What is Call Center Workforce Planning?

In some ways, call centers are in the business of managing people. Some call centers have just a handful of agents, while others have thousands. Regardless of the size, agents are central to delivering the high quality experience customers expect. Call center workforce planning is the process of forecasting staffing needs based on anticipated volume or other business drivers (for example, the rollout of a new product), and then ensuring everything is in place to hire, train, schedule and manage the required agent team.

Call center workforce planning isn't an annual event – it’s ongoing. It happens every day in a call center due to regularly fluctuating call volume and changes in staffing levels. Workforce managers are constantly monitoring volume and schedules to ensure they have enough agents to handle contacts, while also avoiding agents sitting idle and driving up labor costs. Call center workforce planning is a very dynamic and critical process.

Call center workforce planning used to be an onerous, cumbersome process (think lots and lots of spreadsheets), but now there are sophisticated software tools that automate these manual activities. These applications have significantly streamlined forecasting and scheduling processes to the point that workforce managers can now easily make intraday adjustments or run what-if scenarios for upcoming events in seconds. Efficient call center workforce planning ultimately means customer needs are met while labor is used most efficiently.