson, E2E02 – Cumberland 6

2:45-3:45 p.m. – Ice Cream Social with the Sponsors – Legends Ballroom

3:45-5:00 p.m. – Workshops

Managing Daily Service: An Intra-Day Plan to Keep Staffing and Service on Track. Achieving intra-day success involves a process of monitoring, tracking, assessing, and acting to ensure staffing levels stay in tact to deliver service regardless of the events of the day. In this session, you will learn about ways to monitor and track call volume, handle time, and staffing throughout the day in time to make changes as needed to impact service. Hear about communications and reaction strategies to affect both under-staffing and over-staffing with minimal disruption and maximum coverage. – Speaker: Maggie Klenke – Cumberland 4

Empowering Human Connection: Mastering Agent Retention and Engagement. Join Alvaria for a transformative workshop where we’ll explore the synergy between scheduling, performance management, coaching and gamification. Discover how these elements elevate agent retention, engagement, and performance—fostering a culture of growth and excellence. Empower yourself with advanced strategies to extend your influence as a workforce planner, driving positive change and creating thriving workplace ecosystems. — Speakers: Mary Ward & Kelly Person, Alvaria – Music Row 4

Happiness is the Goal; WEM is the Key. Did you know that employees who are happy and engaged are more productive that those who are grumpy and disengaged? Did you know purposeful people find joy in the work they perform? Did you know that people who know what they are doing, when they are doing it, and when it needs to be done make the best teammates? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to come to this session! Whether you are tackling back-office politics, how to manage remote/hybrid employees, or just trying to find meaning in the work you are doing, come to this interactive session to discover the 7 secrets to WEM bliss! – Speakers: Michelle Gaffney & Mark Gershkovich Call Design, North America – Music Row 3

Transforming Back Office Efficiency: A Modern Approach to Workforce Management. A wise man once said; That the only constant in life is change! Workforce management teams are always asked to support the ever-changing environments of the business and it’s a call they have to answer with alacrity. Explore the change and evolution of workforce management (WFM) in this session. Uncover practical insights as we share experiences, real-life case studies and examples and provide tips on how several organizations have smoothly transitioned WFM from just inbound call handling to multi-media contacts and now to the back-office and the shared services environment. Discover how the strategic integration of a comprehensive solution can reshape the partner ecosystem; that can simplify routine tasks, foster collaboration, and extract actionable insights to enhance productivity. The session focuses on utilizing advanced tools to redefine efficiency in the back office, moving beyond traditional approaches and setting a new standard for workforce management excellence. – Speakers: Khiv Singh Sewad & Saurabh Sharma, ProHance – Music Row 6

From Average to Awesome – Applying QA to WFM. After receiving complaints from contact centre leaders, TD Bank implemented Quality Management (QM) practices into the WFM Operation. The WFM team followed similar principles from standard call centre quality assurance practices, including a formal monitoring process. This session will be valuable for any WFM team looking to enhance their practices and provide reliable data and justification of their excellence to business leaders. – Speaker: Rishi Saraf, TD Bank – Music Row 5

NFL Sunday Ticket Case Study: Ramping the Workforce in a Short Time Frame. For the 2023 NFL Season, YouTube obtained the rights to broadcast NFL Sunday Ticket, which gives access to viewers to out-of-market NFL games each week of the season. This resulted in a large effort to ramp up the existing YouTube TV workforce by more than 10X in a very short time frame. Many valuable lessons were learned on how to scale-up an existing operation. The case study is a unique situation that provides insight into best practices and key operational decisions related to cost saving measures, location optimization, contingency planning for business continuity, issues around temporary workers, training, and staffing. – Speaker: John Garza & Dale Decena, Google – Cumberland 5

The Fab Life at Fabletics. Despite the recession, strong business performance at Fabletics has enabled this global fashion retailer to grow into a major disrupter in the athleisure wear industry by reimagining fashion! Fabletics has seized upon key opportunities to launch two new lines of business, introduce an enhanced VIP customer membership model, and create over 300 new omni-specialist customer service positions in their retail store organization! This is all while the Fabletics customer service team deployed an ACD-WFM integration for three new digital messaging channels, reignited several employee engagement programs including gamification, and expanded their global BPO workforce footprint into twelve new offshore countries for a grand total of 16 countries worldwide now! Come join us to explore Fabletics’ unique journey on becoming an agent experience champion! – Speaker: Damon Spurlock, TechStyleOS – Music Row 2

