WFM Unfiltered

Life Happens Outside of the Contact Center | Ilija Krstevski

• Ilija Krstevski • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Ilija Krstevski joins WFM Unfiltered to share his unique, decade-long experience managing and implementing WFM strategies across diverse settings, from international corporations to cutting-edge consultancies. Known for his direct approach, Ilija brings to the table his in-depth insights into handling operational efficiency, service standards, and the tough, no-nonsense conversations that make a real difference in workforce management.

In this episode, Irina and Ilija delve into the often-overlooked realities of WFM. Ilija doesn't shy away from discussing the importance of setting boundaries, especially when balancing corporate expectations with client needs. He takes listeners through the journey of being a manager without falling into the 'yes-man' trap, a crucial mindset shift for WFM leaders and teams alike. The discussion then moves to critical thinking and the art of saying 'no,' exploring how these skills can strengthen both career and workplace dynamics.

Ilija’s no-filter narrative shines a light on the common pitfalls that workforce managers face, particularly around promotions, client expectations, and the potential hazards of putting corporate needs above personal integrity. He shares practical steps to become more effective, break free from routine constraints, and foster a work-life balance—a perspective that many WFM professionals will find refreshing and relatable.

Whether you're a seasoned WFM manager or just entering the field, Ilija’s experience-driven insights will challenge you to rethink your approach to communication, setting professional boundaries, and upholding core values. Don't miss this episode packed with candid advice and real-world strategies!

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Irina:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to WFM Unfiltered. I'm your host, Irina. And today we are going very close to home in my region. We're traveling to Skopje, Macedonia. And yes, and I have a great guest here with me. It has an amazing topic, one that I feel everyone should pay attention to. But before we jump on the topic, I would like to introduce you to Ilija. Hey Ilija, how are you doing?

Ilija:

Hello. Hello everybody. Hello, Renan. Thank you for having me. Doing great. Doing great. It's a nice weather outside, so yeah, we cannot complain.

Irina:

Yes we're recording on a Friday and it's so sunny here as well. And to be honest, I really wish I was in the park, but I really enjoy talking to you. And we had an amazing previous chat and I was checking your posts on LinkedIn and you came up with something great. But again, I would like to hear more about your background. I'm sure that people are going to be excited to learn more about you. So would you mind sharing a little bit more?

Ilija:

thing. So coming up on like 10 years of experience in call centers already. It felt like starting yesterday, started as an agent as one usually does and climbed up to the ladders, which pushed me in workforce management. And it was not intentional so far. I haven't met anybody that went in workforce management intentionally. I wanted to develop myself in customer success and be like a director in that. area, but the manager that I had that was the director of customer success and implementation pushed me into workforce management. So shout out to Joel for pushing me into workforce management. Um, on my background as professionally I've worked in BPOs, call centers, and the other side that some people might find interesting, that is the implementation of workforce management software in Variant, or previously known as Moni.

Irina:

Thank you so much for introducing yourself, and you've been also very active on LinkedIn, and I have been reading your comments, your posts, your articles, and one that you have posted specifically, so Spoke a lot to me and it was the fact that WFMers should stop being the yes men, the one that are always there to say yes. And it was like, my eyes went big and I was like, you know what? We are doing that and I have done that for the good part of my career. I was saying yes to every request that was coming my way to additional work, to additional tasks. And I couldn't really understand that I'm devaluing myself, my work, the department and that actually I'm doing everything wrong. Myself and my team, this service, but I would like to get your opinion a little bit more on this one. Why we should stop saying yes to everything.

Ilija:

First of all, in my nature, I'm like a rebellious person. yeah. And it's not easy for me to say yes to everything. First of all, I understood that whenever I'm presenting something and showing something, I'm presenting it for myself and the recipient is going to say, okay, you presented it, you're standing behind it and it's you who are you presenting in the first place, not the company. So I started taking care of it more and more that I progressed in my work, because even when you're facing with clients. It's your word, it's not the company. And even when you leave the company that you're working in, you can have a connection with that client and develop as a friendship or whatever. And it comes from there. I don't want to present something that's going to be beneficial only for my company or on my part. It's more of. It should be beneficial for both of the parties and companies, as one does, like in business, they are going to push for their agendas sell something, push something,

Irina:

Of course.

