Speakers

Nimesh Dhanak, Call Design

9:00am – 9:30am Welcome from the Call Design Team

Nimesh is CEO at Call Design APAC. Nimesh is an industry professional with over 25 years’ experience in the IT industry, 20 of which he has dedicated to the contact centre space.

Nimesh started working in the call centre space back in 1999 with TCS in the UK as a technical specialist for their Workforce Management solution set. This has led to an in-depth understanding and passion for the Workforce Optimisation space focusing on WFM, Engagement and Automation.

Nimesh has held various roles including in Technical and Educational consulting, before leading Call Design’s Global Implementations Team. Moving into Sales more than 10 years ago he led Solutions Consulting and Business Development for the ANZ region. Today Nimesh is responsible for leading the business & executing on internal and customer strategy enabling Call Design and it’s clients to be successful.

James Witcombe, SMAART Recruitment

9:30am – 10:30am Industry Trends

The great resignation, increased absenteeism and “quiet quitting” impacted contact centres heavily in 2022. So how do we move forward? James will discuss how contact centres can attract – and retain – staff, even through this period of low unemployment and high turnover. Backed up by the latest industry research he’ll also highlight other industry trends that are sure to have an impact in 2023 and beyond.

James Witcombe is a Director at SMAART Recruitment and has been working in contact centre recruitment in Australia since 2005. A regular commentator and blogger when it comes to recruitment and contact centres, James is the author of the Contact Centre Best Practice Report and runs Australia’s largest Contact Centre Mentoring Program.

James also sits as the Vice-Chair of the Victorian Council of the RCSA (the peak body for the recruitment and staffing industry) and on the National Advisory Board for the Australian Customer Experience Association.

Chris Griffiths, NAB

11:00am – 11:45am NAB’s Journey to a Technology driven Workforce

Sharing NAB’s journey to a state-of-the-art contact centre underpinned by modern technology solutions for the Contact Centres, Chris will share how the WFM team enabled this massive transformation including the onboarding of multiple WFMS instances into one single planning framework inclusive of their branch network. He will talk to how NAB took advantage of this major upgrade to modernise forecasting processes using Aspect/Alvaria, standardising approaches across different business teams and enabled and uplifted the capability of his team and their improved utilisation of this technology during this transformation.

Chris has been instrumental in helping NAB navigate through the perils of COVID and re-establishing a technology driven forecasting business, that is highly agile, delivering significant improvements to both his business stakeholders as well as the customer and colleague experience.

Chris has nearly 30 years of experience working in the contact centre industry, and over 22 years in workforce management, starting out originally as a frontline consultant in 1994 and working through many different roles before finding his passion in the numbers game of WFM. Chris has worked and managed workforces across many customer segments such as Telecommunications, Banking & Finance and Outsourcing (both as the client and the vendor), both on and offshore. Managing & supporting workforce sizes ranging from 500 to 10,000+ seats across inbound, back-office, digital and outbound channels.

Daniel Ghita, Bupa

11:45am – 12:30pm Enterprise-wide Workforce Optimisation

Daniel has over 20 years’ experience in the Contact Centre Industry and more than 15 years leading Workforce Management teams in Telecommunications, Pay TV and Health Insurance industries.

He has managed workforces across internal, onshore and offshore partners for contact centres ranging from 500 to 5,000+ seats. He has in-depth experience in workforce management across voice, back office, digital, retail and outbound channels.

Simon Kriss, Serco

11:45pm – 12:30pm The future is bright! Opportunities and Challenges.

In a post COVID world, the future of contact centres is bright and shiny. However that brightness comes with a set of new challenges for WFM Managers and Centre Managers alike. This session will take a look at some of the emerging trends and how true, large-scale, innovation will become the key skill for all contact centre leaders. Together we will explore the future of gamification, the future of channel spread, the concept of traffic hunting and more.

Simon is a contact centre futurologist. He is currently the Director of Innovation with Serco Australia and a Director of the Auscontact Association. Simon’s career in contact centres spans over 30 years and across the globe, having run operations in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, India, Poland, Ireland, Canada, USA and more. His industry experience is as broad as its geography having worked in Banking, Insurance, Travel, FMCG, Energy, Government and BPOs.

Simon started his contact centre journey as a frontline agent and moved through team leader, WFM, centre manager and now as an executive has a unique understanding of the impacts to frontline staff in current operations. Simon is a well-known industry commentator, frequently authoring magazine articles and white papers on many topics around contact centres and their management.

Jamie Powderly, Call Design

1:30pm – 2:15pm Freedom within Limits

Jamie is the team leader of the Workforce Optimisation Consultancy Team at Call Design. He has 7 years’ of experience in the Contact Centre Industry.

Jamie has worked primarily in the Banking/Finance industry. He has held many roles within the contact centre industry ranging from an agent on the phone through to Workforce Planning where he has held roles from Real Time Analyst, Budget & Capacity Planning Analyst, Resource Planning Manager & through to large and complex Senior Management positions of Workforce Planning Teams.

