NICE Workforce Management (WFM) is a CXone contact center feature suite with AI-powered forecasting, scheduling, employee engagement, and performance management capabilities. NICE WFM is best for enterprise-level omnichannel contact centers with a high inbound contact volume. The NICE CXOne Workforce Management suite (which includes the CXone Omnichannel Agent package) offers a 60-day free trial and three paid plans from $135-$209/agent/month.
In addition to its workforce optimization features, NICE WFM includes real-time/historical omnichannel speech and text analytics that provide deep insight into agent and customer behavior.
Although its overcrowded schedule management interface and high learning curve deter some users, its use of Generative AI, 40+ forecasting methods, and 360-degree Supervisor Workspace make NICE a top provider in the WFM space.
What is NICE Workforce Management (WFM)?
NICE Workforce Management (WFM) is an omnichannel workforce optimization platform included in the top three NICE CXone contact center plans (Essential, Core, and Complete Suites.)
It is best known for its AI forecasting and scheduling capabilities, which use predictive analytics, custom KPI monitoring, and machine learning to optimize available agents, reduce operating costs, and streamline back-office workflows. NICE is among the first in the WFM space to leverage Generative AI with its Enlighten Actions tool, which gives admins conversational insights into high-value contact center activity.
Another differentiating factor is NICE’s focus on agent engagement and retention. NICE WFM provides an agent-facing mobile app with shift bidding, PTO management, performance evaluations, and coaching assignments. It also includes superior performance gamification tools with real-time wallboards, custom avatars, employee rewards, and challenges.
Overall, NICE WFM helps enterprise contact centers:
- Improve the customer experience by lowering average handle times, decreasing call wait times, and providing personalized customer service from skilled agents
- Optimize available agents with scheduling tools and performance evaluations
- Lower operating costs and meet business needs by increasing agent retention and automating business processes
- Increase CSAT and NPS scores via historical AI analytics and real-time SLA alerts and notifications
Standout Features of NICE WFM
NICE WFM includes standard and advanced workforce management software capabilities like agent coaching and evaluation, AI analytics, and employee scheduling with intraday management.
Pre-built integrations with Salesforce, Zendesk, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, and other CRM+helpdesk solutions make it easy to access essential client data during live interactions.
Forecasting+Scheduling
The NICE CXone WFM suite uses AI-powered omnichannel forecasting to optimize long and short-term scheduling and staffing strategies. With over 40 intelligent forecasting algorithms and best-pick technology, it identifies patterns in historical data and accurately predicts upcoming shifts in both call volume and average handle time (AHT).
Unlike many competitors, NICE WFM evaluates how trends in contact center volume and seasonality impact scheduling needs. It uses curve fitting, 3 variations of exponential smoothing, and ARIMA forecasting models to select the most accurate result and create suggested schedules.
Admins can set forecasting parameters like desired KPIs, agent skills, shrinkage, custom distribution rules, date ranges, and “special days" (holidays, product launch dates, etc). They can also create unlimited “what if” alternative forecasts with editable data and add multi-skill and multi-site forecasting options. Schedules can be edited in real-time via automated intraday management, color-coded, and manually updated directly within the drag-and-drop interface.
Additional CXone forecasting features include:
- Activity Codes: Assign/set default lengths for agent shift activities like breaks, training, meetings, lunch, etc.
- Agent Skills: Assign individual agent skills (languages spoken, training completed, department, specific business or soft skills, etc.) and agent skill proficiency levels to optimize schedules
- Scheduling Units: Groups of customer support agents with similar skill sets, working hours, locations, departments, etc.
- Seat Limits: Set the minimum and maximum number of desired employees per schedule
- Approval Rules: Automate PTO/overtime request management by creating approval rules with preset custom conditions
- Time-Off Planning: Assign each agent a number of vacation days, sick days, personal days, half-days, etc.
- Shift Bidding: Managers can create open weekly shift schedules (bidding templates) for agents to bid on, and agents can trade shifts with each other
- Schedule Adherence Monitoring: Uses activity mapping and compares scheduled vs. actual agent activity to ensure agents are following their pre-set schedules. Machine learning with re-forecasting uses the most recent available data to improve schedules over time
Quality Management
CXone Quality Management (QM) is a WFM application designed to evaluate and improve agent performance and the customer service process. Though standard features like call barge, call whisper, call recording/transcription, and agent screen recording are included, advanced AI QM capabilities set NICE CXone apart from competitors.