Ilija:

make interesting things. So it comes from that perspective. And the other part is being raised in a call center environment or a BPO environment, the more you climb the ladder, it's. More you notice that the yes, the people that say yes, are unsatisfied or unhappy with the things that they're supposed to be doing. Yes, it brings up their career, or they seem dependable, but they aren't. Because, When they're asked for their professional opinion or what they're thinking, they're afraid and giving you answers that you want to hear. And that tends to be a big problem, especially when you go upper in the management in a company, because as. Of management position, you want to see and understand what's the problem and have a discussion and then hear everybody's opinion and go with the best approach rather than having everybody pushing you saying yes.

Irina:

Do you think the problem might be that by constantly saying yes, you might be creating false expectations?

Ilija:

Oh, that goes without saying, you're creating false expectations for everybody and the pressure in the end is going to fall on you because you said yes.

Irina:

What? I want to dissect that topic because it's very important for me and I have seen a lot of. WFMers, I'm sure it's not only in WFM, but in every single type of job and industry about people that assume that saying yes to everything is the way to progress in their career or to be promoted. I have done that. I cannot even tell you for how many years. It was like, I don't have a single minute to go to the restroom, but you want me to do that report for you? Of course I'll do it. Yes, send it over my way. And in my head, I was like, Oh they're going to see how much work I'm doing. My manager is going to be like, Oh my God, that girl, she's killing it. She's absolutely doing everything possible and beyond, and she's irreplaceable. Let us promote her. And what actually happened in my manager's head was like, wow that's actually bad because she doesn't have boundaries. She can't assess what's necessary, what's important. She is creating an issue for me. Because I assume she has the capacity to do this, while she has the capacity to do this, and then she's doing everything in her spare time, so if she goes absent to sickness leave, to holiday, if she quits, then I'm having an issue. I'm Always very curious to advise people how to navigate through their career and what they need to stop doing and start doing. So if we're strictly speaking about workload and understanding what's necessary and what you need to focus on versus what you should push back on. How do we do that?

Ilija:

Starting from ourselves, what we want to learn, what we want to develop how we want to progress in the career. And I'm saying this because You have your job, your roles, your responsibility, and you cannot avoid them. You are supposed to do them in your working environment, but you also have to have spare time in your working time where you are going to develop the following skills pushing you towards the other position that you want to hunt down. People have to be honest and have to behave like adults. Which is something that's rarely happening in call centers, if we're being honest. And the more that you talk to a person as an adult, you're gonna get that adult treatment. If you don't have the capacity to do something, just say, I don't have the capacity to do that, or let's figure out how we're gonna put it into my timeline. Or push something off of your plate to accommodate what you're being asked to do. People are afraid for whatever reason to do this. After all, we're all humans, so there shouldn't be like a fear to say no or I cannot do this or let's change it for something else.

Irina:

I think, and maybe I'm judging from my previous perspective and what was going through my head at this time was if I say no to, and here specifically we're talking about additional tasks, we're not saying no, it's not good to do this a certain way, or it's stupid. We're discussing the additional tasks as such, because I was feeling like missing on that opportunity to prove my worth to my manager or to the wider group of managers, and I was like, okay, it's. Only that much I can do and show in order to be promoted. And for some reason, again, saying yes to all those additional requests. For me, it was seen like the shortest path. To become invaluable and to be promoted. And I didn't understand that is the shortest path to become Grounded to that position because you don't want to have three people doing the work for one, for example, and pay for three, just because somebody does them in their spare

Ilija:

exactly. And the other thing we have to take in consideration when talking about something like this, if you see it from the managerial side, why would you even think about promoting somebody who is a worker in the place? If one person can handle 10 things, then why would you want to promote him and lose that person that's handling 10 things? Yep.

Irina:

and I think a lot of people will be able to reflect and relate and see themselves in that, because I'm often going to organizations and seeing that exact mistake, and I'm trying to communicate that message, that if you wanna go for a promotion, if that's your thing, You are going about it in the worst possible way because you're creating much more issues for your manager and for yourself by going into that direction. But let's go from the other angle angle. Why, how do we decide whether it's a yes or a no on a specific request? Let's say for how to do schedules or how many vacations a day we can allow, or whether we should decline vacations. Sometimes I have seen, yes, that it's more of coming from a position of weakness that you don't want in the don't want to go into the confrontation mode, or you just don't have the arguments for saying no, and you're just I don't know, I'm just gonna handle with the aftermath and the consequences rather than say, No, I'm not gonna do, let's say, just one evening shift because this and this and this and this.

