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  • 1.  Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-13-2025 20:01

    Hello, I'd like to understand how other contact centers are handling adherence exceptions and determine best practices.

    Common exceptions

    • Agent stuck on call, running into another activity
    • Agent went to break late due to above call, now dinged twice
    • Meeting ran long
    • Agent pulled for brief side-by-side

    It would be a momentous task to make adjustments for each of these scenarios because they're so common. I've set our Adherence Exception Threshold to 1 minute to give some leeway, but believe we need to see a true adherence percentage. Adherence doesn't just affect our agents but gauges how well each site is performing. I believe it's best to set a realistic adherence target for agents rather than make changes on the backend, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

    Questions

    • What is your contact center's adherence target and why did you choose that number?
    • How do you handle the common scenarios listed above and any unique cases your encounter?
    • Do you have tips on educating agents and your business on why you chose your adherence target?

    #Workforce Management
    #Intraday,Shrinkage,Adherence

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    Linsey Edn
    Workforce Management
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  • 2.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-14-2025 05:00

    Hi Linsey, 

    It's worth searching the community if you haven't already done so; there are some great conversations around Adherence, in particular @Jay Langsford has shared a lot of Genesys Cloud Best practice advice. 

    As a general rule of thumb, the things that you have mentioned tend to average out over time, and your Adherence target should reflect those averages. 
    It's also good practice not to retrospectively correct the schedule to fit these exceptions, as it can provide a false history and mask issues when you are trying to understand real-world/historical performance to forecast.

    Paul



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    Paul Wood
    Product Manager for Genesys Cloud Workforce Management
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-14-2025 10:28
    Edited by Tracy Vickers 08-05-2025 09:26

    In our contact center we don't do exceptions-  period.  It's such a high effort from your WFM team for very little value add.  Once you start defining what constitutes an exception, time length requirements, etc, then you no longer have an adherence score-  the score now measures how effectively your team can modify schedules.

    Instead, we measure adherence at a team level and have more realistic expectations (85%) so that entering exceptions is not necessary.  At the agent level, conformance is more important to us.

    This might seem radical to some, but it has saved hundreds of hours from the WFM perspective and has made it much less stressful for our agents.



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    Jodi Maffitt
    NA
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-14-2025 10:45

    Absolutely agree with not entering the exceptions and making the target more realistic, otherwise, you really are just managing how well Exceptions are entered and can have great Adherence results while customer calls are not being answered.



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    Judy Jimenez, Call Center Operations Manager
    CURE Auto Insurance
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-14-2025 10:46

    Linsey, 


    Agents following an assigned schedule, which is known as schedule adherence, have a profound impact on how well a contact center operation can perform.  By using a schedule adherence key performance indicator (KPI) your operation team is able to manage to how well agents are following their schedules.

    Adherence to schedule is an objective math-based measure of how well agents will follow their schedules.  As operations leaders, we want as many objective measures as possible to include in our agent scorecards, adherence is an excellent scorecard measure. 

    When setting a schedule adherence target there are some things to keep in mind:

    ·       There is generally a tendency to want to set high goals, vs. calculate realistic goals.

    o   There is no industry standard, these goals are based in expectations of your organization's goals and work methods.

    ·       Approving schedule exceptions to meet a high goal is working against you, approving many exceptions masks real performance. (Eliminating exceptions altogether can be an effective strategy to determine the reality of schedule adherence.)

    ·       Make sure agents understand how adherence affects overall results and how the adherence target is calculated.

    ·       Adherence to schedule is in the agent's control.

    A method I recommend formula that will help you establish a starting point for your adherence KPI.

    ·       Determine scheduled hours and convert to minutes

    o   Adherence goal will be different based on hours worked. 

    o   Establish targets for part time and full time agents. 

    ·       Average handle time; consider short and long call types.

    o   Short calls suggest a higher adherence target

    o   Longer calls suggest lower adherence target

    ·       On average number of non-ACD scheduled events per day

    o   Break / Meal / Break = 3 transitions

    ·       Amount of non-adherence time allowed per day

    o   Personal time? (15 minutes)

    o   Coaching or Unplanned Time, etc.? (15 minutes)

    Full Time Shift

    450

    Average Daily Scheduled Minutes (7.5 hours)

    3

    # of times caught on calls per day for scheduled events (ex. Break Lunch Break)

    8 min

    AHT* (example 8 minutes)

    24

    Total minutes agent may be caught on a call

    30

    Additional allowed non-productive minutes

    (54)

    Total Out of Adherence Time

    88%

    Proposed Adherence

    Adh % = (Shift Minutes – Out of Adherence Minutes) / Shift Minutes
    • Note: Using full AHT for the calculation is a conservative starting point; ultimately one half of the Average Handle Time should be the input

    Once you have settled on a proposed starting point for your adherence target, follow these steps to make schedule adherence a best practice for your organization. Communicate positively the purpose of schedule adherence as it relates to the goals of the organization.

