
weWFM Podcast Episodes
All Episodes
🎙️ 33 min time
In this episode, we speak with Tesfahun Boshe, a Data Scientist | Workforce Management Analyst at TaskRabbit.
If you are into Forecasting, what to know more about it, or even if you are just wondering how I should fix, improve or develop my Forecast team/skills, this is a must-listen episode.
We speak about common mistakes, best algorithms, what kind of softwares you can use, ideas about how to improve the outcome of your Forecasts, and the future of the Data Science skillset in Workforce Management.
🎙️ 37 min time
In this episode, André Leitão and Gonçalo Gomes take a journey across their own paths to share what starting a career in WFM looks like.
Get to know the background of your hosts, their passions, and hobbies and what they believe are critical skills in the success of a WFM professional.
Do you want to know what politics, software engineering, military career, working in a differnt country, and university paths have in common?
Join us on this intimist conversation.
🎙️ 1h 05 min time
In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Marianne Rutz, Founder & Principle Consultant at Rutz Consulting.
Marianne has spent +20 years helping multilingual contact centers turn around their frontline operations. Today leads a bespoke consulting service that transforms its failing contact center into a profitable center that meets its operational excellence standards and is ready for expansion.
Marianne hosts the industry-leading “Operational Excellence Show” podcast featuring leadership topics, industry news, training episodes, and renowned guest speakers.
🎙️ 37 min time
In this episode we speak with Tiffany LaReau, owner of Human Numbers, a company that provides forecasts, staffing models and schedules to contact centers.
She has extensive experience in the field, having started her career at the Apple Call Center after graduating high school and working with various software and vendors throughout her career. Tiffany is a charter member of the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals, belongs to the International Institute of Forecasters, and is on the advisory board for Contact Center Pipeline, where she occasionally writes articles and blogs about workforce management.
She also holds certifications in contact center and workforce management.
🎙️ 33 min time
In this episode, we speak with Ger Koole, Co-founder of our partner CCmath and Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Did you ever question how essential mathematics is for WFM? What role does math play in your output, even sometimes without you even realizing it? Join us in this conversation with a Mathematician that brings his broad scientific and practical experience and interest in planning and optimization in the service sector. Mainly in call centers, health care, aviation, and hospitality, highly connected with Workforce Management.
For more on CCmath, please check our partner's page.
🎙️ 36 min time
In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Dave Hoekstra. When it comes to Contact Centers, Dave has seen it all. He started his journey in the 90s as an agent and continued through every role a contact center has to offer, eventually finding his way into his current role of Evangelist. Being Calabrio’s Product Evangelist is by far the favorite of all his roles as it gives him the ability and pleasure of sharing his knowledge and experience with other folks in the industry. And yes, being a father, grandfather, bassist, podcast host, and photographer (and Texan), he uses words like “folks”. Combining 20+ years of experience in the industry with the rest of his life experience,
Dave has a unique perspective of the tools, technology, and challenges faced by today’s modern CX organizations, and he looks forward to every interaction.
🎙️ 43 min time
In this episode, we speak with Benedikt Dormann, Head Of Customer Experience at Jimdo with over 13 years of experience in Customer Experience Management.
For 3 years, Benedikt worked as a consultant for the WFM industry before moving back to Director of Customer Service.
Benedikt always leverages the working relationship with WFM teams to enable and empower its ability to achieve results. In this conversation, join us and get the perspective of a senior leader on how critical it is good WFM to support a business going through some of the most challenging times.
🎙️ 37 min time
Adriana Olteanu, an experienced WFM professional in the Contact Center industry, joins us in this episode. Join us and take advantage of this opportunity to hear Adriana's WFM's forecasting, planning, scheduling, and real-time management techniques and methods used to support Groupon's global operations.
🎙️ 29 min time
In this episode, we speak with Kristyn Emenecker, Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Playvox.
Do you want to know what you need to focus on to be prepared for a downturn?
