Empathy is not for WFM teams | Dimitri Van De Ginste

In this thought-provoking episode of WFM Unfiltered, we dive deep into one of the most polarizing topics in Workforce Management: the role of empathy. Joining me from Antwerp, Belgium, is Dimitri Van De Ginste, founder of VDG Consulting and a seasoned expert in operational WFM and AI. Dimitri is not afraid to challenge the status quo, and today he brings his controversial viewpoint that empathy has no place in WFM teams. He argues that the primary focus of WFM should be on hitting KPIs and maintaining efficiency, leaving emotional considerations to team coaches.

Throughout our discussion, you'll hear why Dimitri believes that a strict focus on numbers is the only way to ensure success in the fast-paced world of contact centers. He shares his concerns about the potential costs of allowing empathy to influence WFM decisions and why he thinks this could lead to inefficiencies and higher operational costs. On the other side, I make the case for why empathy should not be overlooked, especially when it comes to supporting the very people who drive those numbers.

We'll also explore real-life scenarios where empathy and rigid rule-following collide, and what that means for the long-term success of both employees and the business. Whether you're on Team Dimitri or Team Irina, this episode will challenge your views on what WFM teams should prioritize and how to strike the right balance between empathy and efficiency.

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Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitri-van-de-ginste-b103142a/
Guest Website: www.auralytics.ai

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Transcript

Irina: 0:18

Hello, everyone, and welcome to WFM Unfiltered, a podcast by RightWFM. I'm your host, Irina Mateeva, and today we're traveling to Antwerp, Belgium, and my guest Is very opinionated and I'm sure that it is a topic that everyone will enjoy because it's one that's a bit more on the controversial side of things. But before we kick off with it, hello, Dimitri, how are you doing?

Dimitri: 0:49

Hello? I'm doing fine. What are you doing?

Irina: 0:52

I'm doing fine. We need to agree because actually this is our second recording. The first one we absolutely wasted, unfortunately. So let's hope that we don't. Lose the second version of the podcast. But before we kick off with the topic, can you introduce yourself, please?

Dimitri: 1:12

Yes, so I'm Dimitri. I actually live in Centra, but I'm born and raised in Antwerp. I'm a consultant in operational WFM and ai stuff to say it like that, I'm a huge fan of arena, so I follow the podcast. I try to be always always online when the podcast is is live. And yeah. We had a bit of a disagreement about A certain topic within WFM, and that's why we will have the podcast about it, cause yes, I'm very opinionated, but Irina is also very opinionated, so we will have a nice discussion.

Irina: 1:46

Yes, we did have a lot of discussions in the previous one. I feel so bummed out that we lost that audio. But let's try to redo, let's try to argue with each other again. Actually the topic that we seem to be disagreeing a lot about is empathy in WFM teams. Team Irina is, we need to have a lot of empathy. towards the agents and towards team leads and the operational side of the organization. Team Dimitri thinks that it is a bullshit. Please present your case. Why empathy is not for WFM teams?

Dimitri: 2:23

Cause it's not their role, it's not their role to be empathic, the role of WFM is make sure they have a, Planning that covers needs to reach the KPIs and the realtime, the realtime manager the trafficker. His job is to reach the KPIs on that day, and that's his only task. He's he's responsible for the numbers and he's not responsible for the people. We have team coaches for that. We have operational managers for that, and it's their job to be empathic. It's never the job of we them to be empathic. Very outside of very. severe cases. Yeah, you don't have to be you don't have to be mean. So of course, sometimes there will be empathy needed, but in 95 percent of the cases, no, there is no need for WFM in for empathy in WFM. WFM would WFM should make sure That the KPIs are reached, and that the cost to reach those KPIs is as low as possible, and that's it.

