Pay Your Real Time Analysts! | Sarah Thompson

In this episode of WFM Unfiltered, Irina Mateeva sits down with the dynamic Sarah Thompson, Senior Planning and Insight Lead at Skipton Building Society, to delve into the often-overlooked role of real-time analysts in workforce management. Sarah, known for her authentic and vibrant presence on LinkedIn, brings a fresh perspective on the crucial role real-time analysts play in maintaining service levels and operational efficiency.

Sarah's journey from starting on the phones to becoming a leader in planning and insight is inspiring. She shares her unique experiences and insights, emphasizing the importance of real-time analysts, not as mere button-pushers but as pivotal players who ensure smooth operations and handle crises with agility and confidence. Her candid discussion with Irina covers the skills needed to excel in real-time analysis, the often underappreciated complexity of the role, and why these professionals deserve more recognition and better pay.

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of how real-time analysts are the backbone of contact centers, ensuring everything runs smoothly even in the face of unexpected challenges. Sarah also touches on the symbiotic relationship between real-time teams and other planning functions, highlighting the need for better communication and integration within the workforce management cycle.

By the end of this episode, you'll appreciate the critical role of real-time analysts and why they are indispensable to any contact center's success. Don't miss Sarah's valuable insights and practical advice that can transform your approach to workforce management.

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Transcript

Irina: 0:18

Hello WFMers and all friends of WFM, I'm your host Irina Mateeva and welcome to WFM Unfiltered, a podcast by RightWFM. we're traveling to Skipton, UK and my guest is absolutely incredible. She is one of my favorites, but before I introduce her, uh, you to her and her topic, I would like to mention something about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Community WFM and I have to be honest, I'm getting allergic reaction by vendors that the only thing that they're able to teach you about is how to press buttons in their solution. So let me be quite frank with you. The only reason of having a WFM tool is if you can actually put your operational environment into perspective and actually Use a system that's not a glorified Excel. So if you want to use someone that is a planner themselves, that know the drills, know the ropes, please go ahead and research Community WFM. They're super supportive and they will help you out. So more information about them in the show notes below. And with that, business is over and I can finally introduce you to an absolute ball of energy. Welcome to the show, Sara.

Sarah Thompson: 1:49

Thank you so much for having me, Irina. I'm pleased to be here.

Irina: 1:52

We, we have struggled a lot. So if you see that I'm kind of distracted and I already explained to Sara, I'm absolutely sleep deprived, but putting that aside, we have worked very hard to figure out how to do that recording, but I'm so happy to have you in

Sarah Thompson: 2:09

Oh, thank you. Well, I say, it's been a long time coming, so obviously it's going to be the best one yet, clearly.

Irina: 2:15

Of course, of course, there's no competition for you, asara, let's start there. But, you know what I wanted to do with you, before I give you the chance to introduce yourselves, shall we be on brand?

Sarah Thompson: 2:26

Oh yes, always.

Irina: 2:28

Can we do it? Can we do that? How do you do it? starting off

Sarah Thompson: 2:36

My tongue is more famous than me on LinkedIn, which I've just realised sounds ridiculous out of context.

Irina: 2:43

No, I absolutely love it. But if you don't follow Sarah Just yet you should absolutely do that. Follow her on LinkedIn and you will understand what we're talking about.

Sarah Thompson: 2:55

Oh yes, my tongue is famous for being out in every photo because being sensible is clearly what LinkedIn is all about and having your tongue out is extremely sensible.

Irina: 3:06

Actually, the thing that I really, really like and appreciate about you is that you're super authentic and you don't put that kind of mask of, Oh, you know what? We should just talk about numbers and be super boring. And that's what WFM is all about. So absolutely. I really enjoy everything that you're talking about, uh, in your LinkedIn profile and your whole personality is just contagious. So thank you for that.

Sarah Thompson: 3:32

No worries!

Irina: 3:35

Thank you so much for joining us today, Sarah. I'm so happy to have you here. Before we kick off with the topic that you have suggested, which is absolutely amazing and we need to talk about it more. Would you mind sharing a little bit about your background and who you are?

