Workforce Engagement Management

I have a challenge that I hope someone here can help me with. I have two groups of agents that handle different queues in the early morning, let's say Queue A and Queue B. During that time there is no supervisor or workforce monitoring. Agents can't handle both queues at the same time or at least, it's a challenge to do so because it requires jumping between systems. Few calls come in during this time but I need to have appropriate staff to cover both queues. What are some solutions?

1. Add reps to both queues in the early morning and remove one queue as soon as WFM starts in the morning. There are few calls so this shouldn't be a problem, but I want to explore other solutions.
2. Designate one rep to monitor queues and if they see a call waiting, enter the correct system and activate themselves for that queue or instruct another to do so.
3. Perhaps a permission can be enabled to allow alerts for agents, and that agent can be alerted if a call is waiting on a queue? I don't see any alert parameters that I can set for calls that wait a defined number of seconds on a queue.
4. Another solution

#Other/Not Sure

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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Hi Linsey, 

Sadly, there isn't an easy/elegant way at the moment to achieve this 😔
I'm not a fan of adding/removing queues/ Planning Groups during the day as it can create confusion and is prone to errors. Some of the suggestions I've seen in the past are:

• Create a forecast modifier that increases the volumes during these quiet times to help "force" the schedule engine to schedule the agents with the correct skills during the schedule generation process. You can then remove the modifier before publishing the schedule to ensure you accurately predict service goals.
• Fixed Work Plans, use a Work Plan/Work Plan Rotation that uses a fixed shift for the quiet period of the day.

The good news is that we are currently working on ideas that will help with this scenario 🙂

Scheduling allow for Minimum Staffing to cover operating hours, regardless of Forecast - this will enable the administrator to set the minimum staffing requirement per day by the Planning Group.

Ensure Fair, Randomly Generated Start Times for Agents - This will bring the ability to set the minimum and maximum number of times a specific Work Plan shift can be scheduled for the agent per planning period. 

Paul

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Paul Wood
Product Manager for Genesys Cloud Workforce Management
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Hi Paul,

I agree that adding/removing queues is not ideal. We're minimally staffed in the early morning, so I don't need to change the amount of coverage. These seven reps have fixed early morning shifts. Instead I want to gain efficiency by having agents take both types of queues.

I do like the feature idea to build in a minimum FTE req for those low-volume hours.

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-06-2025 06:51
From: Paul Wood
Subject: Early morning staffing options

Hi Linsey, 

Sadly, there isn't an easy/elegant way at the moment to achieve this 😔
I'm not a fan of adding/removing queues/ Planning Groups during the day as it can create confusion and is prone to errors. Some of the suggestions I've seen in the past are:

• Create a forecast modifier that increases the volumes during these quiet times to help "force" the schedule engine to schedule the agents with the correct skills during the schedule generation process. You can then remove the modifier before publishing the schedule to ensure you accurately predict service goals.
• Fixed Work Plans, use a Work Plan/Work Plan Rotation that uses a fixed shift for the quiet period of the day.

The good news is that we are currently working on ideas that will help with this scenario 🙂

Scheduling allow for Minimum Staffing to cover operating hours, regardless of Forecast - this will enable the administrator to set the minimum staffing requirement per day by the Planning Group.

Ensure Fair, Randomly Generated Start Times for Agents - This will bring the ability to set the minimum and maximum number of times a specific Work Plan shift can be scheduled for the agent per planning period. 

Paul

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Paul Wood
Product Manager for Genesys Cloud Workforce Management
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Hello,

Have you considered placing both groups in all queues and using star skill settings to designate which groups will receive the calls first? This approach will help ensure that you have the right staff skilled correctly to handle the calls as they come in. Additionally, predictive routing can assist in optimizing this scenario.

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Robert Gacula, Manager, Workforce Management Team
American Specialty Health
RobertG@ASHN.com CA, San Diego.
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Hi Robert,

That's a possibility and a fine option for the early morning. I'm not sure how it'll play out once more volume comes in.

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-06-2025 10:25
From: Robert Gacula
Subject: Early morning staffing options

Hello,

Have you considered placing both groups in all queues and using star skill settings to designate which groups will receive the calls first? This approach will help ensure that you have the right staff skilled correctly to handle the calls as they come in. Additionally, predictive routing can assist in optimizing this scenario.

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Robert Gacula, Manager, Workforce Management Team
American Specialty Health
RobertG@ASHN.com CA, San Diego.
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Hi @Linsey Edn - Assuming you have individual skills for these, the proficiency stars will totally work.  But this only works if there are no calls waiting in queue and someone with the higher stars is available.  If no one is available but the low stars or calls are holding in queue, then all bets are off and it is going to go to whomever is/becomes available first.  

If you also want a buffer of wait time before bringing in other people, like allowing calls to wait for 50 seconds before bringing in others to handle it, you can do that with Bullseye routing.  I know that the forecasting/scheduling doesn't really work with Bullseye but, if the volume is small and you are really just staffing for hours of operations, it shouldn't matter.  You could set up two Bullseye rings, having one group of people in the first ring and another in the second ring.  You can make the time in the first Bullseye ring whatever you want so that calls are not automatically offered to the second group if no one in the first group is available. In the 50 second example, the call would have to be holding for over 50 seconds before the second pool of agents were brought into the mix.  This helps limit who handles the calls more than just proficiency stars. 

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Gina Palmer
Manager, Workforce Management
Papa, Inc.
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-06-2025 17:39
From: Linsey Edn
Subject: Early morning staffing options

Hi Robert,

That's a possibility and a fine option for the early morning. I'm not sure how it'll play out once more volume comes in.

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-06-2025 10:25
From: Robert Gacula
Subject: Early morning staffing options

Hello,

Have you considered placing both groups in all queues and using star skill settings to designate which groups will receive the calls first? This approach will help ensure that you have the right staff skilled correctly to handle the calls as they come in. Additionally, predictive routing can assist in optimizing this scenario.

------------------------------
Robert Gacula, Manager, Workforce Management Team
American Specialty Health
RobertG@ASHN.com CA, San Diego.

We're going to reduce our early morning staff, place them on both queues and use proficiency ratings like mentioned by others here, and offer callbacks for anyone else who waits past a certain length of time. Callbacks should be rare since there's so little volume. My business doesn't use bullseye routing due to reporting concerns. Thanks everyone for your insight.

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Linsey Edn
Workforce Management
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