Mastering Your Team’s Workload Needs by Building Your Optimal Capacity Framework. WFM can be the best at planning for our organization but the worst for planning our own workload requirements. We find ourselves overworked and stressed because we have not prioritized building our own capacity models and service offerings. This session will provide ideas on how to develop an engagement model, a responsibility matrix (RACI), management processes, and service offerings to help manage your own workload. – Speaker: Jessie Cessna, Worldpay – Cumberland 6

6:30-9:30 p.m. – Evening Event – Broadway Ballroom

Wednesday, March 6

7:45-8:45 a.m. – Breakfast – Legends Ballroom

8:45-10:00 a.m. – Workshops

60 Ideas in 60 Minutes – WFM Tips & Techniques from Real-Life Experiences. This fast-paced session with a panel of your WFM peers will have you writing furiously as you try to capture an idea a minute on paper! This format will give you some last minute tips to take home and implement immediately – if you can catch them all! – Cumberland 4

Judgmental Forecasting: Beyond the Best Guess. Predicting workload using judgment is common. A best guess is often one of the only ways to make a forecast, especially when there is no available historical data. Statistical methods are always a good place to start when you have historical data available, but no statistical forecasting model can accurately and independently predict what will happen when a new product or feature comes out, a new competitor enters the market, or the market conditions are completely different. Even though judgmental forecasting is subjective and has its limits, it can be quick to adapt to new information, events, or changes. Implementing systematic and well-structured methods of judgmental forecasting can limit its flaws and greatly improve the accuracy of forecasts. – Speakers: Joey Campbell & & Ehsan Nobakht, Google – Cumberland 5

Navigating a Successful WFM Tool Implementation. Embarking on a journey of transformation, our organization set out to implement a WFM tool on a grand scale. This endeavor was not without its formidable challenges, which tested our resilience, teamwork, and adaptability. Join us as we share the story of our path to success, complete with the hurdles we overcame, the lessons we learned, and the strategies that paved the way for a large scale implementation of a WFM tool. – Speakers: Braden Krumrei & Jason Carlin, Cigna – Music Row 2

Using L.E.G.O. to Build the Perfect WFM Team. We all know that Logic, Empathy, Goals, and Organization make a great WFM team, but how do you build that when you’re not allowed requirements to add to your team? Come find out how the Trimble team utilizes agents to “flex” into the WFM team to ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time, without having the proper staff in our WFM department for the software and supervisor demands. This session will give you ideas on how to begin your own internship program within WFM, and go over the four iterations of classes and lessons learned with each. And we hope you will share your ideas if you already have an established WFM internship program. – Speakers: Mary Kathryn Dorr, Ken Shedd, & Jason Martins, Trimble – Music Row 3

Balancing the Trade-Offs of Occupancy. Occupancy is a well-known contact center output but are you leveraging it to understand your staffing efficiency? Join us in this interactive session where we will discuss more about how to leverage occupancy and better understand the trade-offs experienced with this key metric. – Panelists: Andrew Johansson, Joshua Bail, & Eboni Bee-Anderson, Uber, and Mark Rhodes, Edward Jones – Music Row 5

A Panel Discussion on the Migration to Work-From-Home and Hybrid Schedules. The past few years have brought many challenges, but the WFM effort of staff logistics has been a unique one. We have pivoted as agents moved to full-time work-from-home and then some have gone back to the office full-time, while others have a hybrid schedule. In our panel, we will discuss variances in processes and procedures factors such as performance metrics, attrition rates, schedules flexibility, and hiring and training processes. Pros and cons of at-home vs. in-office vs. hybrid will be examined as well as various recommendations and conclusions from the panel members. – Panelists: Teresa Howe, Gerber Life Insurance, Bob Dobson, Webster Bank, & Sandra McFatridge, Nissan – Music Row 4

Hiring and Developing your WFM Team. The session will explore how to develop and provide career paths for your WFM team. We will discuss our approach from hiring, onboarding, training, and continuous improvement training for the WFM team. We will share the work we have done to create strong WFM teams and helped promote the teams to increasingly advanced roles. Panelists: Jason Persico, Blue Shield of California, Rick Seeley of McKesson, & Dan Smitley – Music Row 6

