Afternoon National Conference Sessions
Fast links: see the agenda overview and see details of morning, lunchtime sessions - or the specialist agendas for Quality, Insight and Field sessions.
Planning for Wellbeing
Develop your workplace wellness strategy by understanding the key factors you need to address in planning flexibility and resourcing, across all stages of the planning cycle.
- Benchmark your current wellness, flexibility and health benefits with other organisations.
- Shifting shrinkage! Understanding the cost of a joined-up wellbeing strategy.
- Understand the broader benefits like diversity and inclusion and new employee demographics.
This session is designed to take a broader look at scheduling. Not just for schedulers, but for any analyst or manager to address key considerations for your operating model, budget plan, scheduling or on-the-day operational effectiveness.
See the presentation slides
Capacity Planning Workshop
Understanding what capacity planning means at different stages of the planning cycle: operating model, budget plan, operational plan, allocating resource and operational readiness & effectiveness.
- See practical presentations from two members of how they plan and manage capacity and the benefits they have gained
- Discover new skills and approaches that can be learned from operations that are different from your own
- Gain new ideas to adapt and apply in your own business or service
This session is designed for all planners, with different table groups giving you choice about whether to dig deeper into contact centre planning, back office or field and branch operations.
See the presentation slides
Data Strategy for Planning and Insight Teams
Whatever our role as an analyst, our recommendations, insight and forecasts are only as good as the data we have available. In this workshop we will explore the key factors that build a robust data strategy.
- See methods that ensure your data is accurate and reliable, with one version of the truth
- Understand how to build the foundations that allow you to develop advanced technologies and techniques like AI & Machine Learning
- Learn how to create a framework that makes your data accessible and well-connected
This session is designed for all kinds of analysts – whether in insight, planning, continuous improvement or customer experience teams. It will be led by Ian Robertson, Insight Specialist at The Forum and Sean Northam, Lead Consultant at Modular Analytics and an Associate Consultant with the Data, Analytics & Insight Forum.
See the presentation slides
A Quality Problem : Next Level Thinking
Where next for Quality Assurance? Discover how thinking differently helps us with the challenges we face today, and in the future.
Many successful operations are moving away from simplistic metrics and tick box approaches to quality, towards a focus on learning and demonstrating the value that comes from QA and coaching. Take time to work with others in exploring how current and future trends may shape the way we engage Quality Assurance activity in the future.
- Gain insight about a central challenge for customer operations in a fast changing and multi-channel world
- Imagine the challenges of the future and explore what QA might look like, years from now
- Take the opportunity to learn techniques around fluency of ideas, problem solving and thinking differently
We will work in round-tables using idea generation, discussion and problem-solving approaches to work together on potential solutions.
See the presentation slides
Benchmarking: Planning & Operational Performance
This session will help you benchmark against other organisations and learn about agent utilisation, along with abandon rates and service levels.
- Discuss the importance of utilisation, different ways of calculating and how to set an appropriate benchmark for your organisation
- Compare abandon rates and service levels to understand the correlation and improve forecasting.
- Benchmark your organisation against the industry and discuss different approaches.
This session is designed for all planners to provide an improved understanding of utilisation, along with abandon rates and service levels. This will include basic calculations to help you understand your business, as well as benchmarking to different approaches.
See the presentation slides
How data visualisation can help Planning and Insight
Many of the reports that analysts produce are not read, used and understood, so they don’t drive the value they could. With PowerBi, Tableau and other technologies being implemented in more and more organisations, this is a real opportunity for insight, planning or quality analysts. Learn how to improve your visual literacy by seeing practical examples of different techniques for everyday visualisation and analysis.
- Gain confidence in applying visualisation techniques in your workplace, with a chance to share real life examples
- See the difference between visualisations for analysts versus key stakeholders
- Discuss how different visualisation techniques can make your data tell a story
Led by Ian Robertson and experienced subject matter experts, this session is designed for Planning, Insight, Improvement and Customer Experience analysts, looking at different visualisation techniques, with interactive table group sharing and discussion. Please bring along an example of one of your reports, graphs or dashboards.
See the presentation slides
Get connected! What makes a great analyst?
The role of an analyst has evolved over the last few years. Analysts can no longer simply process data, they need to be problem solvers, business partners and continuous improvement champions. In this workshop we explore.
- What are the skills and behaviours required to become a great analyst?
- Where do you and your team need to develop?
- How can you source or develop these skills?
This session is designed for analysts and managers of analytical teams and those aspiring to analytical roles. Hear from a panel of peers, share ideas and best practice and create or review their recruitment and development strategy.
See the presentation slides
Quality & process improvement
Turning quality into an improvement team, not just a measuring or monitoring tool, but driving improvement in process and for our customers, so that we ‘pay our own way’ as a value adding function.
- Gain insight about how to drive process and customer experience improvements through quality assessment
- Explore understanding your processes from an advisor point of view, both how they can individually develop and what they need to make their processes better for customers
- Consider how the QA framework and process itself can trigger actions beyond the individual and collate advisor feedback and where technology can support this
Of interest to anyone in a quality, continuous improvement or customer experience role, this session will be led by Julie Nicholaides, Continuous Improvement Professional, formerly of npower and Nicola Callan, Associate Consultant at The Forum, with the chance for discussion and interaction.
See the presentation slides
Conference round-up and next steps
Planning Conference
- Round up the day with Phil Anderson and our keynote speakers and be inspired to take back new ideas and approaches to your organisations and Make A Difference
- Informal networking and reflections from the day with The Forum and session speakers
- Meet in table groups with others in similar roles or facing similar challenges
- Cement relationships and plan how to take the learning from today into your own workplace
16:20 Field, Branch & Back Office
- Round up the day with Adrian Hawes and our final case study presentation
- Be inspired to take back new ideas and approaches to your organisations and Make A Difference
- Informal networking and reflections from the day with The Forum and session speakers
- Cement relationships and plan how to take the learning from today into your own workplace
Insight & Quality
- Round up the day with our keynote speakers and be inspired to take back new ideas and approaches to your organisations and Make A Difference
- Informal networking and reflections from the day with The Forum and session speakers
- Meet in table groups with others in similar roles or facing similar challenges
- Cement relationships and plan how to take the learning from today into your own workplace
See the presentation slides
Gold Sponsor
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