Manager, Vendor & Workforce Management (Utility Contact Center)

Liberty; Gainesville (GA); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 135,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k with Company match

Full insurance benefits

Flexible working policy

Share purchase/match plan

Defined Contribution savings plan

Top Talent Program

Volunteer paid days off

Employee Assistance Program

Achievement fund

Job summary

Liberty, part of Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., seeks a Senior Vendor Operations Manager to optimize contact center performance across internal and outsourced teams. You will lead governance, forecasting, staffing, and analytics to balance customer experience, reliability and cost.

The role requires managing vendor relationships, SLAs, and regulatory alignment, with travel across the US and occasional trips to Canada. Hybrid work arrangement and a focus on continuous improvement are offered.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+ years in a large-scale utility or regulated contact center environment.
• Proven experience managing outsourced vendor relationships and workforce operations.
• Strong analytical and technical skills with Excel, Power BI/Tableau, and WFM platforms.
• Travel to US locations and occasional trips to Canada; passport required.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary relationship owner for all third-party vendor partners supporting the contact center.
• Establish and manage performance scorecards with SLAs, KPIs, and compliance standards.
• Lead governance routines (weekly reviews, monthly and quarterly reviews).
• Ensure vendors follow data privacy, policies, and customer protection protocols.
• Forecast, capacity plan, and staff across internal and vendor sites to meet targets.
• Oversee scheduling and intraday management to maintain coverage.
• Collaborate with Operations, HR, and Finance to align headcount and budgets.
• Develop executive dashboards and insights to inform leadership decisions.
• Drive Lean and continuous improvement across vendor and internal teams.

Skills

Vendor governance

Forecasting

Staffing optimization

Operational analytics

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business or related field

Equivalent experience

Tools

NICE IEX

Verint

Aspect

Excel

Power BI

Tableau

Job description

Our purpose is sustaining energy and water for life, and it is demonstrated in everything we do as a business, and as an employee team.

At Liberty, we hire passionate people who care about doing the right thing for our customers. We are entrepreneurial, creative, and outcome-focused. Here, your natural talent and achievements will flourish in an inclusive environment of teamwork, trust and continuous learning. We are always pursuing excellence to exceed our ambitions goals, rewarding both the goal outcome and how we achieve it.

Purpose

This role is accountable for optimizing the performance of both internal and outsourced contact center operations serving gas and electric customers. This role ensures service delivery excellence through effective vendor governance, forecasting, staffing optimization, and operational analytics.

The position drives the balance between customer experience, reliability, and cost to serve—ensuring that customers are supported 365/24/7 across voice, chat, and digital channels.

#LI-Hybrid

Accountabilities

• Serve as the primary relationship owner for all third-party vendor partners supporting the contact center.
• Establish and manage performance scorecards with clear SLAs, KPIs, and compliance standards aligned with regulatory requirements and internal expectations (ASA, FCR, CSAT, Quality, Safety, and Cost per Contact).
• Lead structured governance routines (weekly operational reviews, monthly business reviews, quarterly performance reviews).
• Ensure vendors adhere to company policies, data privacy, and customer protection protocols.
• Partner with Procurement, IT, and Legal to manage vendor contracts, renewals, and performance incentives.
• Identify improvement opportunities in call routing, digital deflection, automation, and agent enablement.
• Support vendor onboarding, training readiness, and technology integration for new lines of business or storm response capacity.
• Lead forecasting, capacity planning, and staffing models across internal and vendor sites to meet service level, regulatory, and cost targets.
• Oversee scheduling, real-time management, and adherence to ensure consistent coverage and performance.
• Collaborate with Operations, HR, and Finance to align headcount, shrinkage, and overtime budgets.
• Use workforce data to anticipate demand impacts due to seasonality, rate cases, weather events, or system outages.
• Maintain and enhance workforce systems (e.g., NICE IEX, Verint, Aspect) to improve forecast accuracy and intraday efficiency.
• Provide visibility to daily, weekly, and monthly performance trends and take proactive steps to optimize staffing and service delivery.
• Develop executive dashboards and insights to inform operational decisions and leadership storytelling.
• Perform root cause analysis on SLA misses or cost variances and lead resolution action plans.
• Drive Lean and continuous improvement principles across vendor and internal teams.
• Monitor operational health indicators such as occupancy, utilization, and shrinkage to improve productivity and service reliability.
• Partner with Quality Assurance and Training teams to ensure workforce readiness and skill alignment with evolving customer needs.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+years of experience in a large-scale utility or regulated industry contact center environment.
• Proven experience managing outsourced vendor relationships and workforce operations.
• Strong analytical and technical skills, including proficiency in Excel, Power BI/Tableau, and WFM platforms.
• Understanding of contact center metrics and their impact on regulatory compliance, affordability, and reliability.
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills with ability to influence cross-functionally.
• Demonstrated success implementing governance frameworks and process standardization across multiple locations.
• This position requires travel to locations in the United States and occassionally to the head office in Canada. A valid passport is required for international travel.

Preferred Attributes

• Utility industry experience in electric, gas, or combination operations.
• Knowledge of regulatory reporting, call quality compliance, and customer satisfaction drivers.
• Lean Six Sigma, PMP, or equivalent process improvement certification.
• Passion for creating a unified culture across internal and vendor teams—“One Vision. One Team. One Voice.”
• Strategic thinker with a hands-on approach to daily performance execution.

Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. is a growing renewable energy and utility company with over $15 billion of assets across North America and internationally.

For more than 30 years, Algonquin has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to delivering clean energy and water solutions. Our rapid growth has led both our regulated utility services and renewable energy business groups into different geographies and commodities, but our purpose remains unchanged – Sustaining Energy and Water for Life.

Through our operating business (Liberty), we provide regulated electricity, water, and natural gas utility services to over 1 million customer connections, primarily in North America. And, our growing portfolio of clean, renewable wind, solar, hydro and thermal power generation facilities represent over 3 GW of renewable generation capacity in operation and under construction.

With our robust, diversified, and growing presence in communities across North America and internationally, we are continually demonstrating our “Think Global, Act Local” business model.

What we offer

• 401k with Company match
• Full insurance benefits (health/dental/vision/life)
• Collaborative environment with a genuine flexible working policy
• Share purchase/match plan
• Defined Contribution savings plan
• Top Talent Program
• Volunteer paid days off
• Employee Assistance Program
• Achievement fund

We are focused on building a diverse and inclusive workforce.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value each person’s unique background, diversity, experiences, perspectives and talents. Full participation of all employees in a safe, healthy and respectful environment is key to individual and company success. We are committed to fully utilizing the abilities of all of our employees and expect each of our employees to honor this commitment in their daily responsibilities.