SPEAKERS

Dr Adam Fraser – Human Performance Researcher and Consultant

Dr Adam Fraser is a human performance researcher and consultant who studies how organisations adopt a high-performance culture to thrive in this challenging and evolving business landscape. In this time, he has worked with elite level athletes, the armed forces and business professionals of all levels. In the last 10 years he has delivered more than 1500 presentations to over half a million people in Australia, US, New Zealand and worldwide.

While other speakers talk about research, he does the research, partnering with various Universities through Asia Pacific. In fact, he is thought to be the only keynote speaker in the world to have had the impact of his keynote presentation measured in a University study (It improved the behaviour of attendees by 41%).

In addition to this Dr Adam is the author of four best-selling books, including his latest book released in 2020, ‘Strive’ and the acclaimed ‘The Third Space’. Adam is a regular presenter on TV and Radio and has appeared on Mornings, Sunrise, Today Show, ABC Radio Nationally and Sky news, as well as features in AFR, SMH and The Age.

He is married to a woman who is far brighter than he is, two daughters who have him completely wrapped around their finger and a dog Tilly who routinely outwits him.

Amy Glover – WFO Consultant, Call Design

Session 1: Leadership Ascendancy: Elevate Your Team Leaders with Alvaria Workforce

Drowning in a sea of emails? Empower your leaders to use Alvaria Workforce for their day-to-day tasks. Unsure about the tools at your disposal? Join Amy to discuss tailored access and functionality designed for leaders! Elevate your leaderships’ game today.

Session 2: Unlocking Insights: Demystifying Multi-Channel Performance and Intra-day Work Assignments

Curious about Multi-channel performance? Unsure of what Intra-day work assignments are and when to use them? You’re not alone! Join Carol & Amy to explore the two Alvaria Workforce functions and find the answers you’re looking for.

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.

Ben Simpson – Resource Planning Manager, Westpac

Ben, is currently the Resource Planning Manager at Westpac. He’s a seasoned Workforce Planning professional with nearly two decades of expertise in contact centres. Renowned for his unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction, Ben is a dynamic leader propelled by a passion for driving positive change.

Throughout his career, Ben has honed his skills in Workforce Planning, implementing new WFM (Workforce Management) tools and principles in organisations. His proficiency extends to overseeing the seamless migration of WFM platforms, demonstrating his adaptability and technical acumen.

Ben’s impact goes beyond conventional workforce management, as he has played a pivotal role in guiding businesses through transformative phases. His adeptness shines through during crucial junctures, such as the introduction of new CRM tools navigating through mergers, and orchestrating the acquisition of large customer portfolios.

A strategic thinker and a hands-on leader, Ben’s wealth of experience reflects his ability to not only optimise operational efficiency but also to navigate organisations through intricate changes.

Brendan Maree – VP and Country Manager A/NZ, ProHance

Brendan brings over twenty years of expertise in sales and business development within the IT sector. With extensive experience in contact centre solutions, he has held key roles at renowned companies such as 8×8, Interactive Intelligence and Avaya. Recently, Brendan joined Prohance to direct his efforts on optimising back office operations, leveraging his extensive knowledge in contact centres and IT, as he assumes the role of VP and Country Manager A/NZ.

Apart from his professional achievements, Brendan is a veteran of the Royal Australian Navy and an avid triathlete.

Carol Ritchie – Senior Consultant, Call Design

Session 1: Elevate your team’s Performance by offering more Schedule Flexibility!

Are you on a mission to supercharge staff engagement and productivity? Look no further! In this session, Carol will show you many ways to offer additional schedule flexibility to your employees. There is so much you can do when using rules and guidelines to maintain customer performance and experience. Employees can leverage trades, bids, and manual edits to schedules to work when they want.
Learn how to leverage flexibility in Alvaria Workforce to improve engagement.

Session 2: Unlocking Insights: Demystifying Multi-Channel Performance and Intra-day Work Assignments

Curious about Multi-channel performance? Unsure of what Intra-day work assignments are and when to use them? You’re not alone! Join Carol & Amy to explore the two Alvaria Workforce functions and find the answers you’re looking for.

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.

Charlotte Rush – Organisational Psychologist, Inventium

Charlotte is an Organisational Psychologist and the Head of Product Development at Inventium, Australia’s leading behavioural science consultancy. Charlotte has worked with organisations such as Blackmores, Powerlink, Lendlease, Clayton Utz and WaterAid, shaping their organisation-wide innovation programs. She has worked across Asia, the United States, and Australia and has written on the topic of innovation, change and psychology at work for B&T, CEO World and Smart Company.

Charlotte will be presenting on innovation.  The Innovation Survivor: How to outlast, outthink and outwit your competitors!

