A Beginner’s Guide: 10 WFM Terms You Need to Know

Workforce Management (WFM) helps put the right people in the right place at the right time. Without it, contact centers often feel like they’re in a constant state of firefighting, leading to stressed agents and frustrated customers.

If you’re new to the world of contact center WFM, the jargon can feel like alphabet soup. But don’t worry – we’re here to help. Here is our beginner’s guide to the 10 WFM terms you need to know to take control of your operations and start speaking the language of efficiency.

1. Abandon rate

Abandon rate is the percentage of customers who hang up or leave the queue before being connected to an agent. High abandonment rates are a primary indicator of understaffing or poor forecasting.

2. Average handle time (AHT)

AHT is the average duration of a customer transaction, including talk time and any related administrative tasks. This is a primary building block for calculating the number of agents you need.

3. Backlog

Backlog is the volume of work (usually non-real-time, like emails or tickets) that remains unresolved and carries over into the next interval or day.

4. Forecasting

Forecasting helps predict future interaction volumes with calls, chats and emails, based on historical data. This is important because you can’t staff correctly if you don’t know what’s coming.

5. Full-time equivalent (FTE)

FTE is a unit of measurement that represents one person working a full-time schedule (usually 40 hours), though two part-time employees working 20 hours each can also equal one FTE.

6. Intraday management

This is the process of monitoring the current day’s performance and making on-the-fly adjustments to schedules. For example, moving agents from email to chat because of a sudden spike in chat volume.

7. Occupancy

Occupancy is the percentage of time logged-in agents spend actively handling interactions versus waiting for the next one. It’s important to note that an occupancy that’s too low is expensive, or one that’s too high leads to agent burnout – it’s a balance. 

8. Schedule adherence

Schedule adherence measures how closely agents follow their assigned schedules. Even the best plan fails if people aren’t where they are supposed to be – so measuring whether agents are logging in on time and taking breaks when they’re scheduled can make all the difference. 

9. Service level agreement (SLA)

SLA is the percentage of interactions answered within a specific timeframe. For example, 80% of calls are answered in 20 seconds. This acts as the “north star” metric for most WFM teams.

10. Shrinkage

This term refers to the time during which agents are paid but unavailable to handle customer interactions, such as breaks, meetings, training or time off. This matters because you must over-staff to account for shrinkage so your service levels don’t drop during lunch breaks or team huddles.

One step closer to efficiency

Knowing these 10 Workforce Management terms is the first step toward a balanced, efficient contact center. While WFM for contact centers is about numbers, its ultimate goal is to provide better experiences for both agents and customers. If you want to learn more about WFM and what it could look like in your contact center, request a demo today!