Kate Lee, Australian Tax Office

1:30pm – 2:15pm 2022 Auscontact Workforce Management Champion

Kate Lee has worked within the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for 15 years and is currently a Director within Enterprise Work Management (EWM). EWM aims to deliver the right work to the right people at the right time.

Kate plays a pivotal role in planning and managing the ATO’s client focused frontline services including analysing demand and supply of ATO frontline workforces. She governs frontline budget expenditure and drives agency strategies that deliver operational excellence and cost efficiencies.

Kate drives strategic change and enterprise-wide solutions to improve the staff and client experience and positions the business for success in the future.

She is a strong advocate of workplace diversity, offering her guidance and experience to mentor staff and promoting inclusion and positive workplace culture.

Kate has recently been awarded the 2022 National Auscontact Workforce Management Champion due to her extensive experience in work management.  Join her session to find out more about how she did this.

 

 

Michel Niere, Call Design Philippines

2:15pm – 03:00pm Liberate your Workforce! Learn how Intraday Work Assignment can Improve your Staffing

Michel started at Call Design in 2013 after spending a decade working in the Contact Centre Industry. She has experience in global service centres and business process outsourcing environments for Banking and Finance, Telecommunications, and Retail verticals ranging from mid to large scale operations.

Michel started her professional career as an agent before moving on to become a Real Time Analyst, Operations Desk Analyst (WFM Analyst), and Workforce Manager.
Michel is a Workforce Optimisation Consultant based in Manila and an advocate of workforce management practices to ensure organisations get the right people, at the right place and time, with the right set of skills.

Amy Glover, Call Design

2:15pm – 03.00pm How to Build a Culture Driven Team

In this session, you will learn about things to look for when recruiting and building a WFM team and how to build a culture of confidence that helps build trusting stakeholder relationships.

Amy is a dedicated and experienced workforce optimisation specialist based in Melbourne. She has extensive knowledge of forecasting principles and theories as well as scheduling and reporting practices in contact centres and roadside assistance workforce planning. She has a passion for sharing, developing, and growing the knowledge of workforce optimisation strategies within resource planning teams & believes a healthy and collaborative WFM team culture is the foundation for a successful contact centre.

Carol Ritchie, Call Design

3:30 pm – 4:15pm Making Hybrid Working Work for You with Alvaria Reserve

In this session, Carol will show you how to empower your employees to secure their own work from home/work from office days using a combination of tools in Alvaria WFM.  Tracking tools can be used to provide appropriate numbers of office/home days and guide your employees on where to sit.  Use this opportunity to think about new ways to offer additional flexibility to your staff, and improve their engagement.

Carol is a Workforce Optimisation Consultant at Call Design. She has 20 years’ experience in the contact centre industry, in both the UK and Australia. She has worked in many industries including Telecommunications (Virgin Mobile) and Banking/Finance (HSBC and GE Finance) ranging from 8 seats to over 2000. Carol has held many contact centre roles from an Agent on the phones, to Team Leader to Workforce Planner, and so understands WFP principles from all sides.

Carol has experience working with Alvaria Workforce Management, Nice IEX and Verint i360. Carol brings a wealth of experience to share with anyone wanting to know more about how to improve their Workforce Planning practice.

Allison McKenzie, NRMA

3:30pm – 4:15pm Stakeholder Management

Come along and hear how a restructure of the NRMA Contact Centre WFP team sparked a push for innovation, knowledge and insights for their most impacted stakeholders.

From the need for more flexibility in rosters, and better support in real-time decision making, to integration of their data into meaningful self-serve reports for all managers, Allison will share how her team worked together, managing the interests and expectations of Agents and Managers.   She will talk about how they aligned their goals and objectives while operating in a 24X7 Contact Centre.

Allison has almost 30 years of experience working in the Contact Centre industry, and is currently the Workforce Planning Manager for NRMA’s Roadside Assistance Contact Centres. Allison is first and foremost someone who seeks to understand and connect to those whom she supports. She brings years of experience in customer service, a keen curiosity to the WFM workspace and leads with empathy and trust.

Simon Clements, Call Design

4:15pm – 5:00pm Bringing the Back Office out of the Shadows

Simon is one of our Melbourne based Workforce Optimisation Consultants who brings with him over 17 years of contact centre knowledge. He has worked in both client-focussed, outsourced and inhouse contact centres for telecommunications, healthcare and insurance industries ranging in size from 20 FTE to over 1000 FTE. Simon’s most recent role, prior to joining Call Design, was supporting the Victorian Health Department in their Covid19 response team.

Simon has experience using different workforce management platforms including Genesys WFM on premise and cloud versions, IEX Total View and Alvaria WFM (formerly Aspect WFM). Simon is passionate about supporting customers with great workforce management practices and helping make sure they get the most from their systems.

Matthew Elliott, Alvaria

4:15pm – 5:00pm Combatting the Great Resignation

Matthew Elliott is highly experienced in employee engagement having worked in the contact centre industry for more than 20 years. With years of experience implementing new WEM solutions, Matt has extensive knowledge of what it takes to be successful when motivating staff and building employee engagement.

