Level 1 Process Templates
Level 1 Process Templates are a set of foundational Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) documents developed by WFM Labs to help contact centers at Level 1 of the WFM Labs Maturity Model establish the minimum viable set of WFM processes without requiring new technology investments. The templates operationalize a weekly-to-interval planning cadence using tools already available in most Level 1 environments—spreadsheets, shared drives, and existing telephony reporting—and are designed to be implemented by a small WFM team within a single planning cycle.
The templates address the primary failure mode of Level 1 WFM operations: the absence of documented, owned, and repeatable processes for forecasting, scheduling, and intraday management. Without these three process foundations, investments in WFM technology at Level 2 frequently fail to produce the intended capability improvements because the organizational habits required to use technology effectively have not been established.
Purpose and Design Philosophy
Level 1 organizations—those operating without formal forecasting, schedules built to staffing requirements, or structured real-time management—typically lack WFM SOPs entirely. Decisions about staffing are made by supervisors based on experience, historical patterns are applied informally rather than analytically, and intraday management consists of reactive responses to crises rather than proactive interval-level steering.
The Level 1 Process Templates are designed around a single design constraint: they must produce immediate, measurable improvement in WFM process consistency using only a shared drive and basic spreadsheet capability. Each template is a one-page SOP that defines the process owner, the execution cadence, the inputs required, the steps to execute, and the outputs produced. The brevity is intentional—a WFM practitioner should be able to follow the SOP without additional training.
The templates establish three process habits that are prerequisites for all subsequent WFM maturity development: producing a forecast, building a schedule from that forecast, and managing intraday variance against a plan. These three habits, executed consistently, represent the foundational WFM practice loop described in WFM Processes.
The Three Core SOPs
SOP 1: Weekly Forecast
The Weekly Forecast SOP governs the production of the demand forecast for the upcoming operating week. It is published on Thursday for the following week.
Process owner: Forecast Lead (may be the WFM Manager in small operations)
Inputs:
- Historical interval-level or 30-minute call volume from the telephony system, minimum 4-week trailing period
- Known future drivers: scheduled marketing campaigns, product launches, billing cycles, and holidays
- Prior week forecast error for calibration
Steps:
- Pull historical volume data for the same day-of-week pattern across the trailing period
- Apply any known uplift or suppression from identified drivers
- Calculate arrival rate per interval using the historical distribution shape applied to the adjusted weekly total
- Apply AHT assumption from trailing performance data
- Run Erlang-C staffing calculation to produce required agents per interval
- Document key assumptions and sources of uncertainty in the forecast narrative
- Publish to shared drive with version date
Outputs:
- Interval-level arrival forecast
- AHT assumption
- Required staffing per interval (Erlang-C output)
- Forecast narrative with documented assumptions and uncertainty notes
At Level 1, the forecast does not require sophisticated tools. A correctly structured spreadsheet that applies day-of-week and time-of-day pattern factors to a recent volume baseline produces a substantially better forecast than informal experience-based staffing, even if the model is simple. The Weekly Forecast SOP establishes the organizational habit of producing and owning a documented forecast, which is the prerequisite for all forecast accuracy improvement work.
SOP 2: Build the Roster
The Roster Building SOP governs the conversion of the interval-level staffing requirement into a published schedule for the operating week. It is published on Friday for the following week.
Process owner: Scheduling Lead
Inputs:
- Weekly Forecast output: required agents per interval
- Current roster: available agents, shift assignments, approved time off, and known absences
- Shrinkage rate: the percentage of scheduled time that agents are not available for queue work (training, meetings, breaks, personal time)
- Scheduling constraints: union rules, regulatory requirements, minimum rest periods
Steps:
- Apply shrinkage rate to the required staffing to calculate scheduled agents needed per interval: Required agents ÷ (1 − Shrinkage rate)
- Review current roster against scheduled agent requirements by interval
- Identify coverage gaps: intervals where scheduled agents fall below required scheduled agents
- Adjust shifts, place break timing to minimize coverage holes at peak intervals, and flag any gaps that cannot be covered with current headcount
- Protect coaching and training blocks in off-peak intervals where coverage is adequate
- Publish final roster and coverage heatmap to shared drive
Outputs:
- Published weekly schedule with agent-level shift assignments
- Coverage heatmap showing scheduled versus required agents by interval
- Gap documentation for intervals where coverage falls short of requirement
The coverage heatmap is the key artifact from this SOP. It makes the relationship between the forecast, the shrinkage assumption, and the actual schedule visible in a single view, allowing operations leadership to see the staffing plan rather than only a list of shifts. At Level 1, the heatmap is commonly built in a spreadsheet with conditional formatting.