Ilija:

That? should never happen. That should never happen. People in workforce management, especially working in call centers, have to understand that their job impacts the life of the people working in the call center. So you have to put yourself in the shoes of the other person and see, okay, if I have I don't know, three early shifts and then one late and then another early. Is it going to work for me? How I'm, how am I going to plan my life outside of the call center? Because at the end of the day, we're not leaving for the call center. We're leaving for our, ourselves and just go there to work. And that's my perspective. And. You should think about it. You should think about how you're impacting their life outside of that working place. Especially if that person has, family, kids, wife, other things that they need to take care of. It doesn't matter. You have to engage. Into the discussion, because this is your job. This is your work, essentially. It's not your work or responsibility to say yes and prepare the schedules and just put them out or yes, and produce a report. The workforce management doesn't exist about schedules and reports. It exists about managing and keeping the call centers or BPOs in function.

Irina:

know what it's really interesting that you're mentioning this one. And I started thinking that the problem is that people, In the contact center environment, often tend to get lost and not understand that life happens outside of the contact center as well. And yes, of course, in every job, we're trying to do the best out of the hours that we have in this job. But ultimately, we have such a great responsibility because we are deciding on the activities of someone in their personal life and whether or not they can attend them. And that's, for me, it's one of the greatest responsibilities that control that you have over someone's time. And this is why I was curious about the other perspective. I don't know whether you will agree with that sentiment, but planning teams and WFM teams are traditionally seen as the'no teams' in the organizations. The one that will always reject stuff, always say no, always decline your

Ilija:

Yeah

Irina:

want to hear your opinion on

Ilija:

That's the middle ground, and it's really if you do not know how to deal with it, it's really not nice place to be. Traditionally people that I've worked with and have engaged in workforce management teams we're closed off or had an attitude because everybody in the call center saw them as the person that said no. And I really didn't like that approach. I don't want to be the person that's going to be the villain in the situation. So I started thinking about how we're going to change this. How, starting from me, I'm going to change this perspective. I was working in a large, BPO and we had chaos on the floor. Everybody wanted to go to vacation or go to prayers or go to get food or whatever. And when that number gets larger and you have fresh structure, you have to engage with the call center itself. So being present on the floor and having conversation with people and treating them as adults. explaining what we're doing and why we can't, and why the decision is like that, and what it impacts behind gives them something to think about, and 99 percent of the time, they understand it. Whether you're going to cancel something or change somebody's shift for tomorrow, if there is a reasonable explanation, and you do not treat them like robots or little children, and give them a proper adult conversation, they're going to understand it. I'm not going to go and say, listen, my manager told me to change your shift because you're not behaving and you're not providing.

Irina:

Or you're making a fuss.

Ilija:

Yeah.

Irina:

I'm going to tell you that there is a business need that we need to cover this shift. And I believe in you and what you can achieve in that shift. And if you do me this one solid, next time you're going to request something. We're going to make a fair trade. You know what? I think this is the solution type of perspective where sometimes when we're granting, especially last minute requests, Technically, they are not possible because of our numbers, but if we're not so short sighted and we're saying, okay, you know what, I'm going to take on that responsibility of myself to grant you those a half an hour leave early today, but I'm really going to need you next Friday because I'm short on staff. People are rarely going to say no, absolutely not. It's just that or nothing else. And the thing that you mentioned that I really liked and that I have seen as well, sometimes planners are also, first of all, we work under a lot of pressure, we're like being screamed at from all angles and we're kept responsible for everything that happens in the contact center. But because of. Running short on patience. Sometimes WFMers can be very condescending with people and be very standoffish and be like, no, that's not possible. Like how many times I'm going to explain it to you because our service level is low. Guess what people don't. Care, that your service level is what they care is about is going to the hospital, going to have a dinner for their anniversary with their spouse, picking up their child from the child care team. Honestly, do not give a shit about what's happening on your wallboard.

