What The Heck does Senior Leadership Want from WFM?

In this episode of WFM Unfiltered, Irina flips the script and dives into the deep end with Jeremy Hyde and Yunier Mesa on what senior leadership really wants from WFM. Are WFM professionals fully aligned with executive expectations? Or are they missing crucial insights about what drives senior decision-making?

First, Jeremy and Yunier break down why curiosity isn't just helpful—it's essential. In a field that’s evolving fast, the ability to ask bold questions can mean the difference between being overlooked and being indispensable. They don’t just touch on the “how” of curiosity; they explain the exact ways it translates into success within the C-suite.

As we dig deeper, you’ll hear the unfiltered reality of working in WFM: why understanding basic concepts isn’t enough, and how executives assess a WFM team's value. Communication is key here, and our guests emphasize its role in bridging the often-wide gap between senior leadership and day-to-day operations.

Whether you're an introvert or extrovert, they discuss the surprising ways personality influences how your insights are received by leadership. Jeremy and Yunier don’t sugarcoat the challenges—they’re sharing hard-earned lessons on the power of small roles, the impact of showing up authentically, and the lasting effects of speaking up when it matters.

Are you ready to understand what leaders really expect from WFM? Don’t miss this candid conversation! Subscribe for insights that could change your approach: https://www.youtube.com/@wfmunfiltered?sub_confirmation=1

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Transcript

Irina: 0:18

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of WFM Unfiltered. I'm your host, Irina, and It's the official first threesome here on the podcast. And we're going all the way to I'm hoping that I'm not gonna mess it up. Fort Lauderdale and Minnesota.

Jeremy: 0:37

Yeah.

Irina: 0:38

yes, I made it. And the topic is an interesting one. And I'm having guests that are from both sides of the coin, but before we kick off with the topic, I would like you guys to introduce yourselves. So Jeremy, how about you say some words about you?

Jeremy: 0:58

Sure, yeah,

Irina: 0:59

so I'm Yunia

Jeremy: 1:01

I'm the Senior Director of Customer Service at Sun Country Airlines. You know, when Yunia and I were talking about this episode, I, I said, you know, I'm not a WFM professional. I like to think of myself as, you know, a little bit WFM informed, but I've, I've never worked as a WFM professional. And so. You know, I, I bring a certain perspective to the table, but I thought it would be useful for Yunia to bring his perspective as well.

Yunier Mesa: 1:27

Cool.

Irina: 1:28

Yunia How about you?

Yunier Mesa: 1:30

So Yunia Mesa, I joined Sun Country back in September being, I'm the WFM manager. I've been around WFM for a while. I go back to 2007, 8. So I've been around a few organizations, different experience. So this, should be an interesting conversation. yeah,

Irina: 1:55

thank you both for introducing yourselves. And, we had exactly maybe 90 seconds chat before we kicked off the recording, and I shared that the conversation is entirely unscripted, so you're not prepared what's coming to your end. But I actually wanted to have a chat about what we're Senior leadership and what the heck do you guys want from us? And I'm happy to have Yunia here who will be joining my side and I'm going to be siding with you against Jeremy. So I'm going to kick off with a question to Jeremy. Why the heck do you care about WFM? And as far as I am aware, your role doesn't require you to specialize in WFM topics. So I'm curious to understand Why do you even try? Why are you getting that knowledge? You're not supposed to be specialist, Jeremy.