Are you debating the threat of layoffs, hiring freezes, low agent morale, and budget or resource cuts? Join us on the best strategies to be prepared for and what role WFM needs to play to be in a strategic decision position.
🎙️ 37 min time
In this episode, we speak with Marlon Martinez, a senior Workforce Management Analyst at BrokerLink with over 13 years of experience in Workforce Management.
Over these last two years, Marlon made multiple videos and blog posts dedicated to solving ongoing WFM issues, explaining the point of view and recommendations to everyone in WFM.
Join us and get his perspective on how challenging it is to plan nowadays, instability due to the pandemic, instability due to remote work, instability due to the impact of a downturn, and much more in today's episode.
🎙️ 41 min time
Napoleon specializes in deploying Workforce Management processes and technology into operational areas such as retail, manufacturing, and healthcare, and he is a kindred spirit to our mission at weWFM, believing that the more we band together as a community, the more we can take the profession to new heights. We cover a wide range of subjects, including WFM career options, typical pitfalls in adopting workforce management technology, and some of the intricacies and contrasts between contact center workforce management and Workforce Management applied in other industries, such as retail.
🎙️ 42 min time
What are the challenges that a WFM solution needs to answer as it helps to shape the future of our industry?
Ryan is the Cofounder and CEO of one of the most existing new bread companies in our industry, Assembled.
With a background in Economics, he started his journey as an engineer for Stripe, where early he was presented with the challenge of building a solution for the WFM challenges.
In a recent Series B funding raising $51 million, Ryan Wang says the new capital will be put toward product development, including schedule optimization algorithms and integrations with HR software, and launching an initiative, CX Scholars, that’ll commit a percentage of Assembled’s revenue to continue education for support workers.
🎙️ 33 min time
We addressed with Rene Nijman the future paths of WFM in terms of automation vs. added value people, the influence of the recent pandemic on the day-to-day business of large WFM teams, and the lessons learned connected to cultural differences of countries while developing global WFM operations.
🎙️ 29 min time
This episode features an interview with Ian Lasplace, the founder of Longreach Recruitment, a boutique recruitment agency based in the United Kingdom that specializes in workforce planning and data analytics positions. We talk about what Ian looks for in exceptional workforce planning professionals when sourcing for a role, a general job market update, and how Ian has watched the industry grow over the last two decades.
🎙️ 46 min time
In this episode, Evelyn Brooks, the WFM Director for Latin America and the Caribbean- Conduent talks about her experience in the WFM and BPO business, the differences between cultural environments, and how this can impact operations and WFM metrics.
🎙️ 25 min time
In this episode, we spoke with Garry Gormley, an experienced Contact Center professional with nearly 20 years in the Contact Center industry, about everything from what to consider when purchasing a workforce management solution to advice and strategies on how to manage supply and demand in your Contact Center, whether you are understaffed or overstaffed.
In this episode, we also cited The Contact Centre Network... As a contact center enthusiast, Garry has appeared on numerous podcasts and speaker events, evangelizing about how operational leaders require assistance in spinning all of the plates they must manage. To that end, he also hosts his own thought leadership events through The Contact Centre Network, a regular monthly event that brings together the contact center community to address some of the key issues and topics that affect operational leaders. If you want to attend one of Garry's free events, you can find a list of all upcoming events at this URL: https://www.fabsolutions.co.uk/contact-centre-training/the-contact-centre-network/
🎙️ 42 min time
A nossa missão é ser voz dos profissionais de gestão da força de trabalho, sendo igualmente a plataforma de conhecimento e fonte de novas ideias e melhores práticas em WFM. Nesta conversa conhecemos Welington Alves, COO da Sitel Group no Brasil, onde percorremos o crescimento do mercado no Brasil, quais os principais desafios de passagem de conhecimento e qual a oportunidade para o Futuro.
🎙️ 40 min time
In this episode, we talk to Eugene De Gee, Senior Manager of Workforce Management at Luno. We discuss the following topics:
- Planning in volatile environments such as the cryptocurrency market, where a single tweet may fundamentally affect your entire outlook.