Irina: 3:21

But the I honestly think that we're doing a very good second parter because I find myself Exactly as building up as the previous time. We do work with numbers, but people are representing part of these numbers. So how the hell can we achieve the results if we just don't give up about the people? Or way

Dimitri: 3:45

Because it's not our job. It's the job of the team coaches to make sure that the people are here, and they can come talk with WFM if there's a problem, and then we will see if it's possible with the numbers here, we can we can do An exception, but it should be possible with the numbers and it's the job of the team coach to talk with the advisor to tell them why or a request was refused or accepted and that's it. If WFM starts to be empathic it, will go out of control. The cost will be way higher because you send people for example, you send people Huh?

Irina: 4:18

lower, because the more you care about your people, the less, probably, attrition you're going to have in the organization.

Dimitri: 4:25

But why do you think that's the job of WFM and not the team coaches? Cause it's just roles. If the trafficker would be a team coach, yeah, he needs to be empathic. But it's a trafficker. He should not care. He should only care about his numbers.

Irina: 4:37

No, they absolutely should care because I do think that they need to work in collaboration with team coaches. And I feel that a lot of WFMers are actually hiding behind the, it's the role of the team coaches, the role of the team lead, and they're creating bigger issue than rather just. Speak, whether it is with the team coach and the agent all together and just explain the situation and find solution. But a lot of WFMers, I'm sure you have seen that as well, are just point blank. That cannot happen. That cannot happen. A lot of things are possible, but sometimes we also don't want to do the extra mile to figure out the solution because it's extra work for us.

Dimitri: 5:22

Correct.

Irina: 5:23

So you think the extra work does not justify a happier employee.

Dimitri: 5:28

Depends cause what do you mean with extra work if you if you a lot of small demands can be, can become a great task in the, at the end of the day, and and your schedule will be not, will not be finished cause you had all that extra work for the months that the team coach should have handled it's not

Irina: 5:44

let me give you an example. Some, an agent comes and says, you know what? I urgently needs to go out or whatever. And you say, no, it's not possible because I need you here because our queues are struggling, the service level are declining and you refuse. Then you explain that to the team coach goes, says that to the person and the person says I need a solution because otherwise I'm just going to take sickness leave or I will just. Leave, because I need to do that. The team coach comes back to you, and then you basically repeat the message. Whilst, actually, you can review the schedule, you can identify potential people that are going to be able to either stay longer, and you compensate them on a different day with these hours, either make some sort of a shift swap, either even ask the team lead if they can figure out a solution. This represents an extra work for you, right? Because your initial reaction is, it's not possible. I need you here. But the issue that you're causing short and long term is much greater than the amount of time you're spending to find the solution for that

Dimitri: 6:50

but I'm sorry I totally don't agree. It's you're a WFM person, you're not a caretaker. Take your responsibility. The team coach can, for example, the team coach can overrule the trafficker. I don't care. We can decide those roles. If the trafficker says no, and the team coach talks with the advisor, and he says, yeah, it's still going, cause it's not it's really necessary. Yeah, okay, that's okay, I'll write in the logbook, the team coach agreed with him leaving. If there is a problem with the SLA, the day after, I'll write in the logbook, it's not my problem. It's don't agree I if you have to stop your work every time there is, somebody has a problem, yeah, you need to become a team.

Irina: 7:27

That's literally the essence of a WFM's work is to make things happen, right?

Dimitri: 7:33

the essence of WFM is make sure the KPIs are reached. WFM is. In my opinion, if you make a forecast and a capacity planning, the capacity planning, you look at the cost, because you need to make sure that you don't have too much capacity for the volume you will receive or you will go broke. So that's already a very important part. And then a lot of you, you work in a lot of contact centers. A lot of contact centers are really sharp staffed, really like on the edge of being understaffed. You cannot have all bullshit on top because then you will lose KPIs because you're Cause, you already have a lot of KPIs with the staffing you have. And then you need, you expect the way event person to take the extra. It's the job of the team coach, end of the line.