Sarah Thompson: 3:53

Yeah, sure. So, I'm Sarah Thompson. I work at Skipton Building Society. Um, I have one of those really long and complicated titles that doesn't actually mean anything. So, I'm a Senior Planning and Insight Lead. So, all that means, basically, is I am in charge of anything to do with analytics, planning, and anything you can think of in the call centre. What I decide that week, basically. So, I've had the Typical journey really, started on the phones a few years ago, started in real time, which is my favourite area, I love real time. Um, did a little bit of scheduling while I was there, then moved to Skipton. Um, started off as a capacity planner, did a bit in the MI world as well. And then, I don't know really, the role just kind of grew and grew and grew and I kind of transformed it into whatever I am now, and now I'm here. So, I wanted to talk today about, I guess the unsung heroes in my opinion, of the contact centre and WFM world. So what people in real time, we're always thinking, oh, it's the easy job. It's what we do. We take these people in off of, usually, I was going to say off the street. That sounds a bit aggressive, doesn't it? But we usually take people straight from the contact center. They've been on the phone and the first step into their world of WFM and contact centers is real time because it's easy. And I totally disagree with that. I think that that is a really big myth that we need to dispel.

Irina: 5:14

Mm

Sarah Thompson: 5:15

Think about your planning cycle, right? If you take out Any section of the planning cycle, other than the real time team. Yeah, alright, one day, it probably won't hurt anything. You take real time out for one day, it is chaos. You cannot run your operation without a real time team. And people say, oh it's just sitting there, watching a screen. It's like, well if that's what your analysts are doing They're not analysts, they're administrators at best. So that's what I kind of wanted to talk about is like, the skills you actually need to be a real time analyst are actually really quite unique and quite niche. Because any other area of the planning cycle, you've got that really precious commodity, which is time. And in real time, ironically, you don't have time, you have to make decisions fast, you have to have conviction, you have to be able to, you know, Basically, carry a whole contact centre on your back, sometimes on your own, depending on the size of your organisation, and have conviction in what you're doing. And I don't think anyone can do that. I think you are a special, very special kind of person if you can do that. And I just, I don't know, what's your thing on it, Irina? I mean, you must have heard this, like, it's the easy role, you're just a real time analyst.

Irina: 6:27

How do I start here? First off, let me

Sarah Thompson: 6:30

Ha ha ha!

Irina: 6:32

you tell me a sense of what kind of a topic you would like to cover? And you mentioned this one. I was so surprised because that's one thing that I have never even thought about. So I ended up going to my husband who is a WFMer and I was like, you know what, Sarah came with that idea and I think it's brilliant. And I was like, you know what, Sarah has a brilliant angle and we should talk about it, but what's your view? And he was like, Oh, you know, it's an interesting story because he went into planning from an agent being directly a real time specialist. I went the other way around. I first became a planner. And then the legacy Part of my journey was to become a real time specialist. So we ended up arguing with one another and he was like, Yeah, but this is the, um, the most natural step if you're an agent. You can So, I'm gonna jump back there directly to real time because it will be probably more familiar to you and I was like but that doesn't make any sense because for me real time is the conclusion of everything that you have done so far so if you don't understand the cycle if you don't understand the concepts then you're gonna end up doing it. Go to this queue, go to that queue, take this call, put yourself on a break without any kind of rationale behind it. And then the analytical part that you mentioned will be absolutely absent. So I actually absolutely agree with you. We have a huge issue how we are introducing real time skills. We have a lot of questions to our organizations, but also the way that we're treating them. And one thing that you mentioned that is driving me absolutely up the wall is that we consider real time specialists like rookies, like planning wannabes, like those people that they don't know much, but we kind of need someone to fill in the role. So go ahead and do something and try to achieve the service level. Cool.

Sarah Thompson: 8:26

bum on seats. Literally.

Irina: 8:28

Yes, and it's so not that, and this is one of the subjects that I'm really passionate about is real time, because I think it's fundamentally misunderstood what the heck a real time analyst should be doing. And

Sarah Thompson: 8:46

thing as well. I mean, It's the hot word at the moment, AI, isn't it? So we're always talking about how AI is going to take over the humans, and the robots are coming, and it's going to be Terminator 2 all over again. But, in reality, if your robots are taking over, then it's not a role that these humans should be doing anyway. So the real time analytics comes in when you start looking at those decisions and you have that accountability and that vision and direction. AI can only do what you put into it. So yes, it probably can do the screen watching, but why are you paying somebody who's got a brain and capabilities to be able to really sort of shape and inform your business strategy? I mean, admittedly, they're not going to have the same scope as a forecaster. Of course they're not, because that's not their scope to look at, but if they understand the whole journey, they should be able to inform that decision making. I mean, one of the reasons our real time team at Skipton is so successful is because we do believe in that whole planning cycle. Our forecaster cannot. Get her forecast correctly, if she doesn't work with real time, if she doesn't know what's going on in their real life, we make tactical changes to the forecast based on what we're doing because of that communication. And the most successful analysts we have are the ones that actually to know that story. They don't just see themselves as doing grunt work, they just, they see themselves as a valued part of the team. And again, when you see like the pay gap sometimes between real time and scheduling or forecasting. Again, I understand it's a different skill set. It's a lot of responsibility, really, to put on somebody who could just be a school leaver.