Jeremy: 2:49

Yeah, right. You know, earlier, early in my contact center career, I found myself going and talking to specialists of different types within our contact center team. And so it was the, the training folks and the quality folks, but it was also the WFM folks as well. I found it. Interesting, and I think I also wanted to understand, you know, I saw that there was a lot of, within this particular organization, there was a lot of guidance, information, kind of impact that came from the WFM team. I started as an agent, and then I was a team lead, and then I was a supervisor, and so kind of through these roles, I saw. The WFM team impacts me, impacts the broader team, you know, whether it's my schedule or my time off or, you know, how we're performing that day, I saw the impact. And so I was curious and I started kind of getting going, going into the WFM room and asking questions and asking them to show me things. And I think I was maybe a bit more fortunate than what some others. in their careers to kind of have that opportunity. When I, when I. First stepped into a manager role, it was with a really small company, and I was responsible for everything. I didn't have any specialists. And so, anything scheduling related, forecasting related the team was looking to me. And so, I was calling up my previous WFM guy that I was really tight with and going, Hey, this is how I'm thinking about this. Is this how you would do it? What am I missing? And, and, you know, he'd say, Yep, you're generally on the right track. Do this, try that. And, And, so I think that there's just some uniqueness in terms of kind of how I came up through Contact Center early on, cemented the importance of, of these topics. Now, kind of, if we flash forward to today the success of this team, the success of our team, the success of our customers, In large part, in my opinion, is built on having the right process built around the workforce process and and kind of this function. So, if I want our day and week and month and year to be successful, I need to know what I think is going to happen. And how many people we need to do, you know, we need to have the work and when we need to have them. And what are the trends that are changing within the day to day operation and, and where can we make some tweaks to improve? And so I, I find myself dabbling in this area, maybe a bit more than others. And luckily I've got somebody like Yunia that actually knows what they're doing so they can keep me on the right track, but. Well, like I said, I mean, ultimately, our success in large part is built on this function and making sure that we can be planning and executing on that plan.

Irina: 5:49

It's interesting that you're describing it in a way that you were fortunate, because for me it's not about being fortunate, it's about being curious. And I'm actually so interested in hearing, Yunia with your background, because I have worked with A lot of operations directors and contact center managers and senior stakeholders, and not many of them are interested in understanding WFM. They know it's important, but they are also ignoring what we're telling them. So I'm curious about your collab, guys. how is that even happening? Is Jeremy annoying?

Yunier Mesa: 6:26

Jeremy gives himself a little credit to what he knows. He knows a lot about WPEN. He knows a lot of the concepts and which seems sometimes it's hard to grasp with the operations. How does it actually work? You don't hear a lot of people talk about Erlang, That doesn't come out of any medians in operations. Like no one's interested in it. And the actual calculation hey, it's interesting. When I was, back when I was an agent it was either team lead or I found it was called service level coordinator, just watching RTA, doing the real, the real time updates. The opportunity opened In the WFM team, and when I joined I had spent one on ones previously when I was in, as an agent with them. Just sit and watch what they do. The curiosity part was always there because I was interested, right? How does this actually work? You got this group here overlooking, overseeing the floor. And they seem to be saying no all the time. So what is it about them that everyone hates so

Irina: 7:36

There we go.

Yunier Mesa: 7:37

So when I joined them I learned pretty fast. Why do we say no? Because that's what I was missing, the why. You're presented with, here's this big screen, and this is what's happening right now, all the people calling in, how many agents we have, and all the different KPIs, and then we post them there on that board too, so that people can walk by and see where we are. And look at all the codes that we have around the floor. So that they can inform the agents what state we're in, so that they prepare themselves, here's your seven minute to prepare. But once you hit auto in, it's back to back. observing all of that and then I took, okay, this is the real time, right? This is what's happening now. And then I looked back, there was a guy sitting in the back. What does he do? He's the planner. He's the guy that plans this. So he's responsible for the future. And I always loved that phrase. We own the future. So it's okay, so I spent time there too. So it was a great experience. So when I finally, not finally, but when I left T Mobile after a few years I found myself doing it all by myself, the planning, the short, the long term, everything, the reporting. And my friend became Google cause I had to find a lot of the concepts, the I had to, there were no templates, I joined small organizations that have no WFM. I wasn't WFM, I was hired to do it. And I did it three times, to, to different places where there was no WFM. And you learn as you go by and you start, learning a few tricks and then you learn from other teams. When I was with SACS we had a WFM offshore, so I had to oversee all of their, what they do, their capabilities. We had to go through a lot of the processes, and why we did it, and then we had to roll it to the floor. it's finding ways to get operations interested in what we do enough to care, right? Cause you don't need to be a hundred percent in it. Just understand what process and why the process that's like this and why we're doing it this way. And why if I only have seven people now, but then the next interval, you can go ahead and take five out of there. So it's just getting them enough information that they understand why we're doing it that