    Create Adherence goal for other shift lengths in the organization, 4hr, 10hr etc. They will show different goals based on time working.

    Teach your agents how the formula works.

    Include schedule adherence as part of the front line employee's scorecard.

    Coach, and celebrate success.

    Another great tool is implementing the Gamification Profile and leverage Punctuality. There you can create targets and agents can accumulate points for punctual behavior that will directly promote Adherence achievements. 

    • https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/gamification-overview/
    • https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/configure-gamification-profile-metrics/



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    Chuck Swain
    Genesys
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-15-2025 11:31

    Hi @Linsey Edn! 

    I may be in the minority, but I am a strong believer in exceptions for when an Agent is doing something they are approved to do that may not have originally been on  their schedule.  I do not use the term "Schedule Adherence" but rather "Schedule Accuracy".  We use SCA to measure Agent behavior, not WFM or Leadership performance so we are more interested in if the agent's schedule accurately reflects what they were approved to do (Schedule Accuracy) than we are with if the agent did what was on their schedule (Schedule Adherence).    I have rolled out SCA metrics to contact centers on multiple occasion.  When I first went the "Schedule Adherence" route, it was so poorly received by the Agents that we actually pulled it back.  When we tried it again using the "Schedule Accuracy" approach, it was very well received. 

    We use a 5 min buffer on the adherence set up.  This accounts for minor overages and limits the amount of exceptions WFM has to do.  When you create your SCA goal, you just need to take into consideration the 5 min buffer you have built it in.  Most places I have worked have gone with 90% SCA being the acceptable goal. 

    Everyday, our WFM team visually reviews the schedule sets for the previous day, looking for the pink Out Of Adherence flag. We then look closer to see if the agent was in fact stuck on a call and that is why they missed their scheduled break time.  If so, we move the start of the break to the first possible moment when they could have taken it. Because these are breaks and lunches, the duration remains the same.  If the agent could have gone on time but was sitting in IDLE or WRAP UP, for example, nothing is changed.

    Ex: Suzie Queue's break is scheduled to start at 1100 (1100 - 1115).  She is stuck on a call until 1108.  WFM reviews the schedules and sees that the agent was on an Interaction that ended at 1108.  WFM changes the start time of the Break to 1108, making her new break 1108 - 1123.

    We look for the same thing if an agent goes to a scheduled meeting late.  We look for the pink line indicator and, if they were on an interaction, we move the start time of the meeting to when the interaction ended but, in this case, we do not change the end time of the meeting because the assumption is it will still end on time.

    We do not require any exceptions be filed or any notification given to WFM from the agent or leader for any late to activity caused by an agent being stuck on an interaction because we proactively look for that.  If a meeting or other off phone activity runs over by more than 5 min, the supervisors submit an exception and we update the activity code.

    Any adhoc coaching is scheduled by the supervisor via Genesys, which automatically pushes that Coaching activity to the schedule so WFM does not need to touch those. 

    While it won't work for everyone, this process has worked for me in successfully rolling out SCA for 5 different companies with contact centers ranging from 1200 to 100, over the past 20 years.   



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    Gina Palmer
    Manager, Workforce Management
    Papa, Inc.
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-16-2025 13:41

    Our center's approach has been a mix of both general ideas discussed here. There is a huge difference between activities that are planned (project time for a recurring thing, like some agents who are selected for walk-in activities at the front desk, monthly coaching time, etc.), and unplanned activities which supervisors can do but can negatively impact performance.

    Our WFM team is currently made up of 5 Coordinators looking over our primary Customer Service Center and a few other parts of the organization that take calls. We have 3 Coordinators assigned to our Health Plan operations, 2 assigned to our Patient Services operations, and 1 floater who helps with a few areas needing less dedicated attention. The HP and PS operations are about 150 agents each, and the remaining few areas are less than 100 total, probably less than 50 but I haven't needed to count.

    Our planning approach currently involves a monthly calendar where WFM indicates what times are available for offline activities and Operations can then fill those in. There are some required offline activities that can override so there is room for discussion on all of these times. If approved, WFM will update the agent's schedule with the approved pre-planned activity, which is coded as Planned Shrinkage.

