WFM Review
Independent assessment of your forecasting & planning to identify practical improvement opportunities
Forecasting and planning problems are not always obvious at first. More often, they show up through pressure on customer experience, rising cost, missed revenue, or a growing sense that the operation is working hard without enough control.
Atlantic WFM provides an independent review of your forecasting & planning capability, helping identify what is working, what is limiting performance, and where improvement will make the greatest difference.
The review is particularly relevant for contact centres, back-office operations and other customer operations environments where service, workload and staffing need to be managed carefully.
When this is needed
A WFM Review is valuable when forecasting and planning are not giving you the confidence, control or results they should.
This may be because forecasts are regularly challenged, service levels are missed for unclear reasons, planning feels reactive, or change has exposed weaknesses in the current approach.
A structured review helps bring those issues into the open and shows where action will make the biggest difference.
How the review works
We review your forecasting and planning operation to understand how it works today, how well the different elements join up, and where improvement will have the greatest impact. The full review framework spans 35 elements across 8 key categories:
Workflow
Management Information
Forecasting & Resource Requirement
Capacity Planning
Scheduling & WFM System Use
Absence Planning
Interval Planning
Real-Time Management
The review can cover the full framework or focus on selected categories or elements, depending on your priorities and concerns.
Across the areas in scope, we assess processes, measures, assumptions, governance, decision-making routines, ways of working and supporting tools.
Deliverables
Capability Assessment
A structured assessment across the elements in scope, showing where capability is strong, where it is weaker, and where risk or opportunity sits.
Clear, specific recommendations for each element reviewed, designed to strengthen capability in a practical and proportionate way.
Prioritised action plan
A clear action plan that weighs likely benefit against ease and difficulty of implementation, so effort can be focused where it will deliver most value.
Outcomes and benefits
A WFM Review gives you a clearer view of what is helping performance, what is holding it back, and where improvement effort should be focused first. That clarity leads to:
- stronger understanding of current capability and performance constraints
- clearer priorities for improvement
- better-targeted time, effort and investment
- more confident forecasting and planning decisions
- improved service and customer experience
- reduced cost volatility
- stronger support for revenue performance
- better colleague experience through more effective planning
Why Atlantic WFM?
Independent judgement, led by experience
Atlantic WFM is led by Philip Stubbs and brings independent judgement grounded in deep practical experience of forecasting, planning and real-time management across customer operations.
Philip has worked in WFM for customer operations since 1992, brings a background in Operational Research, and has led Operations Planning and Support Services departments within several large businesses. He was co-winner of the 2024 VN1 forecasting competition.
- specialist focus on forecasting, planning and real-time management in customer operations
- experience of reviewing WFM capability across more than 80 organisations
- work carried out across a wide range of customer operation environments
- regular involvement in webinars, conference speaking and published writing
- independent perspective grounded in practical operational experience
Frequently asked questions
How long does a WFM Review take?
That depends on the size and complexity of the operation, but the review is designed to be practical and proportionate.
Is this only for organisations with serious performance problems?
No. It is also useful for organisations that have built up a forecasting and planning capability, but would like an independent view of where they can improve further or reduce future risk.
Will this work if we already have a WFM system in place?
Yes. The review is broader than system use alone. The key question is whether forecasting, planning and real-time management are being supported by the right processes, information, assumptions and governance.
Will the recommendations be practical?
Yes. The focus is on improvements that can be applied in the real world, not generic best practice that is difficult to implement.
Can the review be tailored to the areas we are most concerned about?
Yes. The review can cover the full forecasting and planning framework or focus more heavily on the areas where concern, risk or opportunity is greatest.
Request a WFM Review
If you are questioning whether your current forecasting and planning approach is delivering what it should, book a short conversation to discuss where improvement would matter most and what is worth fixing first.
Prefer to send a message instead? Contact us.