Irina: 10:16

You know what? That's the most difficult thing for me, at least from my career, was exactly teaching myself and getting to understand how to get them interested. And I have found out, speaking with other people, So many planners out there and forecasters and stuff that when they are in front of people like Jeremy, in functions like his, they don't know how to communicate. And when, let's say, a Jeremy has a say, is, say, no, I don't understand. I don't agree. We tend to shut up because it's a senior stakeholder. I'm not supposed to confront them. They know better, or I'm going to be fired, or I don't want to challenge them because that's bad for my position. So I always find it extremely interesting when I speak in Very few organizations that have that kind of collaboration when I see someone who is in a senior function that cares enough, as you put it, to understand why the heck are we doing it. It's not to harass people, it's not to make life difficult, it's to make it easier. But that's also why I'm often asked, how do, what do we do? How do we make them care? Jeremy, I'm also interested from your position, if I'm your new team member, in your team, what should be my approach to get you to listen to me?

Jeremy: 11:38

When we're thinking about the future, I mean, as Yunia kind of said, it's connecting like what's happening today to like the planning that we did previously, I think, is a useful place. So, if we don't have good plans. If we don't execute well on our plans. If we don't have a good process built around this function. It's probably going to be chaotic. Right? We're, we're, we're either, we're always going to be understaffed or always going to be overstaffed, or we're going to be violently fluctuating between overstaffed and understaffed, or we're going to have people from other parts of the organization, finance probably, that are telling us we're too expensive, but we have no solutions on how to continue to deliver for our customers, but at a, at a lower cost. Like, these are the things that people like I am facing. And so, having, having the team to say like, I can help with this, I can, we don't want to fluctuate between understaffed and overstaffed. And like, we can make a plan for that. It probably is useful to kind of start simple and not try to over explain and go too far into a weeds into the weeds to a point where I'm not going to understand anymore. Like, ultimately, like, what do I need to know? I mean, to your point, you're saying, you know, maybe I tend to go a little bit deeper than, than some others do. And I agree. I think that's, that's both a, a pro and a con of working with me as I, I like to go really deep into certain things. But if I'm, if I wasn't that type of person, like, all right, what, you've got my attention for so long, what's your, make your point, get to your point quickly, and then back it up. Make sure that you know, you, you can kind of prove the point, make the point quickly, and then when you've got my attention on, here's a problem I know you need to solve, I have some ways that, that can help you. Like, oh, okay, again, so if finance is coming to me and saying, hey, you're too expensive. But I'm concerned about, you know, negative impacts to our customer. Who are the people that can help me with that? You are, right? You have all of this data and all this information. You can understand, like, oh, you know what, actually, if we make one or two minor adjustments here, there's a cost savings potential, but we're not going to tank our service levels. So, understand my problems. Be engaged and inquisitive on how you can help solve my problems. Start simple probably to make sure I can understand it. And if you get my attention, if you get the senior leader person's attention, and you prove that this is true, that we know how to solve these problems, they're going to keep coming back.

Irina: 14:36

love this tips and this advice because that's definitely a trap that I have been falling early on in my career is I tend to go into a lot of detail to the point when I'm seeing the blank look and stare and then it's okay, next. And then Yunia on the other side, I'm curious to understand that when you lose the attention of a senior manager, Or they just overrule you doing sometimes not very adequate decision about something. Maybe we're lacking the information of, or maybe we just fail to communicate our message to them. Then I, have seen a lot of times we're tending to take it personally to the point like, they never listened to me. What's the point of doing it? I'm just going to go and present some bullshit. They're not going to follow my advice anyway. I'm curious to understand, did that happen to you or is there any advice how to not take it personally and understand that maybe we're lacking a lot of information about stuff that are above our paygrade