Getting it Right: The Power of Having the Right WFM Team Structure. Does something not feel “right” about your WFM team’s interactions with your customers? Are your customers or team members often frustrated? Perhaps it’s time to look under the hood at your team’s organizational structure. This workshop will dive into what several companies have learned about team organization and support. We will highlight our successful team structures, roles and responsibilities, and the way we promoted our team to build respect and positive working relationships. Panelists: Michael Williams, BCD Travel, Jeff Bretana , Navy Federal Credit Union, & Todd Gladden, PlanMen – Cumberland 6

10:00-10:15 a.m. – Break – Legends Ballroom Foyer & Cumberland Foyer

10:15-11:30 a.m. – Workshops

60 Ideas in 60 Minutes – Tips & Techniques for Making the Most of Your WFM Software. This fast-paced session with a panel of vendor experts will provide you with a practice idea each minute. This is not a sales pitch for products. These are the vendor experts that can provide tips on how to get the most out of a WFM investment from the early planning stages, implementation, training, and ongoing use. This format will give you some last minute tips to take home and implement immediately! – Cumberland 4

Merging WFM and Operational Performance Data to Drive Improvements. How many times have you had ideas that could drive operational efficiencies or financial benefits, but you didn’t have the data to prove the concept? During this session, we will discuss creating an environment that can merge traditional WFM data with other operational results in order to tell a holistic story. Creating an analytics partnership and an environment for data discovery can be key to finding the next big insight, as well as wowing leadership with a compelling story. – Speaker: Jessica Harris, School Specialty – Music Row 2

Traversing Change Management. Are you considering changing WFM platforms? This session will outline a thoughtfully executed WFM change management strategy and provide tips for increasing your time to value (TTV) and return on investment (ROI). We will start with a framework for change management tied to your business goals, then discuss how to engage your leadership and the elements of a communications plan. Finally, we will tie all this back to what we want the future to look like with our new system in place. – Speakers: Cynthia Rivas & Stephanie Barrett, Cable One – Music Row 3

WFM Unleashed: Mastering Influence and Driving Cost Efficiency. In today’s dynamic business landscape, the role of Workforce Management is evolving beyond traditional bounds. This session will illuminate the art of leveraging relationships, nurturing trust, and tapping into the depth of WFM expertise to carve out a prominent position in leadership circles. Learn methods to validate and champion business initiatives with confidence, ensuring that WFM remains a linchpin in your organization’s cost optimization and strategic planning. Embark on this journey to redefine the influence of WFM in your organization. – Speaker: Benjamin Wheeler, Chime Financial – Music Row 4

Driving Efficiency With Automation and Transparency. Come to this session to learn how TD Bank built a mega-dashboard by taking various data sources and compiling them into an epic view of the call centre operation. See how they navigated complex technical challenges in a highly restrictive environment and hear the benefits of the results. – Speaker: Elias Saykali, TD Bank – Cumberland 5

Innovative Ways to Schedule. Ever wonder what other companies have done to get the most out of their schedules using creative scheduling and flexibility? Come join this interactive panel where we share our success/failures, best practices, and tips and tricks for you to put your ideas into place. You will also have the opportunity to share some of your own creative options that you have implemented and your experiences. The panel will also look at how labor laws affect different states, nations, and geographies and how to effectively manage these challenges. – Panelists: Natalie Robertson, Accor Hotels, Brittany Costanzo, Navy Federal Credit Union, Bob Dobson, Webster Bank – Music Row 5

Surveying Your Agents to get Feedback for WFM. We survey our customers all the time to get their feedback on our service. The WFM team should also be surveying our agents to hear what we are doing right, and where can improve. There are also opportunities to ask about preferred schedules and find new opportunities for creative options in scheduling. – Panelists: Jason Hilliard, Radio Systems, Jason Persico, Blue Shield of California, & Rick Seeley, McKesson – Music Row 6

How Do You Measure WFM Success? There are so many different metrics that come out of our workforce management efforts. But which ones should we use to measure our success as a workforce management team? Come to this panel session to hear how different organizations measure the success of their teams and demonstrate their accountability to the rest of the company. – Panelists: Adrien Seldon, Mark Rhodes, Edward Jones, & Sandra McFatridge, Nissan – Cumberland 6

11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Closing General Session – Legends Ballroom

12:00 p.m. – 2024 SWPP ends