Irina: 10:20

you know what, I think it's also of your right

Sarah Thompson: 10:22

little bit. I'm not gonna lie.

Irina: 10:26

You know what, it's not only about the responsibility, but the amount of pressure that you're under. Because let's face it, every single time when something gets wrong is, at least that's in my experience, the operations manager, contact center manager, are going and asking, what did you do about it? So why are we not meeting the service level? Uh, did you ask people to stay? Did you put them on different skills, different cues, different whatever? And it's kind of a sole responsibility to the real time analyst. No. No, no, no. They're literally executing right now on what has been put into action before them. And I think it's so unfair, but you also mentioned one thing that it's equally annoying for me, to be honest, and it's the, the pay gap. Because, again, we kind of treat real time analysts as, Admin brookies, like, we really need someone to watch something and do something we're not entirely sure about. We want to pay them kind of much less than the other roles, but we don't understand that this is basically the, the, the final part to our customer experience. These are the people that can potentially execute any type of changes or suggest any type of changes to the other stakeholders. So we can achieve a better customer experience and employee experience.

Sarah Thompson: 11:52

Absolutely. And really, if these people, um, in real time, weren't valuable, then why do you always notice when a really good one leaves? You know, when they go on to forecasting, or they go on to capacity planning, or other areas of the business, if everyone was just a rookie and really like, oh, they're just there to fill a seat, you shouldn't notice when someone leaves. You should be able to just add in another robot, another person, and in reality that's not the case. And also, I think the other fundamental thing that the real time guys have, that a lot of us in the forecasting and more longer term space don't have, is that connection with the people. Because it's so easy when you're stuck in your spreadsheets, when you're stuck in your WFM system, and you're just not looking at the real, People to forget that they are humans. I mean, I'm guilty of it. There's been, a lot of times, there was a period in my career where I refused to learn anybody's name because I wanted to make objective decisions and I didn't want to think about that person as a human. And now, obviously, I've evolved since then. I'm not a total dinosaur anymore. And, um, You know, it's, it's, that human touch is so important because you are dealing with things in real time that you won't deal with in a, in a, in a more long term space. So, you know, emotive things like sickness or personal issues, you know, you know why that person needs that extra half an hour off the phone. Whereas when you've got someone who is looking purely at the big picture going, well, you've had extra shrinkage here, why? Real time get to actually have that real answer. Well, hang on a minute. If we invest the time here, This person's going to do better. So it's that wonderful sort of conduit between the people and the business. That's a really valuable role that we just don't see. Nobody, nobody focuses on that bit. They focus on the, Oh, let's get the service level. It's like, no, let's not. That's just such a small piece of the pie. There's a whole other pie here. Let's eat it. You know,

Irina: 13:43

Well, you're gonna get me started here because usually when we talk about Service level is just a number, right? We, we think about it in absolute terms. Service level is that, uh, holy grail, like 80 percent in 60 seconds. If we're achieving, the business is going to be super successful. It's absolute bollocks. I absolutely fucking hate it because there is so much that's going on behind it and that, that service level represents. Let me tell you one thing that when I became a manager, one of the things that I absolutely hated, and it's very personal, I got a couple of real time specialists that absolutely refused to get off the chair and speak to people. They were like watching the stats, watching the queues and sending messages to the team leads to ask, for example, person A or person B to go on the phone to get the next call. I was like, You know what? First of all, I really want people like real time specialists to bond with the agents, right? Because you're effectively asking them to do something. Yeah, I do get the idea that the team leaders are their managers and they should be responsible. But, in my opinion, they shouldn't be the only one responsible for the behavior in the contact center. So, think about it this way, if I'm struggling, I'm an agent, and I'm struggling, I have some issues, I'm coughing, I'm sneezing, I can't be on the phone, and I ask my team lead to be off the phone, we don't allow that. We're saying, oh, you know what, real time analysts, or planning teams, or WFM teams, they're gonna allow you. But we also don't allow them to speak to the agents, so basically we're going in circles. The agent should speak to the team lead, the team lead should speak to the real time analyst, and then the other way around. Fuck that.