Yunier Mesa: 15:36

Okay. So a lot of this will come with experience. we have access to a lot of information, right? Just like you mentioned, there are a lot of details out there. Now, it's mostly about knowing your audience. If you know you're going to be meeting with a high senior leader you're probably joining a meeting where you're going to be at 5, 10 minutes to do a quick, overview, right? At least, in my experience, that's been, a bigger audience. You represent WFM, but, you got all these different operation managers sitting there who are not WFM your time is limited. So it's mostly high level information that they are looking for. It's knowing which KPIs they're interested in that you want to talk about. If finance is medium, they're likely to care about what's the cost per contact, or, related to that information. Am I growing? Am I losing? Is my attrition higher or less? So those are our operational touch points that you can quickly overview if you're, in that setting. If you're a smaller setting, then you can grab more details, right? Cause you're meeting, it's mostly about you where I met with, managers and below that, and it's mostly just to showcase the future plan and you bring a little bit more information cause you're building, you're, you have either an hour or half an hour. So you're building a little bit more and you'll get most of their attention related to some of those. Personally. It's hard to take have there been scenarios where you lose people? Absolutely. I've been in meetings where everyone is talking over me. They're not even talking about what I'm talking about. They're just having sidebar conversations cause they're not interested. It's one, it's learning from that. It's okay, what did I, what was I talking about when I lost people? See, cause either am I oversharing information that no one cares about? And again, I think I told Jared this. In my previous organization, there was this VP, you only have him for five minutes or he'll start looking at the phone. So it's, we used to meet before we walk into that room. Okay. What do we want? What's important? I'm senior manager of operations and I have a director of operations. The only down time was me, but it's okay, what do we want to approach? What's the approach? What's the game plan here? So that we get him on, on, on a storyline. Okay. All right. Everything's related okay, now we're gonna talk about staffing and that we're going to something else. It's wise that you get it with experience because, in the beginning, you're very excited, you wanna, or, Oh, I found a lot of good information, but it could be at the agent level and no one really cares about that. When you're, just keep it simple sometimes, but know your numbers. Jeremy said, Jeremy, I'm sorry. Jeremy said, show me the numbers, right? Sometimes we come up with, hey, theories, but if you don't show the numbers, it's, it stays there. Sometimes you don't even share because do you have anything right now? No? Then come back.

Irina: 18:56

So is it a good idea to then also ask in advance, okay, what is the information that you're interested in? Because again, talking with people, I know that a lot of them, and I actually had that example with one of my teams when they had to present every week to the senior management team. were wanting to take sick leave. They were feeling nauseous,

Yunier Mesa: 19:18

Yeah.

Irina: 19:19

because they were so scared because they were seeing the Jeremy's out there at that scary audience that just don't want to listen to you, that they are going to challenge you and they're there to destroy your knowledge. But the fact is that, again, they're dealing with so much information that They can only grasp that much and they're only interested in that much. So how about you guys? I want to hear from both of you. Jeremy, if I am to ask you, what is it that you want to hear on that meeting? Is it a good idea or you think, quite frankly, that I'm inexperienced or stupid and that I should know better?

Jeremy: 19:56

I think that if you're not sure, you should ask somebody.

Irina: 20:00

Okay.