Irina: 8:18

No, I don't understand why you're taking it to that extreme. Why can't they work together? Why? Because this is the whole reason why there is so many issues between team leads and WFM because everyone is saying that's the job of the team lead, no, that's the job of the WFM and everyone is passing the ball to one another. And if they work together, and actually, there's one more thing that I disagree. If you're looking at the KPIs, you're looking for them over long term as well. So by not applying a solution right now on short term, you might be causing bigger issues long term. Because if your employees are unhappy, they're going to quit. By the time that you get new employees, train them, become productive, your KPIs will suck anyway. So even if you are selfishly looking at the numbers, supporting employees will produce better results.

Dimitri: 9:12

Yeah. If you make snowflakes out of everyone, they look at it's, it doesn't work like that. It, I don't understand that that We pay those people to do their work. And this should not be a matter of being happy, being unhappy. You get paid. If you don't like the job, leave by all means. They will leave. They will leave eventually anyways. They will find another reason in their head why the job is not good for them and why it's an evil company. And while the facts are pretty clear, if you look at BPOs the contact centers, they work on a margin level that is. Almost ridiculous, huh? You have to be realistic. It's, I think it's only supermarkets have a lower margin level than BPO contact centers. So they are on a very thin edge between making a bit of profit or losing a lot of money. And WFM is a huge part of that, really a huge part. It's 60 percent of that is is WFM. Only WFM will make sure that border is not crossed. And if they have to start coaching coach being co, co like coaches when you reply to advisors, why something is not possible or you will look for a solution and I will talk to everyone to get a shift swap. No, they can't talk to everybody. Ask your colleagues to get a shift swap. I will agree with the shift swap with no problem. And if you come with a solution towards me, I'm like, yes, of course, by all means go. But if you come to me when it's not possible and you're Asking me to find a solution. Sorry, that's not my job.

Irina: 10:47

would they know? Because you're saying that the job of the WFM is to meet the KPIs, right? I think this is, yeah, of course, big part, biggest part, maybe. But I think our approach to it, it's different because it's not the job of an agent to understand all of the dependencies and to know what kind of solution it will work because they only get a schedule. They, actually, they don't even know what your predictive service level is going to be, how are you are you over, are you under, who works on what, their job is, that's your schedule, you're going to be working on that task, what kind of a solution they come to you with. They don't

Dimitri: 11:29

With a shift swap, for example, or with something else. I don't know. I don't care what kind of solution. Check with your team coach, what solution is possible and we can check afterwards, but. I'm not there to look for solutions. I'm not gonna look for a shift swap for somebody, eh. They all have teams, they communicate with each other. Ask your colleagues, eh, if somebody wants to swap, eh. I don't know, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that, sorry.

Irina: 11:56

You're telling me that you prefer that they potentially lose much more productive time, not only for themselves but for all the people that are distracting from their job to look for a solution rather than come to you and you figure out what's possible. Cause

Dimitri: 12:12

But I already said it was not possible, eh, I already said to the agent, I'm sorry, the numbers do not allow it. It is not possible. So I say that to the reason I would not say that because it's not true. If the numbers don't allow, I'm honest, I'm not lying. The numbers don't allow it. I cannot let you go.

Irina: 12:32

don't you think that this is

Dimitri: 12:35

It should end there

Irina: 12:36

no. Don't you think this is the reason why working in contact centers is so undesirable? Because you have a lot of pressure from dealing with customers. Customers actually taking it out on you because you're picking up the phone 30 minutes later cause your contact center is understaffed. The pay is not great. Let's face it. The pay of an agent is never wow. And then you're getting screamed about your performance by your team lead, but then you also can't have any sort of flexibility in your schedule. So maybe that's a reason why we can't get people in the first place to work in contact centers.

Dimitri: 13:11

but that's a complete different discussion that has nothing to do with empathy with WFM, cause I

Irina: 13:16

is, cause you can help it. You can help the class.

