Forecasting & Planning Analyst

Job Summary: The Forecasting & Planning Analyst will play a central role in aligning Client Operations staffing with customer demand to ensure customer contacts are resolved quickly and efficiently. This role is primarily responsible for the ownership of forecasting models and coordinating with various Hotel Engine teams to ensure hiring plans deliver the right number of heads into the right shifts, all to deliver excellent service to our customers. The right candidate will need to be detail-oriented and flexible with changing responsibility and scope as the Workforce Management function develops and grows.

Responsibilities: 

• Analyze historical data, market trends, and future projections to forecast demand and capacity requirements
• Develop and maintain forecasting models which translate high-level business growth expectations into hiring and staffing needs for internal and outsourced Hotel Engine contact centers
• Support and guide strategic decision-making related to staffing, efficiency, and cost
• Manage the entire life cycle of the capacity plan, coordinating with recruiting, training, finance, and operational leadership to ensure departmental needs are met through hiring and staffing processes
• Deliver accurate forecasting of core contact center KPIs across long- and short-term windows (5-year to same day) on various levels of granularity (year to half-hour)
• Establish, promote, and standardize activities and processes across forecasting, capacity planning, scheduling and real-time operations
• Support and mentor workforce management team members on best practices, workforce management principles, and process optimization
• Own shift selection processes to align schedules of internal and outsourced agents with forecasted demand
• Generate and maintain schedules in Assembled which balance service level attainment with operational shrinkage needs (ie time off, breaks, meetings, etc.)
• Lean in to support other areas of workforce management when necessary, including schedule management, reporting & analysis, real-time monitoring, etc.

Requirements:

• Minimum 5 years experience in Workforce Management with at least 2 in a forecasting or capacity planning role
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• High level of expertise with Excel, including ability to build reports and models from scratch with high automation through formulas, pivot tables, macros, etc.
• Familiarity with CRM systems (Salesforce preferred) - bonus if able to create dynamic reporting and dashboards within tool
• Comfortable with typical contact center and WFM tools including ACD and WFM platforms (ie IEX, Calabrio, Assembled)
• High level of knowledge and proficiency with Scheduling and/or Real-Time Analysis
• Flexible and willing to work in dynamic start-up culture where responsibilities may change or grow as the team and processes develop

Nice to haves:

• Experience with data visualization tools (ie Lookr, Tableau, PowerBI)
• Knowledge of data query and/or coding languages (ie SQL, Python, R)
• Experience with project management principles and tools (ie Agile, Asana)
• Experience with continuous improvement approaches (ie Lean, Six Sigma)
• Demonstrated ability to apply change management principles and approaches as processes develop

Compensation:

• The base salary range for this role is $75,000-$100,000 annually. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise & may vary from the amount above