Jeremy: 20:01

whether or not it's the end audience or not, I think that's a question. Now within our org, I think it's totally fine for anyone within our organization to ask me. And, you know, I'm like, I'm happy. I'd rather they ask and we can talk. Well, like if I'm going to meet with our CFO, I'm not emailing him to say, Hey, CFO, can you tell me what you want? Now, what I might do though, is I might talk to one of my peers in finance and say, Hey, this is what I'm thinking. Like, am I on the right track here? And she knows she can give me that advice. And so, like, I would, I would just think about that. Think about how well you know the audience, how much distance maybe there is between you and them. I think it's a good idea to ask somebody until you really know the lay of the land and different people and how they react. Like, I would maybe start with like people within kind of your circle of kind of trust and that sort of thing to get some advice. I would not always recommend though, again, like there's certain kind of certain levels within the organization where you may not want to ask that question. You said something that I want to comment on as well, just in terms of like. We might get challenged. I will challenge. That doesn't mean you're wrong, or stupid, or I hate your idea or anything, but like, and Yunia can attest to this, I, I challenge frequently. And, and I, I probably need to manage myself a little bit at times on that, so people don't feel like, oh, the senior director is steamrolling me. What I'll often do is I'll start to jump in on my challenge, stop myself and go, Just cause I'm saying it doesn't make it true, just cause I'm saying it doesn't mean we should do it. But, here's my questions, and I'm, I'm gonna throw a bunch of things at you, and you should probably be prepared. That, that's, that's going to happen, at least from time to time, depending on your audience. But I think just the last point, kind of, on this part of the conversation is, For me, like, get to the point. When I was earlier in my career, and I was more of like a subject matter expert on whatever the topic was, and I found something I felt was profound and interesting, maybe I sent an email to my manager or my director or something like, and it would be like this hundred page thesis, And, like, my point is buried somewhere in, like, you know, the 17th paragraph. And so one of my managers was like, look, I don't have time to read this email. Get to the point. Like, and so for me, the first sentence or one of the first sentences should tell me, what do you want? What are you trying to tell me? Like, what is the point of this communication? And then if you feel like you need to support that, like you probably do, like, you know, maybe you have a second paragraph or something like that, but like, get to the point, especially in email, perhaps in PowerPoints or that sort of thing as well, but like, get to your point, don't bury it, don't, don't, in most cases, I would say don't build up to it. Like, what are you talking to me about? Let's get to the point. Let's stay on, on task. Yeah, that just in terms of kind of that attention, the, the amount of attention that you have from folks. Being finite, you need to kind of stay at a certain high level and get to the point quickly. Otherwise, I'm starting to mentally move on.

Irina: 23:29

And I love that we're digging so deep into that because it is an issue with a lot of people and especially something that I have noticed and I'm reflecting back on my own behavior and I'm curious about that. When you start challenging a group setting where I'm, I don't know, I'm a planner, forecaster. I'm not a senior manager. I'm not a WFM manager. Sometimes I'm just someone dragged into the scope of this meeting. And you have operations managers, contact center managers, and everyone is a manager but me. What happens is your challenge. Can come, I wouldn't say aggressive. I would say direct and as a personality, I'm always reflecting. So I had a lot of instances where I'm a little bit more introvert. I want to first think about what you're challenging me about. Think about my arguments and then come back to you. But that was seen as, Oh, you're not ready and you're not prepared. Then your information sucks. No, sometimes it's just the personality and I'm a reflective person. I'm very data driven. Now I'm also very loud mouthed, but back at the time I was like, no, I need to go back and check whether you have a point actually, and to come back and prove you why you don't have a point. But how do we manage that? Because it is a big issue, especially in WFM. A lot of us are introverted. Sorry.

Yunier Mesa: 24:54

I'll give you a a lot of it will fall on the manager. Then on the person giving that presentation and getting that major pushback. So if I don't prepare you for the setting that I'm putting you in, it's on me, right? Cause I should know this group already and the information that they're looking for. And a lot of people are not comfortable in a setting where if someone asks the question, they think. They're doing something wrong and it's not the case. Sometimes people will know how to ask the question, but the question is still valid and it's mostly to learn, right? People are, we'll go back to the curiosity or they just want to know. And it's hard sometimes to separate the tone from the question, right? Cause people hear the tone and they think, Oh, some people shot. So I've been in meetings where my senior manager put me in that setting, but we used to sit together. And we used to prepare, we used to talk about the numbers. So if the question came or if a question came from any other place, if, She noticed that I took two, three seconds to start, she'll start, right? So someone will pick it up if I wasn't comfortable or if, you start with then someone will pick it up and say, this is what we're talking about, this is what we're doing, right? Cause someone should be a little bit more prepared. And it's good learning experience. It's absolutely great learning experience to be in those kind of settings because you get to see the decision making. Of everyone in that room, WFM is a small piece of the entire operation, right? Someone has to execute it. And if I've been in meetings where, we'll be talking about, a new whole new process being introduced. And all I have to do is calculate how many people and where in the intervals do they want to test this? The entire operation was bigger, right? Feel great to be part of it. That's, even though it was small part, but it helps you to understand that sometimes that's what you do, that's it, that your role is small and make sure you do it right.

