For decades, Workforce Management (WFM) has been the backbone of contact center operations.
Forecasting demand, scheduling staff, and keeping costs in check remain the fundamentals. Yet while the discipline itself has not radically changed, almost everything around it has.
Customer expectations are rising, automation is stripping away simpler interactions, and a new generation of agents is rewriting the rules of work.
The result is a dramatically different landscape for planners, one where empathy and technical insight must now work hand-in-hand.
“Agents today want to feel much more empowered, with significantly more collaborative working conditions rather than the rigid, top-down management styles of the past,” explains Jim Fleming, WFM Solutions Consultant at Sabio Group.
“That shift alone creates challenges for planners who are also juggling increased absence rates, delayed sickness payments, and the impact of a buoyant remote working market.”
Agents With Choices
The influence of the gig economy looms large in the contact center.
Younger workers in particular are less likely to stay loyal to one employer, especially with greater opportunities for flexible remote work now available.
At the same time, the calls that reach agents are more complex than ever, as Fleming notes:
“The simpler interactions are now handled by AI and automation, leaving agents with a constant flow of more intensive, complex cases.
“This creates higher stress levels and contributes to elevated attrition rates, as agents find the work more demanding while having more employment options available to them.”
The consequence is a volatile workforce, where recruitment and training can quickly become a never-ending cycle unless organizations take a more empathetic approach to scheduling and support.
Beyond Spreadsheets
While agents are asking for more flexibility, planners themselves are under mounting pressure due to enhanced workloads.
“Today’s planners require much deeper technical skills – way beyond Excel formulas – extending to VBA, SQL, and increasingly Python for data analysis,” says Fleming.
“The role is pivoting from largely administrative to providing insights and strategic direction not just to contact center management, but across the business in areas like HR, Marketing, and Finance.”
Unfortunately, planners are not being rewarded for taking on these more skillful and demanding tasks.
According to Sabio’s latest eBook, planning teams are “often victims of their own success,” because they manage to juggle so many conflicting priorities.
This results in the teams rarely being given additional resources to absorb new channels or shifting business demands.
Moreover, it’s not uncommon for finance to demand a 10% cost reduction year on year, leaving planners to find creative ways to do more with less.
As a result, the role has evolved far beyond the days of Excel-based scheduling.
Empathy as a Planning Tool
Perhaps the most striking evolution is the central role of empathy in WFM.
Where planners once focused solely on service levels and cost, today, they must also consider the well-being of the people behind the schedules.
Fleming details how the planning function has evolved from asking ‘What number can I get past finance?’ to genuinely considering ‘How can we reduce pressure on agents while still meeting business objectives?’.
That might mean building more recovery time into shifts, increasing shrinkage allowances to account for the emotional toll of complex calls, or revisiting onboarding and support models.
Even decisions around whether certain work is best suited to remote or office-based settings now fall within the planner’s remit.
“Empathy isn’t just about being nice; it’s become essential for retention and performance,” Fleming stresses.
“With agents more willing to change contact centers for better pay or flexibility, planners who don’t consider the human element find themselves in a constant cycle of recruitment and training.”
The Expanding Tech Toolkit
Of course, empathy alone won’t solve the challenges.
Advanced WFM technology is essential for giving planners the visibility and flexibility they need.
Yet many organizations are still relying on decade-old spreadsheet approaches, which simply cannot keep pace with the complexity of modern operations.
Sabio’s research also points to the growing importance of adjacent technologies such as speech analytics in uncovering the drivers of call volumes and AI forecasting tools that promise sharper predictions.
As Fleming puts it:
“Today’s planning experts know their business and can respond when asked why something is happening.
“Directors need that confidence. AI will get there, but it will take time for models to catch up.”
Sabio’s Role in the Shift
With over 20 years of global WFM expertise and experience across more than 300 companies, Sabio positions itself as a trusted expert services partner rather than a one-size-fits-all vendor.
Its multi-vendor practice spans leading platforms including Genesys Cloud, Calabrio, Verint, Avaya, and Amazon Connect.
“Our methodology starts with understanding the specific challenges and context,” Fleming explains.
“We don’t just implement technology – we help organizations align their WFM strategy with business objectives through our WFM Healthcheck and Optimization services.”
These services cover everything from reviewing end-to-end planning processes and skilling strategies, to refining shrinkage models and outsourcer management.
The focus is on embedding best-in-class operational processes that help clients move beyond basic scheduling to more innovative, value-adding approaches.
For customers like ESP Group, Danish insurer Topdanmark, and Benenden Health, this has already translated into improved efficiency and better employee experiences.
Blending Data with Humanity
Ultimately, the future of WFM lies in blending hard data with human insight.
Planners must be empathetic enough to support agents, technical enough to harness data, and strategic enough to influence the wider business. In short, they’re pretty important.
While Fleming concedes that this is no small feat, he argues that if planners “strike the balance between operational performance and agent wellbeing, they not only protect service levels but also create environments where people genuinely want to stay.”
Sabio explores these themes in greater depth in its ebook Staying Ahead: Workforce Management in a Changing World, which offers practical guidance for planning teams navigating today’s challenges.