Dimitri: 13:19

with what you're saying, but that's not where WFM needs to solve That's a fault of the contact center industry and the customers of those contact centers are a huge part of that. Not the customers who call in, but the clients where the contact centers work for are a huge part of that. I don't know if you ever were involved in RFPs, for example. But some world famous customers, they do an offer. Where you can hardly pay your people with the minimum salary, or you lose money. And the competition is so sharp, cause in Belgium we have a lot of contact centers who go abroad. They have contact centers in Turkey, in Morocco, in Bulgaria, name it Suriname is getting big now, South Africa is getting big. So they're spreading around all over the world because they need to pay a lot less money there to their employees. And I think in those countries you can be more lenient because you can have more staff for the same money, a lot more staff for the same money. But here in Belgium, as an example, In a contact center, a good contact center, and you have 16, 1700 euros monthly. And most of the time meal vouchers that's an extra you get. So it's not wow paid and you have a lot of stress. And I agree, I totally agree with you, but that's not the fault of BFM. That's the fault of how the contact center industry works. The, a lot of clients of the contact centers expect. Heaven, and they want to, no, they expect a Mercedes S500 full option, and they want to pay for a Dacia, and that's the biggest problem. And the biggest problem is that we still have contact centers who accept that, and they the biggest victims of those deals are the advisors. I totally agree with you. But it's not the task of the event to solve that. We cannot solve that. It's contact center life in the, in Western Europe. C'est la vie. And to change that, you need to change the complete contact center industry. I'm going to send you something later on a presentation about something I thought about a few years ago cause in contact centers. A lot of clients, a lot of big clients, famous clients, they still have an SLA. Like you have to pick up 80 percent of the calls within 60 seconds as an example. And I turned that completely around where we will not measure how fast is the client helped, but where we will measure how good the customer is helped. So that it would be a complete different environment for the advisor. You would have a. Huge customer experience. And cause I think service level where you have to have 80 60, 80 30, it's old fashioned, it's ridiculous and it should go. We should have XLA, it's called experience level agreements. So what the customer had to wait for three minutes. Yes. But look at what the customer's replies were after the call. Cause we, you can measure that after the call. He had an amazing experience and he became a fan of the company and the advisor had time to talk with the customer. And there was no pressure on AST cause you pay your advisors in a complete different way. I will send you everything, but you need to keep it confidential cause it's, it's not it's not out in public. I will send it to you, the presentation, but it's a complete new way of how customer contact centers should work. And. It's also, again, out of my idealist mind cause eventually it was not accepted, sadly, but that's the biggest issue the pressure and the, what the clients are willing to pay to handle their customer services is just customer services is for 90 percent of the clients, a cost and not an added value. And that's the biggest issue. And yes, the advisors are the biggest victims of that. I totally agree, but it's not up to them to change that. We cannot change that. And so we should focus on what is our task. And our tasks are the numbers.

Irina: 17:19

I feel like with what you said about the service level and the experience level, we started being on the same page, but to bring you back to the topic, I'm not saying that it's our task from WFM perspective to solve it. I'm saying that we can do a lot to lessen the impact of the stress at the job. Because let me give you another scenario. Imagine that you are the planner or the trafficker, doesn't matter. And you have a hundred agents. That you're supervising, and some of them, because that has happened to me quite a lot, some of them comes with you with some sort of family emergency. It's just from human perspective, you can't say no. You're not gonna go to the hospital to see your child, for example. You say, okay, go, right? Because, again, this person is gonna go anyway. They're just giving you the heads up. A second person comes with something completely different. A third person comes with something completely different. But for them, for their lives, this is an urgent situation that they need to adhere to. And you're saying that basically, we, because you said we can do exceptions. But how do you, what is your merit for those exceptions? How you decide that some person is more important than the other one?

Dimitri: 18:38

But wait, let's go back to the beginning of what you said, because you said agents came to the planner.