SOP 3: Intraday Control
The Intraday Control SOP governs real-time management of the operating day. It is executed at 15–30 minute intervals throughout the operating day.
Process owner: Real-Time Lead (may be a senior supervisor in small operations)
Inputs:
- Real-time service level and queue data from telephony reporting
- Current agent status: on-queue count, adherence to scheduled positions
- Interval forecast: expected volume and required staffing for current and next intervals
Steps:
- At each interval boundary, pull current service level and compare to target
- Pull current on-queue agent count and compare to scheduled staffing
- Identify the gap type using the four-arm cause structure: adherence failure, volume deviation, scheduling gap, or AHT inflation (see Real-Time Cause and Effect Fishbone)
- Apply appropriate micro-move based on gap type:
- Adherence failure → contact supervisor to return agents to queue
- Volume spike → activate flex pool, reclaim off-phone agents from non-critical activities
- AHT inflation → supervisory check on handle-time drivers
- Scheduling gap → escalate to scheduling for pattern correction
- Log the variance and the lever applied in the interval variance log
- Evaluate outcome at next interval boundary
Outputs:
- Interval-level variance log documenting actual versus planned performance and interventions applied
- Pattern data for recurring gaps that should become standing procedures or trigger schedule adjustments
The variance log is the primary learning artifact from intraday operations. In Level 1 environments, it is commonly a shared spreadsheet updated manually by the real-time lead. The log establishes the documentation habit that supports process improvement at Level 2 and above—without logged variance data, patterns cannot be identified and systemic fixes cannot be prioritized.
Implementation Approach
The Level 1 Process Templates are designed for rapid adoption. The implementation sequence is:
- Create the three one-page SOPs in a shared drive location accessible to the forecast, scheduling, and real-time functions
- Assign a named process owner to each SOP
- Execute all three SOPs in the first week, even if imperfectly
- Debrief after the first week to identify the largest execution gaps
- Refine SOP language to match actual operating conditions
- Establish the cadence: Thursday forecast, Friday roster, interval-level intraday control
The templates deliberately avoid requiring WFM software, advanced analytics, or dedicated WFM headcount. A single experienced WFM practitioner can execute all three SOPs in a small to mid-sized operation using spreadsheets and telephony reporting. The goal is to establish the process loop before investing in technology to support it.
Governance Principles
Two governance principles govern changes to the SOPs after initial implementation.
Iteration not reinvention. SOPs are modified based on evidence from execution: the variance log identifies recurring patterns, and modifications to the SOPs address those patterns specifically. Wholesale SOP rewrites without evidence-based motivation introduce instability in the process habits being established.
Recurrence before standardization. A micro-move that works in a single intraday situation is not added to the SOP until it recurs. When the same intervention is effective in three or more incidents with similar characteristics, it becomes a standing procedure in the Intraday Control SOP.
Relationship to Maturity Advancement
The Level 1 Process Templates are explicitly designed as a stepping stone, not a final destination. The processes they establish are sufficient to move an operation from unstructured Level 1 to structured Level 1, and provide the documented process baseline necessary for WFM Assessment and the WFM Labs Maturity Model Level 2 advancement.
Level 2 advancement typically involves replacing spreadsheet-based forecasting and scheduling with WFM platform tooling. When this transition occurs, the process logic established in the Level 1 SOPs maps directly to the workflow configuration required in WFM software—organizations that have operated the manual process understand the data flows and decision points that the technology must support.
At Level 2 and above, the three-SOP structure is superseded by more sophisticated process frameworks. The forecast SOP evolves into a probabilistic forecasting process; the roster SOP evolves into optimization-driven schedule generation; the intraday control SOP evolves into a structured Adherence and Conformance management process with escalation protocols and variance harvesting.
Related Concepts
- WFM Labs Maturity Model
- WFM Processes
- WFM Roles
- Forecasting Methods
- Schedule Generation
- Shrinkage
- Erlang-C
- Average Handle Time
- Adherence and Conformance
- Real-Time Cause and Effect Fishbone
- WFM Assessment
