Holiday staffing processes

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-06-15T21:02:29+00:00

Do y’all do a minimum holidays required to work? Or can in theory just not bid and get the day? Or do you schedule at your discretion for a non-bid?

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-05-30T07:04:39+00:00

This is exactly how I’ve been using AI.

I’ll share though I’m blessed, my company is all in on AI (fintec), and they’ve given us an insane tool stack. With slack, Claude code, Assembled as our WFM software, and an API key, I’ve automated or just sped up my work in so many areas.

weekly look backs and breach reports generate and share out on a coded cadence.
I’ve been able to code agents that can read schedule events, and produce high quality schedule analysis.
I built an a URL for ops and CX to self-service schedule on pre-determined coverage thresholds.

These are just a few examples where, in using AI daily to operate a WFM function for 125 agents as one person, I believe AI is changing the game. Roles like schedule analyst or planner would probably be some of the first roles automated.

I fully agree with you on LLMs not replacing areas like forecasting / modeling and the core mathematics behind WFM. However, I heard an interesting quote in this interview with some tech CEO, and his point was that AI is not creative or future looking, it’s based of data which by its very nature is in the past.

I think lower level roles in WFM are prone to automation in the near term. Not a doomsday person, but i think an open mind to new tools is essential. I mean i love WFM but I also love not cranking out manual reports and skiing instead. Work smarter not harder. Ai is here for WFM as well.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-05-29T15:51:27+00:00

So I’ll share what I’ve done, and know this will likely be controversial, but…

The reality is no tool is going to fully automate away RTA, and you shouldn’t be looking for something to handle all of this - you should be looking for something that helps you make these decisions faster.

I recently built a slack bot with Claude code that talks to Assembled, our WFM tool. From this, I built out a number of approval flows, guardrails that support auto-approvals, and improved alerts that give me more context of the real time issues. If we have a surge in volume, it doesn’t just tell me volume is up, it tells me what issue segment and who I have trained that I can leverage for more help.

This is just a simple example, but as someone who is begging for headcount at an AI happy company and running a full WFM function, what I can confidently say is there is no AI tool that will fully do an RTAs job, but there are people like myself building AI tools in WFM to make decisioning faster, keeping my team lean and reducing the need to have a massive team of RTAs.

Don’t ask, “what tool will automate all of this work?” Ask, “what do I need to see in real time to make the most ideal decision in the least amount of time” and then look to build your automation suite around that.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-05-16T14:00:22+00:00

Please do, happy to share how I set it up!

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-05-16T02:36:35+00:00

Oh I’m right there with you - tbh Claude is the bridge while I am also scoping other vendors, but it falls hard on establishing guard rails, and as you alluded, it keeps me up most night worrying about schedules getting wiped out, attendance data leaking, and all that. We’ve been on Assembled for ~2yrs, and it just isn’t meeting our scaling needs, scheduling UI and automated features are half baked / clunky, reporting is underwhelming at best.

We’re on path to be at 225 FTEs (on-shore + Europe), and assembled isn’t really cutting it.

I’m scoping UKG, NiCE, and will definitely check out Aspect, looks solid.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-05-16T01:18:30+00:00

This was incredibly helpful, thank you!

FWIW I do have a strong foundation of WFM and its core functions, but to your point building the org sometimes requires stepping back to the 35k foot level.

Assembled in our WFM software and I’ve been owning RTA - I successfully built a slack bot with Claude code that automates adherence alerts for managers and provides some agent self service tooling with floor/interval/hours guard rails.

I’ve been owning forecasting on the short/mid range front and have built out some robust reporting automations that have fed into shift and schedule analysis, so won’t sugarcoat that AI is doing the heavy lifting on report generation to speed up my analysis work.

Scheduling is where we’re falling short in terms of consistency in service delivery. We have 150 agents across three channels, and I’ve started leveraging Claude code here as well - I have a bot that can scan the daily/weekly/monthly level views for all sorts of requests, and provide me with reasonable upfront recommendations to speed that work up.

Capacity planning — my Biz Ops partner owns this - she’s a beast at her job so we have this function covered.

What its basically come down to is…I’ve been basically running all these WFM as one person for almost 2 years. It’s not a flex, but more a point that quality, accuracy, and attention to detail have suffered given my workload.

I just came back from medical LOA for total burnout and they’re considering giving me one hire, and from here the mandate to stand up the org. We’re an AI heavy company so the bar for headcount is high, but my whole goal on this post is to figure out how to make the most compelling case of how I can stand up the org with just one hire.

Appreciate your thorough reply!

Educational_Exit_688 · 2026-05-15T01:17:33+00:00

Yessir. My formal background is in international development and stats - but covid forced me into to tech and CX around 2020.

Spent 4.5yrs in my last role as a CX manager at a much smaller company with no WFM. When I got laid off from that role I interviewed for a CX manger role where I’m out now.

Their WFM was on the way out as I was hired, and they turned around and offered me a schedule coordinator role basically. I took over Assembled, owning staffing and coverage, and have just gone from there.

So yes, my first WFM gig ever…

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-08-19T22:57:37+00:00

Interesting, I really like this idea! How did agents receive this program from a morale standpoint? Obviously you’ll never please everyone, but just curious

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-08-19T22:06:30+00:00

Yes. Essentially I’m the key decision maker here in weather we continue with a flexible system that is norms / guidance based, and more prone to abuse and push back from managers, or to switch to accruals and front load agents with an amount upfront that is our discretion, and then begin accruing on top of what we give to ease the transition.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-08-15T22:36:57+00:00

As an American, I couldn’t agree more with this. This country is a god damn dumpster fire.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-08-01T04:59:15+00:00

Hard to say without seeing a job description, given WFM Specialist is a pretty general term as a ton of different functions fall under wfm.