Irina: 18:44

Or to the team lead, doesn't matter. Let's say that they're parts of different teams, but they are, but

Dimitri: 18:50

because agents should not go to directly to the planner. First of all, it's not the planner who needs to decide or needs to be the spokesperson for the agent or the contact for the agents. The agent should go to their team coach or go to another team coach. And the team coach should go to the real time manager or the planner, whoever is responsible for the schedule and check. Check with them if it's possible and explain also why the request was made. And if somebody comes to me as a planner or a trafficker and says her child was taken to the hospital. She needs to go. I'm going to say, yes, I'm not inhuman. That's something completely different. Even if the numbers are red, it has no use to keep her here. Her child is in the hospital. So please, by all means, go. But it should not be the agent who comes to the planner. It should be the

Irina: 19:39

you disregard that because that's a completely different topic that I'm very curious to explore, cause I have a bit of a different view, but let's say that the team lead comes to you, presents you with the case and you say, yeah, okay, go. Cool. But then another team lead or even the same team lead comes because there's a second or a third person coming with their personal reason. But you already have let go of one person, so your initial instant reaction is I was already struggling with the service levels, I already let one, I can't do more. But they might have urgent reasons as well, and we're not even looking for solutions for them, how do you bring the message? Your reason is not important enough. It might be the same reason. Let's say there's an outbreak of something,

Dimitri: 20:25

The same reason, you're going to let them go, huh? You cannot be inhuman, huh? You need to, but you will communicate it to the team coach like, Yeah, this is fucked, huh? The service level will be gone for today. But yeah, c'est la vie, huh? Let them go. Their child is in the hospital. So yeah that's life. I would let them go. I'm not inhuman. But as long as the team coach comes to me and explains it to me, Proper way, and not you have to let them go, but really explain me the situation I will let them go, cause otherwise you would be an asshole, and that's not the way to live, and so yeah, that's a complete different situation, but I had advisors who came to me, I need to go home cause my dog fell off the sofa.

Irina: 21:05

the dog might have been very old. It might have been injured. Now,

Dimitri: 21:09

He was an adult, and he, there was nothing wrong with the dog, but my dog fell off the sofa, he said I have to go home. And really crying and everything, huh? Are we crazy? It's, what do you think this is? A fairytale country? Go back to your place and work! It's it's, your dog fell off the sofa, it's not like your dog fell through the window. The dog is okay, you will see him tonight, huh? It's

Irina: 21:30

I think this, we're taking it now to extreme because I can agree with you. I have heard my fair share of. Ridiculousness, last minute. And I think that this is another thing that because it's so difficult to get the last minute change or amendment to your shift, people are coming with all sorts of different reasons and sometimes fake up reasons, just in the hopes, okay, there's something new they haven't heard. And they will not say no to me because I'm coming with that reason. But I think if we spend enough time and attention. To the agents. They're going to compensate this back. So for example, okay, let me give you a completely another scenario. Say

Dimitri: 22:13

but wait, let me reply to what you just said, cause know advisors. Whose grandmother died six times, huh? So yeah it's not that they are making up a new reason to to, no. We need to accept that some advisors are just lazy advisors and are not if you, most of the time, they are also the advisors with the KPIs of la merda, if you look at the HT, if you look at everything. Those the toilet brick, everything. Those will be the advisors with the highest percentage, the highest a ht. And they have seen grandmothers who died the past year and they have thousands of excuses. And I know I'm being very cynic. Yeah.'cause it's I, but I'm very cynic. I'm sorry. I'm a cynic person'cause I saw it all and I heard it all that. And I discovered so many bullshit lies. Yeah, sorry it's I had advisors who called in sick for a week and then we're so stupid to put vacation pictures on Facebook on the beach taking pictures and in

Irina: 23:11

I understand that when you're saying it, I have heard the same and I think we're, it's not necessarily laziness sometimes people just for me to say six times that your grandmother has died is a completely different definition than stupid. Then it's just something or lazy. I'm sorry, what you mentioned. For me, I would question your integrity, first of all, because if that's your integrity towards your, I don't know, family, the way you live your life, I would question, like, how are you doing your job? I have heard the same with different family member, and I understand how frustrating it is from planning perspective, because it's like taking the piss, but I still feel that, you know what, we are sometimes, you So frustrated. And I have seen that with people in my team, we get so frustrated by those individuals who are obviously not sick, who are obviously their grandmother is alive and kicking and every single person after that comes to us or to the team lead and the team lead comes to us, we're so frustrated with the situation that we. Almost take it out on the other innocent people. And it's a shame because they become victim by someone who there should be another solution about these people. Anyway,