Ted Lango, Intradiem

9:00am – 9:30am Boosting Agent Engagement with Intelligent Automation

Discover how Intelligent Automation has helped Metlife and many other organisations around the world increase agent engagement and solve labour challenges in uncertain times. In this session, Matt Rumins from Intradiem will be asking Ted about his experience as Global Customer Solutions & Operations (GCSO) at MetLife.

Ted Lango joined Intradiem in 2022 and is the Senior Vice President of Business Development. Prior to joining Intradiem, Ted was the Global Head of Workforce Planning & Resource Optimization for Global Customer Solutions & Operations (GCSO) at MetLife. He managed shared services for MetLife’s Contact Centre Operations in the areas of workforce management, IVR & telephony, reporting, and business risk management.

Prior to joining MetLife, Ted served as Vice President of National Contact Centre Operations at Comcast Cable. There, he was responsible for setting the strategic direction in the areas of workforce management, third party vendor management, call center technology, and reporting & analytics. In his tenure at Comcast, he oversaw the realignment of the workforce management organization by introducing a shared services model focused on optimizing both customer service and technology resources.

With more than 30 years of experience, Ted has a diverse background in contact centre operations, sales, and technology management.

Alice Zaslavsky, Author & ABC Radio Host

9:30 – 10:30am

Alice Zaslavsky is an award-winning author, broadcaster, ‘Vegelante’ and Australia’s friendliest voice in food. Alice is the Cookery Columnist for The Weekend Australian Magazine, host of Saturday Breakfast on ABC Radio Melbourne, and the resident foodie on ABC’s hit television program News Breakfast.

Alice’s books are beloved by cooks and eaters of all ages. In Praise of Veg, her second book, has been a smash hit internationally, published in 11 countries and translated into multiple languages. Uniquely organised by colour and featuring insights from some of the world’s top chefs, the book has quickly become a go-to kitchen companion, winning acclaim in Germany, The Netherlands, UK and in Australia, where it won the 2021 ABIA for Best Illustrated Non-Fiction. Her first book Alice’s A to Z is the only cookbook to be given a Notable Book gong by the Children’s Book Council of Australia.

Colin Whelan, Alvaria

11:00am – 11:45am Workforce Optimisation Stories from around the World

In this session, Colin will be joined remotely by Chris Lindley, Head of Demand & Resource Planning at Barclays Bank, UK.  Colin will share some of his experiences working with well known organisations such as Barclays and Hoist Finance.

Colin has over 30 years experience in the customer contact industry and has long been seen as a thought leader in this space. With consultancy roles at The Professional Planning Forum, Aspect Software and now Alvaria, alongside senior operational roles at Barclays Bank, First Choice Holidays and Hoist Finance, he has a wealth of knowledge to share with you.

Colin is the author of the world’s only university degree in contact centre management and planning. He has also received multiple awards in his operational roles for WEM excellence, and personally received the Forum’s Hero award. In 2011, he was inducted into the Forum’s Industry fellowship.

Chris Lindley , Barclays Bank UK

11:00am – 11:45am Workforce Optimisation Stories from around the World

In this session, Chris Lindley, Head of Demand & Resource Planning at Barclays Bank UK will join Colin Whelan to talk about what Barclays Bank are doing from a Workforce Optimisation perspective.

Michael Downey, TSA Group

1:30pm – 2:15pm The Information Highway

Information is the key to success. The question is, are we sharing the relevant information out to everyone that needs it? Over the years Michael has discovered that no matter how good he is at predicting / forecasting the future, it is never accurate unless he has all of the information that is relevant to driving the outcome. Michael will talk through his experiences with situations where information has not been shared and some of the opportunities missed. He will also cover what his team now does to ensure consistent, relevant information sharing is completed regularly and how this has changed the way the departments of TSA interact.

Michael’s workforce planning history started at GE Money in 2003 as a Real Time Analyst and has gone through many progression points from there including roles in Scheduling and Forecasting. Michael has combined his WFM skills and Team Leading abilities to form a very successful workforce team in Australia’s leading BPO company, TSA Group Pty Ltd.

Yassmin Sawaqed, Call Design

1:30pm – 2:15pm The (WFM) Doctors are in! We’d like to help treat your WFM woes

Yassmin is a Workforce Optimisation Consultant at Call Design. She has 5 years’ experience working in the contact centre industry having worked at Ubank, a subsidiary of the National Australia Bank prior to joining Call Design. Yassmin has worked in various roles, starting off as an agent before moving on to become a Senior Advisor, Team Leader and Workforce Planning Analyst.

It was when she moved to Workforce Planning that she found her true passion and knew it was a career she wanted to advance in. Yassmin began her experience in the workforce planning team as a Real Time Analyst before moving on to forecasting, scheduling and platform management. Yassmin has experience as a user with Genesys & Alvaria Workforce Management (previously Aspect WFM) and is passionate about teaching people how to be great workforce planners and get the most out of their WEM investment.