Ilija:

Exactly. At the end of the day, who gives an F about the service level and those 30 minutes are not going to change anything if you already are down with the service level in reality.

Irina:

Yeah, I think the thing that we tend to, again, be very shortsighted is the power of no, and how we're looking at, do these five, 15 minutes, half an hour, and we're losing perspective from the consequences if you're saying no, just for the sake of, no, not right now. And I'm just sorry, but otherwise I'm going to get issues from the operations manager, contact center manager, I'm going to be asked uncomfortable questions. Nobody is going to sack you because you're keeping your agents happy or attrition is low because you had 15 minutes with low service level and higher service level in five days from now.

Ilija:

On the other side, the department itself, like the workforce management job is for you to own up to whatever the results are. Yeah. And be ready to have a proposition on how you're going to improve it.

Irina:

Yes, please.

Ilija:

so it's not just being, no, I'm not going to allow you this because that thing, if you do not take it in consideration three steps further means attrition. So who's going to deal with the attrition? Who's going to deal with the costs of hiring people and going on interviews and having the training and then? Having the different impact on service levels or staffing or whatever. So down the road, it's going to cause you more trouble rather than think about it and deal with it now.

Irina:

So what can be our tips or suggestions for how to manage your environment if you are WFM team? Is it, the first thing that I heard from you is that. This kind of maybe maturity, let's call it maturity, should start within you to understand the impact of your yes or a no. And the thing that I really appreciate that you mentioned is the fact that life happens outside of the contact center. And we need to have that full realization that these words, the yes or no, doesn't stay here in the moment yet. They have consequences somewhere else. And. To maybe also learn to communicate better and effectively, and even openly, and discuss what does that no or yes mean to you. What is the impact of that for you, for your life, for your task, for whatever it is.

Ilija:

Exactly. So first start within and see if you are on the other side, what kind of impact will it have on you? Not just, oh, I'm going to be angry and sad, but reflect on a couple of steps towards outside of the work. How it's going to impact outside of the work and how it's going to impact life overall. The other thing is. Don't try to please your managers or the upper management in the call center. Be ready to present your idea and back it up.

Irina:

Yes. I think this is a great one, important one, that you should Stop trying to please people. And in the end, if you really want to say no, and you're saying no, but you're forced to say yes. Ultimately, that's fine, but you need to be very clear that your standpoint is a no for this and this reason. This is the consequences that you're seeing if you take over that task or whatever the situation is, and this is going to be the impact. And then the decision is with someone else, because ultimately, We're workers. We will do whatever it's been brought on us. But it's very important to be very clear rather than, if you want me to do it, I'm gonna do it even though I f ing hate

Ilija:

You, gotta put up a fight. You gotta put up a fight. There, you have to stand by your principles and what you believe. At the end of the day. Let's put it like this. If you always say yes. And do things as you're ordered to, how much would you like to go to that working place and to that job?

Irina:

it. If you don't believe in it, I Would hate it.

Ilija:

I would rather have a discussion with my manager or a group of managers or whatever, and. understand why they're trying to push that and how we can better implement something or make a change, then just say yes and do it that way.

Irina:

Absolutely would hate it. This is a great Want to wrap up maybe, because again, I'm always looking for tips and tricks to tell our listeners and to people that are in WFM roles, how can you progress in your career, if this is the direction where you want to go. And I always say, I think you need to have critical thinking and to be able to communicate. Your point of view, because ultimately, if I'm your manager and I have a planner that's reporting to me and I'm giving directions, if they think that my directions are really stupid, I would rather you come and tell me because you're the one doing the job. It's not me. I'm making decisions based on my limited information and view. And actually I'm going to hold it against you. If you knew that it can be done better. But you didn't open up and speak about it. And that's the very important perspective that I'm so happy that you were able to bring in that conversation. Any final tips before we wrap up that conversation?

Ilija:

Oh, sure. Be ready for three steps ahead whenever, whatever you're doing. If you're presenting, be ready for the worst outcome of whatever you're presenting and have a backup plan to change it right away.

Irina:

This is perfect. Thank you so much for spending the time with me. It's always lovely to speak to you and enjoy the weekend and we'll chat soon.

Ilija:

Likewise.

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Irina Hollatz (Mateeva)

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