- How South Africa deals with loading shedding (due to power brown outs) something perhaps Europe will be facing this winter, and what part WFM has to play in formuation and testing of business continuity plans (BCP)
- The evolution of the South African contact industry and how mature workforce management is in the region.
- How Six Sigma is an excellent complement to workforce management
- When everything in your WFM strategy is going well, the importance of volume stress testing increases
- The importance of developing a strong internal and external network to the success of workforce management
🎙️ 42 min time
A lo largo de los años, cada vez más empresas se han incorporado a Sudamérica para sus operaciones de BPO. En este episodio, Sebástian Téllez, EVP de datos, procesos y WFM de Teleperformance en Colombia, nos cuenta por qué los trabajadores latinos son tan únicos y por qué las empresas deberían invertir en Sudamérica. Automatización, trabajo a distancia y el futuro del WFM. Esto y mucho más en este fantástico episodio.
🎙️ 33 min time
In this episode, Nikki Calhoun will share her perspective on how companies should enable service teams to become revenue enablers and what is the role of automation and data in facilitating decision making.
Delivering on the promise to your end customer is critical to success. Join us to know more and leave with great advice from a senior leader in the service industry to everyone that wants to make a career in this industry.
🎙️ 30 min time
Matt discusses his journey into workforce management, as well as what it's like to break new ground in an established company when you're the first employee to hold a workforce management title. Matt offers some excellent advice on how to persuade stakeholders to invest in and support a Workforce Management process, even when few stakeholders are aware of what workforce management is all about.
🎙️ 48 min time
In this episode, Georgios Kagalos and Bahadr Eren discuss the collaboration they established between the Workforce Management and Business Intelligent teams, as well as how they won a European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards (ECCCSA) award for "BEST USE OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE"
🎙️ 21 min time
How is Workforce Management perceived from the other side?
Join us in a conversation with Marie Diks, and get a view on how a WFM background helped to shape Marie’s career to skyrocket and become a senior leader in the industry.
In addition, we will explore how culture impacts the way we get things done.
🎙️ 40 min time
During this episode, we talk with Daniel about his career path from an Agent to a WFM Trainer & Consultant and the need for more collaboration between WFM and HR. We also go deep on why it is important to note that the classical definition of Workforce Management should be reconsidered in light of recent technological advancements such as artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the fact that WFM tools are no longer merely systems for recording process data but are instead a genuinely transformational system that helps organizations reduce the administrative burden placed on managers and supervisors.
🎙️ 33 min time
In this episode, we speak with Emery about his experiences relocating from Canada to Germany and the cultural adjustments he needed to make. We discuss AI and how we, as humans, must adapt our skill sets to remain relevant. We explore how Workforce Management is seen outside of customer-facing jobs and how organizational scale and WFM vendors play a significant influence in driving workforce management adoption. Finally, Emery gives his top Workforce Management Strategies/Tips at the end, which are super interesting.
🎙️ 22 min time
We talked with Jeffrey Lijffijt-Vice-President Digital CX and Consultancy EMEA at COPC about what WFM is to him, how he is involved in this area of expertise and what he thinks about the development of WFM in the future.
🎙️ 14 min time
Join us on a trip to South East Asia to speak with Emile Anthony Nair, Workforce Manager at TaksUs. We spoke about WFM skills needed to succeed at this job, how was his journey when he started 15 years ago, how the industry has evolved over time and the impact that culture has on the way we conduct business.
🎙️ 30 min time
We talk with Anshuman Dwivedi, Scalable Capital's Head of Vendor Management, on the interdependence of Workforce Management and BPO Vendor Management, best practices, the people who have inspired him the most as a person and as a professional, and he even shares his Indian food Facebook page. This is a must-listen!
🎙️ 33 min time
Here at weWFM we are on a mission to be Workforce Management professionals' voice, knowledge platform, and source of new ideas and best practices.In this episode, you'll learn more about what we want to accomplish with weWFM: the people involved and each of our individual journeys that brought us together.
🎙️ 32 min time