Admins can create custom forms for agent performance scoring, self-assessments, and collaborative evaluations involving agents and their managers. Evaluation forms can include open-ended questions, rankings, yes/no questions, or multiple-choice options. Dynamic rules enable automated follow-up questions depending on agent responses, and real-time scoring streamlines the evaluation process.
Managers can review agent-customer interactions, use speech+text analytics to review specific interactions or receive real-time alerts, and monitor agent evaluation scores. If needed, managers can assign mandatory training/coaching sessions to agents.
Admins can search and playback agent-customer interactions across voice and digital channels, filtering by date/time, agent name, business data, disposition, customer, skill, department, and more.
Performance Management
CXone Performance Management (PM) takes Quality Management capabilities to the next level with real-time KPI alerts, performance gamification, and Feedback Management.
Feedback Management analyzes Voice of the Customer insights from omnichannel customer surveys, using speech and text analytics to identify common CX issues. Admins can review NPS and CSAT scores, examine customer journey insights and time utilization reports, and evaluate agent performance from automated survey scores.
Performance Gamification increases agent engagement using wallboards with real-time KPI updates, limited-time agent challenges, custom avatars, rewards, and agent recognition. Admins can choose from a variety of single and multi-player games, create a custom rewards marketplace, set milestones, and even gamify the training and onboarding processes.
Enlighten Copilot and Enlighten Actions
Enlighten Copilot is an omnichannel workforce optimization (WFO) tool that offers real-time, in-conversation agent assistance by displaying relevant internal knowledge base and CRM data on agent screens.
Using Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Enlighten Copilot provides suggested next steps, analyzes customer sentiment, and proactive alerts designed to increase first contact resolution (FCR) rates and shorten AHT.
Enlighten Actions uses Generative AI to create custom on-demand summaries of contact center activity, eliminating the need for manual data searching or SQL queries. Admins can type in their desired question, such as “Who are the top 10 highest-performing agents in my call center?” and receive interactive data sets, summarizes, charts/graphs, and drilled down insights. Based on the data collected, Enlighten Actions identifies opportunities for business process automation, agent training, call flow and schedule optimization, and makes other suggested actions.
Supervisor Workspace
The CXone Supervisor Workspace is a contact center WFM feature that provides a 360-degree view of all contact center activity across communication channels to optimize schedules, call/contact queues, agent performance, and more.
Within the Supervisor Workspace, admins can view real-time call center metrics and KPIs like:
- Number of calls in queue
- Longest wait time
- Customer sentiment analytics
- Agent status updates
- Campaign updates
- Current service levels
- Agent skill proficiencies
Admins can also view active agent screens, change agent states and schedules, agent activity history, and review call recordings. They can also offer ad-hoc performance reviews, coach agents through live interactions, and enable live desktop/mobile SLA alerts.
NICE Workforce Management Pricing & Plans
The NICE WFM suite is included only in the top three NICE CXone CCaaS plans: the Essential Suite for $135/agent/month, the Core Suite for $169/agent/month, and the Complete Suite for $209/agent/month.
Essential, Core, and Complete plans all include the Omnichannel Agent CXone package (a $110/month value), which includes features like omnichannel routing, concurrent interaction management, dedicated agent/supervisor workspaces, and pre-built data visualization/reporting tools.
Below, we break down each CXone WFM plan:
Essential Suite ($135/agent/month)
The Essential Suite includes quality management capabilities like agent scoring and evaluation tools, self-assessments, coaching assignments and webinars, and automated interaction assignment and review.
It provides a more advanced supervisor workspace for omnichannel communication and real-time monitoring–including agent screen recording and playback for voice and digital interactions.
The Essential Suite does not include forecasting and scheduling tools, meaning it’s best for teams new to workforce management or omnichannel contact centers interested in monitoring agent performance to identify top employees and common customer complaints.
Core Suite ($169/agent/month)
The Core Suite adds omnichannel AI forecasting and scheduling capabilities, plus access to the agent mobile app for scheduling and PTO management with auto approvals.
It improves on the more basic monitoring and analytics offered in the Essential Suite with 360-degree agent KPIs, trend forecasting, adherence monitoring, and time utilization reports. It also adds gamification and real-time wallboards.
However, the Core Suite doesn’t include customer survey or CSAT scoring capabilities, making it ideal for mid-size contact centers with a relatively steady customer experience.
Complete Suite ($209/agent/month)
The Complete Suite adds advanced omnichannel feedback management with Voice of the Customer Insights, CSAT scoring in quality and performance management tools, and AI sentiment analysis.