    However, Supervisors are empowered to pull agents for immediate or urgent needs by their operations team which can override WFM planning. These are generally reported in real-time by the supervisor and updated by WFM to indicate this is an Unplanned Shrinkage activity. In our case, this is not the agent's fault for not following their approved schedule, so we don't want to negatively impact their adherence too. We also have agents submit a form via Microsoft SharePoint for things like Technical Issues or User Outages – our staff is still remote, so a Technical Issue would be an issue with our equipment (password issues, VPN access, etc.) and a User Outage would be the agents' responsibilities (mostly networking and power issues). They can also report select unplanned activities as well; the supervisor will generally advise they pulled an agent for an urgent issue, but the agent's entry gives us the timeframe for that.

    Unlike Gina's system above, though, we do not move breaks or meals for an overage – the average should account for that in our estimation. We allow agents a five-minute window to leave for break/meal early to keep more in line with adherence, including busier times. If a supervisor forgets to report an activity, the initial impact is on the agent's score. We operate on a principle of shared responsibility and encourage agents to flag any discrepancies. Our WFM team can then easily verify the event with the supervisor and make the correction if needed.

    A lot of this process was created during our time on Genesys Engage and worked very well in that environment. Engage had a system where these pre-planned exceptions were schedulable like time off requests, and WFM could approve or deny in bulk with a few clicks (or even as few as two if everything was approved). Unfortunately, Cloud does not have an analogous feature which severely interrupted our processes, leading to today's use of an Excel sheet and SharePoint form. This is our biggest challenge, as the process is manual and high-effort. We have raised this product gap to Genesys, but aside from a single meeting early this year about a proposed feature development targeting 2026, we have not heard anything about it.

    Our goal is to find the balance between respecting the agents' responsibilities by following their supervisors' directions while also accurately accounting for shrinkage. This is similar to having a special "Ops Override" variant of our two main time off types, which is generally expected to be used when Operations has an agent with a valid reason for needing the time off (i.e., a medical appointment) but WFM is out of pre-planned time off availability.

    While I personally see great value in a highly structured model like Gina's, our current hybrid approach works for our scale. The close relationship between our WFM and Operations teams allows us to maintain a high degree of schedule accuracy without a full daily review of every schedule. It's a different path to the same goal: ensuring the schedule accurately reflects approved work and that agents aren't penalized for following operational directives.



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    Gene Gutierrez | Workforce Analyst
    Presbyterian Workforce Management
    Albuquerque, NM
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-16-2025 14:18

    Hi @Gene Gutierrez

    We also encourage our agents to go to Break/Lunch or any off queue activity within that 5 min window before their scheduled time to help avoid getting stuck on a call over the schedule off queue activity.  Agents are still expected to only take the 15 or 30 min, but since it is within the 5 min window, there is no negative impact on SCA.  The number of times we actually have to move Breaks/Lunches due to being stuck on a call is few and far between. 

    Our monthly Team Huddles, Agent 1:1s, and off phone project time (Authorized Activities) are on a set rotation and built into the agents workplans so we do not need to worry about adding those.  

    If I am reading your processes correctly, it seems like the only real difference is that we adjust if the agent is stuck on a call more than 5 min past the start of their scheduled off-queue activity so as not to negatively impact their SCA. 

    Our COACHING activity, which is what is used for adhoc emergency pull the agent types of meetings is also set as an Unplanned activity so we can see what shrinkage was last minute (after everything has been set). We rely on the Supervisors ability to add a last minute coaching (after schedules have been published) using the Agent Development schedule coaching feature.  as that automatically suggests the best times to choose from, and WFM does not need to make a sign up sheet of log. We haven't noticed any issues using this feature.  Is there a reason you choose to use an internal sign up sheet as opposed to Genesys Schedule Coaching feature?  I want to make sure there is not an issue I have not noticed, yet.

    We are also a virtual center.  Supervisors submit the Tech Issues exceptions to WFM, instead of the agents, because they have to verify if it indeed was the fault on our side or due to the agents equipment or internet.

    I also miss the ability for Supervisors to submit real time exceptions for those last minute emergency pull of the phone situations and WFM being able to approved them in the system, which was available in previous systems I have worked with.  Hopefully that is an enhancement that will come in the future. 



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    Gina Palmer
    Manager, Workforce Management
    Papa, Inc.
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Adherence best practices

    Posted 07-18-2025 13:45

    I totally agree with you all on not doing exceptions and changing the behavior of the Agent.  My question is how do you handle system issues?  With our company we have a lot of system issues, and we have to exception those out.  We are a very small call center with around 50-60 people.  Also how did you come up with a new metric # for no exceptions?

    Thank you!



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    Roxanne Tieman
    Supervisor, Claims Call Center
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    Original Message


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