What workforce management is
Workforce management (WFM) is the practice of having the right number of people with the right skills available at the right times to meet demand, at a reasonable cost. It is especially common in contact centres, retail, healthcare and field services, and much of the vocabulary comes from contact centres. Terms are used a little differently between organisations and software tools.
Forecasting and planning terms
- Workforce forecasting: predicting future demand for work, such as expected call or order volume.
- Volume: the amount of work arriving, for example the number of calls or tickets.
- Workload: volume multiplied by the time each item takes.
- Required staffing: the number of people needed to handle the forecast workload at the target service level.
- Gross vs net workload: gross usually counts total work; net is typically adjusted for factors such as shrinkage. Definitions vary.
- Safety staffing: extra staff planned in as a cushion for uncertainty.
- Erlang formulas: mathematical methods, widely used in contact centres, for estimating staff needed for a queue.
- Headcount vs FTE: headcount counts people; a full-time equivalent (FTE) converts hours worked into the equivalent of full-time staff.
Scheduling terms
- Workforce scheduling: assigning people to shifts and tasks.
- Shift: a set period of working time.
- Interval: a short block of time, often 15 or 30 minutes, used to plan and measure staffing.
- Intraday management: adjusting staffing during the day as actual demand differs from the forecast.
- Dynamic scheduling: changing schedules in response to demand or availability.
- Adherence: how closely people follow their scheduled activities.
- Multi-skilling: training people to handle more than one type of work, which adds scheduling flexibility.
- Blended agent: someone who handles more than one channel or type of work.
Performance and productivity metrics
- Shrinkage: paid time when people are not available for work, such as breaks, meetings, training and leave.
- Occupancy: the share of logged-in time spent actively handling work rather than waiting.
- Utilisation: the share of paid time spent on productive work. It is easy to confuse with occupancy, so check the definition in use.
- Average handle time (AHT): the average time to complete one interaction, including talk, hold and follow-up work.
- Service level: the target share of work handled within a set time, for example answering a stated percentage of calls within a stated number of seconds.
- Service level agreement (SLA): a formal commitment on service performance. See how ITIL defines a business service.
- Abandon rate: the share of customers who leave before being served.
- First contact resolution (FCR): the share of issues solved on the first contact.
- Productivity: output per unit of labour time.
People and retention terms
- Turnover and attrition: the rate at which employees leave. Sometimes “attrition” means leavers who are not replaced.
- Retention: keeping employees over time.
- Absenteeism: unplanned absence from work.
- Upskilling: teaching existing staff new skills.
- Succession planning: preparing people to take on key roles later.
- Onboarding: helping new hires become productive.
- Capacity planning: working out how much work the workforce can handle over a period.
Quality and engagement terms
- Quality assurance (QA): reviewing work to confirm it meets standards.
- Quality monitoring: sampling interactions or outputs to assess quality.
- Key performance indicator (KPI): a measure used to track progress on goals.
- Employee engagement: how committed and motivated staff feel.
- Workforce engagement management (WEM): an umbrella term for tools and practices that combine scheduling, quality and coaching to support staff.
- Workforce optimisation: efforts to improve efficiency and service together.
Common questions
What are some basic management terms?
Planning, delegation, span of control and KPI are typical examples. See the management terms list.
What terms are associated with the workforce?
Headcount, FTE, shrinkage, scheduling, adherence, turnover and retention are among the most common.
What are common quality terminologies?
Quality assurance, quality control, defect rate, continuous improvement and standard operating procedure. Improvement-focused terms are explained in lean management terms.
Measures of project staffing cost and progress are covered in earned value management terms.