Dimitri: 24:34

but that's again cause now you're going way too way too far. Everybody's an individual and we should look for a solution for every individual. I don't give a, I don't give a fuck. We have one group who needs to reach the service level and I'm not gonna be worried about every individual in that group. That's not, the team coach should do that. I don't care. I will be human and if something happens and it's really a bad thing, yeah, please go, I'm not inhuman, but I'm not gonna search for a how do you say it? One fit solution or a special fit solution for every individual who has a problem. Yeah that's so socialist that I cannot, I can totally not agree. That goes into the complete idea of being in a society where people take care of themselves. I'm sorry.

Irina: 25:24

because just as a gentle reminder, we're not going into the politics of the second part of our,

Dimitri: 25:32

I'm sorry.

Irina: 25:34

before, before we wrap, I'm going to present you with my last case. Why I. I think, and this is at least my approach, why it's better to find individual solution about everyone. You mentioned yourself that a lot of organizations, and I completely agree, are either understaffed or very close to be understaffed, right? Potentially, Every single thing that it's causing more stress can lead for you to become even more understaffed. So in a lot of organizations where I have worked, there's a lot of time, overtime introduced, right? But often that overtime is even last minute. Often let's say five people fell in sick on your Friday, Surprise, surprise for one or another reason. And you need to find someone to be there to cover the late shift because all of your people that were supposed to be late shifts suddenly went absent and you need to ask for someone to cover. Imagine that. You have a potential of two people that can stay a longer and cover your relationship. Unfortunately, those are the same two people that came to you to ask for something and basically you tell them to fuck off last week. Isn't that better for you? If only we have spent five minutes of our time figuring out the solution for them. And they actually support us back a week later when we need them.

Dimitri: 27:03

No, cause if you look at the total contact center, the people who have issues like that in a contact center, you have to think about it's like 15 percent of the contact center who were really agents, 15, 20 percent maximum, who are really Problematic agents who have issues every week and want to go home every week and it's no exceptions, it's a weekly exception. And those people, if they say no, I don't give it, I have 80 percent of other people who also have an incident here and there or an exception here and there. Which I accepted, because, like I said, I'm human and I'm not a an inhuman person. But no, I think if we keep on searching for it, no, we create an environment where everything needs to be accepted because WFM can solve it. No, WFM is busy enough with making sure the numbers are reached and The staffing is just on point, so you have a margin on what you earn. You're not losing money. That's the task of WFM and that's already so stressful. Believe me, I did it for years. It's so stressful. You cannot be worried all day about other people's problem. That's there. Again, I cannot say it enough. We have team coaches for that. And if a team coach comes to me and this is the story, he needs to go. Yeah. Okay. Then he needs to go. At that point, that's the end of the story. But. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna look for a solution. I will probably look for a solution after that. Cause if he's on, if you're on the staff and I can get somebody else working for the for the rest of the shift. Yeah, I will do that. Hey, can you work somewhere? Yeah, that's not, but that's not looking for a solution for the advisor that is looking for a solution for my numbers.

Irina: 28:46

what do I do with you? Tell me, what do I do with you? Okay.

Dimitri: 28:50

Yeah, but it's true.

Irina: 28:52

Okay. I

Dimitri: 28:53

Rules, Rules, Rules. WFMers role is numbers.

Irina: 28:57

not managed to convert Dimitri to Team Irina, but it was a very nice heated discussion. So thank you so much for this one. I am very keen to make another one. Team leads responsibility versus WFM responsibility. So definitely invite you for this second parter, but thank you so much for spending the time with me. I'm very curious to hear what everyone's opinion is on that topic. And that's a wrap. Thank you.