Workforce management glossary

Plan requirement

Subscription Any plan
Also required Workforce Management
Access Agent

The workforce terms, in the sense Zendesk uses them. Several sound like plain English and are not.

Planning terms

Forecast Predicted contact volume, by interval.
Schedule Who works when, generated against the forecast.
Shift One person's working period, including breaks and activities.
Activity What somebody is scheduled to be doing: tickets, training, a break.
Location A place with its own hours, holidays and time zone.

Measurement terms

Adherence How closely actual work matched the schedule.
Occupancy Share of available time spent on work rather than waiting.
Shrinkage Scheduled time not spent on customer work: meetings, training, breaks.
General task Work that is not a ticket but still takes time.

Three that mislead

Adherence. It measures following the schedule, not working well. An agent who stayed on a difficult call through a scheduled break scores badly and did the right thing.

Occupancy. High is not good. Sustained high occupancy means no recovery time between contacts, and it predicts people leaving.

Team. A workforce team, not a Support group. They are maintained separately and often differ.

See also

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