It also conducts root cause analysis, provides pre-built reporting categories and templates, and uses Conversational AI to identify common support topics and trends in agent/customer behavior.
Unlike other plans, the Complete Suite with IEX WFM tools analyzes 100% of voice and digital interaction, making it a great fit for enterprise contact centers that rely on high-level analysis to automate business processes, improve CX, and identify gaps in agent training and scheduling processes.
What Makes NICE WFM Stand Out from Competitors
NICE WFM stands out from competitors in its use of Generative AI, an agent-facing scheduling app, and an Enhanced Strategic Planner tool for long-term workforce planning.
Below, we explore NICE Contact Center Workforce Management’s top three differentiating features compared to other CCaaS and WFM solutions.
Generative AI
NICE WFM stands out from competitors in its use of Generative AI, giving contact center managers actionable, on-demand insights about top-of-mind KPIs with its Enlighten Actions feature.
Generative AI dramatically increases productivity levels, helping businesses lower operating costs by 30-45%.
The Enlighten Actions tool saves supervisors hours previously spent searching through over-saturated contact center activity reports. Instead of trying to decipher pages of data to find truly valuable insights, admins can simply type questions into the Enlighten AI interface.
In addition to providing conversational and straightforward answers directly within the chatbot interface, Enlighten AI automatically links to relevant statistics, data sets, and interactive charts/graphs. It even suggests follow-up questions for supervisors needing further insight.
Agent App
The agent-facing desktop and mobile app is a workforce engagement management tool allowing agents to see and update upcoming schedule assignments, bid on or swap shifts, change their user presence, and review evaluations or assigned training modules.
From their preferred device, agents can update their work schedule preferences, suggest schedule adjustments, request and receive approvals for PTO, and review pending tasks/interaction assignments. Agents can receive real-time alerts for sudden schedule changes due to intraday management, view gamification scores/statuses, and clock in/out directly in the mobile app.
Enhanced Strategic Planner
The NICE WFM Enhanced Strategic Planner tool is a long-term workforce planning app that helps with budgeting and resource allocation, the hiring process, and upcoming staffing needs.
It uses historical analytics, reverse problem-solving, and what-if forecasting to create highly accurate predictions regarding workforce management and planning–months or years in advance. It also compares actual vs projected contact center activity, conducts automated KPI tracking, and identifies outliers or missing data.
Effective workforce planning helps companies achieve a 40% reduction in agent absenteeism and carries an ROI of up to 60%.
How NICE WFM Compares to Alternatives
NICE WFM outranks its competitors in forecasting and schedule management tools but lacks the ease of use and intuitiveness of alternatives like Five9 and Genesys. The table below outlines how NICE CXone WFM compares to other workforce management solutions and contact center software in terms of pricing, features, and ideal use cases.
| Provider | Pricing | Top Features | Best For |
| NICE WFM | 6 plans from $71-$209/agent/month | Best Pick Technology, Enlighten Actions | Remote/blended enterprise contact centers focused on cost savings and improved CX |
| Five9 WFM | 5 plans from $149-$229/month | Call summaries, performance gamification | Enterprise contact centers reliant on automated support interactions across channels |
| Talkdesk WFM | 4 plans from $75-$125/user/mont | Talkdesk Conversations, Utterance Player | In-house teams with advanced security needs and compliance regulations |
| Genesys WEM | 5 plans from $75-$155/user/month | Employee Hub, Interaction Toolbox | Mostly remote contact centers that struggle with a high support ticket volume across multiple digital channels |
| Nextiva WFO | 3 plans from $129-$199/month | Elite CX Analytics, Nextiva CRM Automated Surveys | Current Nextiva phone system users ready to upgrade to a CCaaS solution with included WFO features |
| 8x8 WEM | 3 quote-based plans | Speech/text analytics, agent coaching | Teams focused on high-level contact center customization and streamlined internal communication |
Additional NICE CXone Features
The NICE Workforce Management suite is just one aspect of the cloud-based NICE CXone CCaaS solution.
Additional capabilities include omnichannel customer self-service, customer journey management, interaction analytics, and over 40 voice and digital communication channels including social media, messaging apps, and more. All NICE CXone plans have a 99.99% uptime with 24/7 network monitoring, HIPAA and FedRAMP compliance, and third-party security testing.
Need more information about available NICE WFM and CCaaS functionality? Our complete NICE CXone review includes feedback from current users, additional pricing details, and an overview of standout features.