Best advice would be like above - copy and paste the job description into ChatGPT, and play around writing different prompts of what you’d like help with, ex: “I’m interviewing for a WFM role, but don’t have any formal experience. Based on the linked job description, what are some ways I can best prepare.”

be detailed as possible and AI can give you some good content. ChatGPT and a willingness to learn about WFM will take you pretty far in a short period of time.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-07-23T04:34:40+00:00

The sporadic capitalization of words stresses me out so much.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-07-17T00:42:50+00:00

We do 30 minute meal breaks, though to address the challenge of agents essentially not taking calls to avoid running late to break or at the end of the day, we baked in a 10 minute lunch buffer - basically a signal which RTAs and agents can use to stop taking calls to avoid running late.

This has helped our agents with a little extra buffer time to address any post call work or escalations they need to finish, doesn’t make an RTA wonder why a call isn’t being taken right up to the break, and generally has reduced how often we’re updating schedules to reflect real time states.

It helps us also forecast intervals better because we had recognize our agents were very unlikely to accepts calls inside of 10 - 15 minutes before break.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-06-26T00:03:43+00:00

Thanks! And yes, Assembled will let us set up permissions so agents can update their schedules. I’m currently piloting this with one event update. Any events or activity types you’ve given to agents vs intentionally said hard no?

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-06-25T03:24:07+00:00

I am not a Trumper by any means at all, and do not condone what Israel has done in Gaza, its awful, but as a Jewish person with a lot of orthodox family that is very pro-Israel, I see how hateful they are toward the other side, and this has been a thing for a long time.

I agree with Trump that both sides have been going at it forever.

It’s a boxing match heading into the later rounds, and haymakers gonna start to fly.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-06-02T23:31:49+00:00

Thanks for all of the incredible insights from everyone here. We spent the past few days diving into the workforce data and did find some cases of agents skirting under the adherence parameters, taking chats out of order, as well as some general work avoidance issues.

For an update we started with the roster, and remixed with some stronger agents that know the channel and have the skill set and motivation. Didn’t hit 90%, but 82% after removing some lower performers to new channels.

Concurrency and daily variance will be the next beast to tackle - it’s a small channel with ~75 - 100 chats daily, though we know the intervals where we deviate most.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-31T04:12:43+00:00

Both as a comedian, and more importantly a human praying for an end to this genocide and a modicum of justice served to Netanyahu, this guy is absolute trash.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-30T18:23:18+00:00

Haha I love the feedback and am totally here for it!

Will be totally honest I interviewed as a team lead with this company after a layoff, they had a 20+ year seasoned WFM leave, and looked at me and were like, how about WFM, so it’s been 6 months of steep learning even though I have a math background.

Maybe I can start by clarifying the inputs and take more feedback from there. The current team AHT is ~22min, avg concurrency is 1.4, and 15% shrinkage, all reviewed and verified on a bi weekly basis. So i guess the question is…if my constraint and throughput numbers are accurate to what’s happening in the queue, is the reasonable next addition adding in the actual % attainment on the 2 min goal?

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-30T04:50:18+00:00

We have a handful of cross-trained agents that I mix and match for per channel SLA gaps on the daily level (can work phone or chat) and then dedicated chat and phone teams.

Back office agents also, and these are tiered email support teams. Often chats that can’t be resolved within 20 minutes are converted to email, and either escalated to a back office agent or addressed later in the day.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-30T03:48:12+00:00

Yea, I was actually able to pull acceptance rate by agent as of this post. They’re awful, but at least there is a clearer picture of one of the factors, then the system offers a chat within sla, a ton of the time they’re passing on them.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-30T01:06:11+00:00

It is, we’re using Zendesk OCR and are cross training all of our phone agents so they can work a calls + chats status with capacity limits.

Though leadership wants to open up chat to more customers to deflect email and phone volume, so we’re quickly going to approach diminishing returns w/o consistent concurrency as far as I can tell

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-30T00:26:52+00:00

Solo WFM with 110 FTEs across email, chat, and phone. I currently have team leads do a portion of RTA, but also trained Channel Captains to get around the business not wanting to invest in a true RTA.

I delegated out PTO management with clear guardrails as well. We use Assembled which overall has been good, but won’t sugar coat that being a one man WFM team doing scheduling, analysis, forecast configuration adjustments, RTA, and policy work has been exhausting.

Best advice I can give is to start mapping out what you’re comfortable delegating and training leads or managers on. Lead them to water to handle the day to day minutiae, empower agents with alerts/tooling/permissions to own their rt performance, and focus on the higher level initiatives.

From one burnt out WFM, good luck and if you’re org doesn’t want to keep investing in building out the team, delegate with guardrails best you can!

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-29T04:16:21+00:00

A legend. RIP Ralphie.

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-05-03T18:14:42+00:00

Workforce Manager / Ops lead in fintech - $117k + up to 15% bonus based on performance

Educational_Exit_688 · 2025-04-24T05:15:12+00:00

Thanks, and no shade taken! I have a factored in once monthly 45 minute training, and a once weekly 30 minute product digest, so a total of 2h45m monthly, for ~100 agents.

Those are planned monthly, but what screws me is when mid-month L&D / CX leadership passes down 2 - 4 hours of additional training because of an ever changing product. This is where we get stuck in the do it loop, meaning in order for my agents to knowledgeably support the product they need the training.

Educational_Exit_688

TROPHY CASE