Workforce Planning & Optimisation Manager

Lifetime Legal LTD; Wokingham; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Lifetime Legal LTD is seeking an experienced Workforce Planning & Optimisation Manager to build a smarter, proactive approach to workforce planning across our contact centre (~100 FTE).

You will forecast demand, plan capacity and drive resourcing decisions as the business grows, coordinating with Operations, People, Recruitment and Finance to shape headcount, recruitment and deployment ahead of service level impacts.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in workforce planning, resource planning or WFM within a contact centre or similarly high-volume operational environment.
• Excellent Excel and analytical skills are essential.
• Understanding of contact centre performance measures, forecasting, capacity planning and telephony/WFM systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop short, medium and long-term workforce forecasts and capacity plans.
• Predict changes in customer demand and identify future resource requirements.
• Translate forecasts into proactive recruitment and headcount plans.
• Model the impact of demand, AHT, productivity, absence, attrition and other factors.
• Optimise scheduling, workforce deployment, utilisation and productivity.
• Monitor SLA, FCR, AHT, occupancy and performance metrics.
• Identify risks and recommend actions before performance is impacted.
• Develop MI, dashboards and forward-looking workforce insight.
• Lead opportunities for continuous improvement in efficiency and service.

Skills

Workforce planning

WFM

Excel

Analytical skills

Forecasting

Capacity planning

Stakeholder influence

Data analysis

Job description

We’re looking for an experienced Workforce Planning & Optimisation Manager to join Lifetime Legal and help us build a smarter, more proactive approach to workforce planning across our c.100 FTE contact centre.

This is a new and influential role with the opportunity to shape how we forecast demand, plan capacity and make resourcing decisions as the business continues to grow.

You’ll take ownership of workforce forecasting and capacity planning, helping us understand not just where we are today, but what is coming next. You’ll use data, trends and operational insight to predict peaks and troughs in demand, translate these into future headcount requirements and ensure we have sufficient time to recruit, train and deploy resource before service levels are impacted.

Working closely with Operations, People, Recruitment, Finance and the Senior Leadership Team, you’ll provide clear, commercially focused insight into the relationship between demand, capacity, productivity and performance.

What you’ll be doing:

• Developing short, medium and long-term workforce forecasts and capacity plans.
• Predicting changes in customer demand and identifying future resource requirements.
• Translating workforce forecasts into proactive recruitment and headcount plans.
• Modelling the impact of demand, AHT, productivity, absence, attrition, shrinkage and other operational factors.
• Optimising scheduling, workforce deployment, utilisation and productivity.
• Monitoring and analysing SLA, FCR, AHT, occupancy, conformance, productivity and customer outcomes.
• Identifying emerging capacity or service risks and recommending action before performance is impacted.
• Developing meaningful MI, dashboards and forward-looking workforce insight.
• Identifying operational inefficiencies and leading opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Helping ensure we have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place at the right time to protect our customer experience and contractual SLAs.

What we’re looking for:

You’ll already have strong experience in workforce planning, resource planning or WFM within a contact centre or similarly high-volume operational environment.

You’ll be highly analytical, commercially minded and confident turning complex data into clear recommendations. Just as importantly, you’ll be comfortable challenging assumptions, influencing senior stakeholders and helping operational teams make decisions based on what the data is telling us.

Strong Excel and analytical skills are essential, alongside a good understanding of contact centre performance measures, forecasting, capacity planning and telephony/WFM systems.

This role would particularly suit someone who enjoys building and improving, rather than simply maintaining an established process. You’ll have the opportunity to shape our workforce planning capability and make a measurable impact on service, productivity and future growth.

If you’re someone who can see what’s coming, turn the numbers into a plan and help a growing business stay ahead of demand, we’d love to hear from you.