This week, we look at how customer enterprises are utilizing some of the most popular Workforce Management capabilities and the results from those partnerships.
WFM is becoming a more connected, responsive operational discipline, one that needs to account for AI, changing employee capacity, real-time demand, and the complexity of managing people across multiple systems.
Earlier, I spoke with Lisa Orford, Global Vice President for Contact Centre PM at 8x8, about its recent success in retaining its customers three-fold.
As AI takes routine interactions, human agents are increasingly handling the longer, more complex conversations that do not fit neatly into a static forecast or schedule.
As Orford put it:
“As AI agents take the simple interactions, the humans are left with the harder, longer conversations, and you can’t schedule for that in a spreadsheet.”
Elsewhere this week. Intradiem has introduced a model built around making workforce adjustments in real time, while Totalmobile’s Staffordshire Police deployment shows the same principles extending beyond the contact centre: joined-up duty, availability, skills and payroll data are becoming essential for large-scale workforce operations.
For CX leaders, the priority is not simply introducing another WFM tool, but to understand whether current processes can connect insight and action quickly enough.
Whilst forecasts still matter, the ability to respond when they stop matching reality may matter even more.
8x8 Grows WFM Customer Base by More Than 170%
With AI changing the work that reaches human agents, manual workforce planning is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
Earlier this week, 8x8 said its WFM customer base had grown by more than 170% since November 2025, suggesting that more contact centers are looking to move away from spreadsheets without taking on the cost and complexity traditionally associated with enterprise WFM projects.
In fact, much of that growth has come from existing 8x8 Contact Center customers enabling WFM capabilities, thereby lowering barriers to deployment and integration.
Lisa Orford argues that, due to their practicality and effectiveness, small businesses were drawn toward spreadsheets.
“Spreadsheets won by default, not because anybody necessarily thought they were good, but they just fit."
For SMBs, a dedicated WFM platform could mean major cost, lengthy implementation, and additional training.
But despite original cost savings, the operational cost of manual planning can remain largely invisible.
Furthermore, this increases internal pressure when AI changes the shape of demand. As automated agents handle simpler contacts, humans inherit more nuanced, emotionally demanding, and potentially longer interactions.
Historical averages therefore become less dependable if forecasts cannot distinguish between work completed by AI and work escalated to people.
For WFM leaders, the future of scheduling needs to reflect agent skills and availability, while quality insights should help determine who needs support without affecting service levels.
Intradiem Launches Dynamic Workforce Orchestration To Put Real-Time Action at the Center
Intradiem has introduced Dynamic Workforce Orchestration (DWO), making the case that workforce management should not stop at predicting demand.
This operating model is designed to continuously align workforce capacity with changing customer demand, connecting live operational data with automated actions and helping organizations make adjustments as conditions change.