Sarah Thompson: 15:38

That is one of the things that actually, you've got me thinking about now. I'm getting bit, a bit, myself. It's, what really winds me up is when the real time analysts get used as a no filter. And like, when leaders go out and go, oh, sorry, can't do that, um, real time said no. And we're there going, you didn't ask us, you didn't. Hi. We are quite happy for you to go home sick. That's on you. No, you're not allowed to go home. Real time said no. Yeah.

Irina: 16:11

no, or the real time analyst said no, it's, I'm getting aggressive. I can't, but it is also the, it is how we're enabled people to get away with stuff, right? Because we are trying to avoid that connection. We're like, it's not my responsibility. They said no, but you're not allowed to speak to them. Sit in the corner and behind the desk and they're not approachable. What do we expect? I can imagine if I'm the position in the agent and I really need something, I need to be off cause I have an issue and I know that there is a decision maker. My natural reaction would be to go and explain my situation. Ask for understanding. Not to go and talk to people behind that.

Sarah Thompson: 16:58

Do you know what, there's an interesting thing, I think it's, I think it's Jet2 are doing, um, where they have, like, this set of agents who are kind of like, real time, but they deal with just the personal things, I'm sure it's Jet2, and they, they will deal with like the absence and they'll deal with that stuff, so it removes that kind of And I think that's a really interesting idea because having that, like, that way the team managers can do what they should be, sorry, the team leaders. I shouldn't call them managers, that's very old fashioned, isn't it? Um, but the leaders should be doing what they're doing, which is leading. You know, they are making sure that people are developing, that they are evolving and becoming the best versions of themselves. They're not worried about the admin. Whereas the real time guys at Jet2, I can't, I wish I could remember what they're called, but it's something like the, the um, Interaction Team or something like that, but basically they, they go to these people rather than to their team managers or the rest of the planning team. And they deal with that and that's a nice buffer. It's again that sort of conduit where you've got people being with planning and then I suppose, can that ever go wrong? I mean unless you're talking So, ridiculous amounts of revolving desk door, you know, where you've got a line of people coming to talk to you, then yeah, maybe you need to have a little word. But, realistically, having that communication can never really be a bad thing, and I've never understood, I mean, Hierarchies have never really been a vibe for me, I always find them quite difficult to stick to, but I don't get why you wouldn't open that communication. Again, that's another thing with real time is you need to have a skill that not everyone else can do. You can't be internalized. You can't build those walls up. You need to be able to build relationships with a different type of people. And that is also really important because when you get to other areas, like for example, forecasting, it's you need to be able to influence senior stakeholders in a top level business. And that is, that's a skill, but that's a skill you kind of expect to learn as you grow up. Whereas in reality, nobody ever comes in and says, well, you need to be able to talk to people. Not, not bosses and hierarchies and leaders. No, you need to people. You know, you can't just sit there and, how do I explain it? You can't just sit there and only want to talk upwards. You need to talk sideways. You need to talk, you know, at all levels. People are people at the end of the day. And that is a really important skill that real time have, like, in abundance. And that is something that is so exciting to me. Because if you can talk to people at any level, You're already better than the people that are only talking upwards.

Irina: 19:26

And let's not forget, and this is very important, that the people that actually execute the job and are the face of your business are the people that the real time analysts are speaking to on a daily basis, because you can make all sorts of decisions about budget, about the strategy, about what have you, But you're not the one picking up the phone. You're not the one who is going to hang up the phone on the customer, get the customer annoyed or be the reason for this customer to go to your competitor. So you need someone who is very personable, who is very self aware. And I think this is a unique, Combination of skills where you absolutely need to understand data because it's all about following patterns, getting insights, um, analyzing the situation, feeding it back to the forecasters, to the planners, but equally so, it's a communication game. You can't get away without speaking to your team leads because and the people who

Sarah Thompson: 20:22

oh sorry, no no, no no. I was just gonna say, on the bit on the data, again, you've got to do all that at speed. And that's the really cool part about Realtime, and that's why it's my favourite part of the planning cycle, if I'm honest. It's because you, literally, you're in the firing line. You have to do things fast, you have to make a decision, and you have to be impactful. You have to know what you're doing. You can't sort of, Oh, we'll give it a go. And see what happens, because you can do that further out, of course you can, you've got weeks, sometimes months before the thing happens, but on the day, this is on fire, how do we put it out? You don't want to sit there and go, let's just watch it for a minute and see how much of it actually burns. You know, it's like, you need to sort of be able to, or if you do do that, you need to have a reason why you're doing it. You need to be able to be like, on it, with conviction, chase things, pivot, make things, be truly agile, that's what you need to be.