Irina: 27:29

I love these tips and advice so much, guys, because again, and I'm constantly thinking, I think actually for me personally, my journey changed one time when I was pushed so hard and I was always silenced, And I was thinking that back at the time, oh my God, they think that I'm stupid or that my information is incorrect or they don't follow WFM and I was always on the receiving end. But I was keeping quiet because it's in your management. Who am I to challenge back and to open my mouth and speak? And at some point I just lost it. I, remember it very vividly how I just bursted out to, my manager and I said this and this and this and this. They were like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But in my head, Oh my God, if I open my mouth, I'm going to be fired. They will think that I'm opposing the organization. No. And that's the thing. Everyone has their goals. Our goal is to secure the people to do specific type of job for the customers. But that's, as you Yunia mentioned, it's a small part. There is so much more that's going on that we're not aware of, but we're also not thinking about it. Oh my God. Jeremy actually has this and this and this and this and he needs to make sure to fit it in the best possible way. But if we don't speak up, then it's not important enough. If we speak up, then he will start listening. But there is one more thing that I'm curious about your point of view before we wrap up and I let you go, guys. What do we do in case we're misfortunate enough in our organization to have the WFM against operations, to have that kind of a constant fight? Conflict between team leads and WFM and everyone is pulling in their own direction and then we go and complain and we often feel oh we're constantly overruled and they're talking about QMs and coaching and stuff but nobody cares about the planning and when I go and complain to my, I don't know, contact center manager and they're siding with the operations. what to do then?

Jeremy: 29:31

I'll start. A couple things, so I hope nobody's going to be offended, but sometimes the way that WFM brings things to the table can be negative and can be perceived as judgmental. And so when we show up with, your people are always, they are never, why can't they, why aren't you, and like you guys are smirking cause you've seen it or you've done it. And I get it, by the way, like, I've, I've seen that same stuff when you guys are, when you're sitting in WFM, you're seeing all sorts of stuff,

Irina: 30:12

Yeah.

Jeremy: 30:12

and it bugs you, and sometimes it's not right. And in, in, we want to address it, and we feel like we can't, and like, there's reasons that it happens. But we need to be thoughtful. If we want to have good partners, we need to be good partners. And so that means, you know, it's funny actually, Yunia and I just yesterday and today were working through something internally where something was brought forward, a decision was made, and it blew up in our face. And we stepped back, and it was one of these things where the WFM team saw something. It maybe wasn't right, maybe the, the thing is not ideal, but at the end of the day, it really didn't matter. It actually was not that impactful. And we pursued it, and it blew up in our face, and now something that wasn't a problem is a problem. So, one, Be good partners. Don't be judgmental. Don't assume that all of the agents are bad and they're doing all of these bad things. Like, there's usually so much more that drives agent behavior than simply just trying to take advantage of the system. But based on where we sit and what we see, it can seem that way. So, make sure we're showing up right. I think, like, the closer you can get to, The agents and the leads and the supervisors and understand their world the better partner you can be and the less judgmental you'll probably be in the way that you will show up. So, I'd say, like, start with yourself and focus on building those relationships and those bridges.

Yunier Mesa: 31:47

Yeah, I agree with that because it, I've seen it, when I was in the real time desk, you're only watching, you are, to be fair, you're all trained to look for bad, to correct. It's never, we're here to look for the good behavior because you gotta the majority of the agents are. Handling correctly, it's just you're looking for that bottom 10%. So a lot of, a lot of this back and forth, whether, can you have a meeting? No. Okay. Elaborate. Take your time to educate the person as to why they're saying no. Oh, we got calls in queue at this point. Sometimes just take those extra 10 seconds help a lot. The real time desk used to have a bad reputation because we sat in it all the time. And we used to have on the side, we, coaches and, or supervisors used to write their names if they wanted a team meeting. So there was a less, so if you came early, they were first. As soon as we had availability, we used to, they could call and reach. That extra second it took for me to, I am team lead and say, Hey, we have availability, you're next in here. Would you like to meet in that? That person walked to the desk to thank me for it. So I started to learn, I can't mimic what's happening around me because you lose people real fast. And Jeremy mentioned the partnership. It has to be, it has to be. Because we're looking at numbers, we're judging people based, we only see numbers, and you hear this all the time with other things. You guys only see us as numbers. We're employee numbers to you, right?