Irina: 21:13

So what is our conclusion about the personality, the profile and our opinion on the journey? Is it a good idea to go straight into real time without being introduced to the other parts of the cycle? Or?

Sarah Thompson: 21:27

I think, well, I think it depends on the person, as with everything. But my feeling is, if you've come from the phone, you already have those communication skills, don't you? You already have that ability to talk to somebody you don't know, to convey information in a different way, and make it into, usually make it into something that's simple for everyone to understand. So you've already on the good foot here. I think if you go into it and then you learn about it from that point of view, You do, you can kind of add on the planning cycle from that. However, however, if you're wanting to do more of a growing and shaping Your real time strategy, then I think you're absolutely right, doing it the way you've done it, is actually better, because you come in, you know how everything fits together, and you know how you can make this bit some more, so much more impactful, how you can drive the strategy, drive the change through that position. And again, I guess that's why, as cheesy as this is, having a whole team of people works better.

Irina: 22:26

You know what, I'm listening to you and on the back of my head I'm constantly thinking about my new mantra, which is going to be pay real time specialists more. Pay them. Pay them on their word. So please, please,

Sarah Thompson: 22:40

mm

Irina: 22:42

is such a great conversation. And I actually want to invite you for a follow up one, because when you started explaining, of course, you're always welcome. Talking about, um, speaking to different stakeholders and the team leads and hiding behind it, the real time said, no, I'm actually very passionate about the topic of Not doing what you're supposed to be doing by hiding what you shouldn't. So in my opinion, I have seen so many situations where team leads started interfering with real time and they use that as a reason for not spending enough time on coaching or training, for example, and upskilling. So let's agree that this is going to be our second parter, because I'm very curious to hear your thoughts.

Sarah Thompson: 23:29

Oh, I have lots of thoughts on, uh, leadership, traditional contact, uh, constructs in the call centre, I have lots of views on that, so yeah, definitely really excited for that one. I think, and also the term leader, I, you've probably seen, I've done a couple of posts on this, about how I call myself a leader with a little L, and that's actually because of my, one of my dear, uh, old bosses, Mike, no, his name is Mark, that's awkward, um, hahahaha Came up to me and he said that to me because I have this real problem with leadership having a, you know, a title. It's a role and I don't think it is. I think it's a set of personality things. So anyway, a conversation for another day, Irina.

Irina: 24:05

Conversation for another day, but, uh, going full circle back, please follow Sarah on LinkedIn because she's, I don't know, I want to hug you. Honestly, you're absolutely incredible. You're amazing. And every single time when I'm reading your posts, I not only get inspired, but I get so happy, you know, to read them.

Sarah Thompson: 24:26

should be. A place where we can all uplift each other and, you know, as hippy as it sounds, you know, there's so much that you can do corporate bullshit anywhere, you know, be, be inspiring. That's what LinkedIn should be. You know, it shouldn't be, you know, more noise about how profits are up by X percent and customer blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, not for me.

Irina: 24:47

The boring, stupid BS, enough. Uh, I invited you specifically to prove how colorful WFM is. And I hear one absolutely everyone should follow. So thank you for joining me

Sarah Thompson: 25:00

worries. Are we going to end on brand?

Irina: 25:03

Yes, let's do that. This is definitely the best one so far, but thank you for being a part of this podcast, Sarah, and I'm going to wait you.

Sarah Thompson: 25:18

Thank you so much.

Irina: 25:21

We're gonna edit here and now we're gonna start over because you introduced yourself.

Sarah Thompson: 25:28

I can't believe we forgot to introduce, that is so funny.

Irina: 25:33

But let me, let me stop laughing. It's making me laugh and smile. Oh,

Sarah Thompson: 25:53

we're good, we're grown ups, we're professionals, we got this.

Irina: 26:06

this is going to be an amazing. I'm actually tempted to not edit anything to just say.

Sarah Thompson: 26:14

You're producer's gonna be like, no,

Irina: 26:19

Okay. Three, two, one. Okay. Welcome, Sarah.

Sarah Thompson: 26:30

I'm just that funny.

Irina: 26:35

Oh, gosh. No, we need to get this right. We need to. You deserve to be introduced in a proper

Sarah Thompson: 26:41

That's fine. I'm on it. I'm here.

Irina: 26:44

Huh.