Irina: 33:37

Yeah.

Yunier Mesa: 33:38

And it's true, because every report we run, everything we do, it's a number. It's always stepping back and simply, get their point, right? If I come to you and say, hey, someone's hanging up on the phone, What proof do I have? A report that says 1 and 0, 1 yes, someone says connected? It doesn't, right? You have to go there and understand what's happening. I would say WFM has more to lose because the training is always to look for the pushback.

Irina: 34:16

I, can't say how much I love that feedback because I, fully agree and I have been in the position where, and often though this is coming down from senior leadership, Jeremy, I'm looking to you, not specifically, but To your fellow senior leaders out there, they're saying you need to be making sure that they're doing this and this but that has the negative connotation of basically micromanaging and stalking your people. And this never ends in a good way. And I think often it is misunderstood to, to monitor and collaborate versus to micromanage, right? And that this just doesn't work. Especially in the long term, but I love that you're saying this about partnership because I, as much as I love WFM and my heart is in WFM, I think often we tend to be isolating ourselves and handing over to these are your people. They are your job. You need to fix it. These are your problems and I'm just here to observe and to tell you exactly everything that you're doing wrong. And it just creates that constant conflict because I'm thinking if I'm that person who needs to manage customers and team leads and performance and this and then I'm having that team that sits behind the wall and it's telling me, you were wrong again. Thank you. we can't expect good things to happen, but thank you both so much for joining me for this episode. I want to ask you the open question of any last words of advice from either of the positions. How do we handle senior leadership and what do they want and how can we use the process? How can we drive results?

Jeremy: 36:02

You know, when we prove it our word starts to carry more weight. So, prove it. Do it. Prove it. Execute it. And the more times you do that, then the more I'm going to listen to you.

Irina: 36:16

Ooh, good one. Okay. Enjoyed here. It's,

Yunier Mesa: 36:22

WFM makes, because we work with numbers, we work with a lot of calculations, there is a lot of mistakes will happen. My recommendation is don't be afraid to make mistakes and on to it. Learn from it, move on. That's it. It's easy to get, so you can get a fork up wrong anytime, right? Learn from it. What did I do wrong? It's, there is, we do this all the time, right? Where we do the forecast and then we analyze at the end and then we, we apply the learnings to the future. It's a constant reminder of, I don't have to be 100 percent right all the time. I could be wrong. You learn from every step. And maybe, you learn to include new things as well. Operations will trust more when you're not afraid to make mistakes and you can bring it up to their setting and tell them what they did wrong and here's how we're correcting it, as long as it always flows in that direction. This is what we did, this is how we're fixing it, this is what's happening. This is what we're doing to correct it. Cause it's, in operations, it's the same way, right? They still have to correct the agent to me, it's all one family. It's just that some of us are isolated, looking at, staring at screens all day.

Irina: 37:50

this is amazing. And to add to this one, again, don't be afraid. We tend to be a lot of, going after perfection in WFM. Such thing does not exist. I'm sorry to bring it up. And I find that the more brave you are making mistakes, but also taking Ownership rather than finger pointing. Cause this is something that kind of happens we did wrong because someone from operations has given us the wrong information. That's when it starts to do the domino effect. So just take ownership. Nobody's going to be like, they admitted that they're wrong. So sack them right now. So thank you both so much for this episode. It was a brilliant one and what an amazing perspective. I truly enjoyed the threesome and you're welcome anytime on the show. Enjoy your day.

Jeremy: 38:40

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Yunier Mesa: 38:41

Thank you.