Darren Sutton – Associate Director of Customer Services, HealthShare NSW

Darren Sutton is the Associate Director of Customer Services for HealthShare NSW – the largest government shared services organisation in Australia, who support the delivery of patient care in NSW Health. The HealthShare Contact Centre supports:

• The recruitment, on-boarding and payroll services for over 180,000 health workers
• More than 24 million meals being served to patients every year
• 20,000 people with chronic health conditions get the service and equipment support they need
• Transporting 250,000 patients over 8 million km’s every year,
• The delivery of $220 million dollars’ worth of medical and surgical consumables to over 400 sites every day
• The supply of more than 51 million clean bed sheets to NSW Public Hospitals

Throughout a 27 year career in the Contact and Shared Services industry, Darren has lead Contact Centres in the private and public sectors spanning the Telecommunications, Healthcare, Utilities, FMCG , 3^rd Party BPO, and Mutual / NFP industries. Darren is accredited in the Myers Briggs suite of instruments, is a certified practitioner of the Lifestyles Inventory (LSI), Group Styles Inventory (GSI), Manager Impact (MI) and Leader Impact (LI) profile and assessment tools, and for the last 5 years has worked as a volunteer and paid Lifeline telephone crisis support counsellor on the telephone and text services. He is a passionate advocate of the impact (and responsibility) leaders have on the culture of their organisations and in turn, on the way their people interact with their customers.

David Woolford – Head of Agile Capability and Workforce Planning

With a fervour for exceptional organisational planning, David has assumed leadership positions in diverse sectors such as travel, motoring, telecommunications, finance, and the retail supermarket industry. Over his extensive 25-year career, he has embraced every facet of the workforce planning spectrum, transitioning seamlessly between roles as an analyst, leader, facilitator, coach, transformationalist, and strategist.

David recently embarked on a transformative journey, making a leap from a familiar contact centre workforce planning role to the burgeoning realms of agile delivery and workforce mobility. Eager to impart his insights in his characteristic sharing style, David aims to unravel the secrets of his success and share the valuable lessons learned. Join him on this adventure, and perhaps his experiences will ignite a spark in the trajectory of your own career.

Fran Southward – Chief Executive Officer, Australian Contact Centre Association, Auscontact

Leading the industry body for Contact Centres in Australia, Fran is responsible for driving the industry through best practice applications, capability growth and development, and advocating for Members within the industry. A strategic leader, Fran is focused on driving innovation in the sector, optimising service delivery, and challenging organisations to leverage the strategic value of the contact centre.

Prior to leading the Australian Contact Centre Association, Fran held senior executive roles within the Australian Public sector, including leading large scale service delivery functions including workforce management, contact centre and service delivery design, client experience strategy, designing whole of government outsource model, digital strategy design, policy regulation and strategic talent acquisition.

Fran has a degree in Economics (BEc), an Executive master’s in public administration (EMPA), and a masters in Human Resource and Employment Relations (MHRMEmpRel).

James Witcombe – Director, SMAART Recruitment

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.

Jamie Powderly – WFO Consultant Team Leader, Call Design

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.

Julie-Anne Hazlett – Head of WFO Strategy, Call Design

Julie-Anne, also known as “J.A,” is a dynamic force in the world of Workforce Optimisation, and a passionate advocate for gender equality in sports. With a wealth of international experience working with contact centres around the world, Julie-Anne is an esteemed specialist in the implementation of Workforce Optimisation best practices.

Over the years, Julie-Anne has been a driving force in training and educating countless professionals and organisations on the importance of Workforce Management and Employee Engagement. Her commitment to ensuring customers get the most from their investments is a testament to her unwavering commitment to excellence.

Beyond her professional achievements, Julie-Anne is an avid sports enthusiast, particularly in the world of cycling, and has undertaken some extraordinary challenges.

Justin Tippett – Chief Executive Officer, Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA)

Justin Tippett is a contact centre and customer experience (CX) professional with 30 years of experience working across a range of senior roles in both the private and public sectors.

He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA).

Matt McConnell – Chief Executive Officer, Intradiem

Title: The Human Side of AI and Automation

Presenting:  The Human Side of AI and Automation

Contact centre agents are responsible for delivering great brand experiences, and AI-driven solutions are set to streamline routine tasks, unlocking a new level of self-service efficiency.  However, human agents will face more emotionally charged and complex interactions, leading to increased stress, burnout, and high attrition rates that already plague the industry. The potential impact on your brand and the customer experience is at stake.

Join Matt McConnell, CEO of Intradiem, to explore the pivotal role of automation in shaping the future of contact centres, specifically how to support agents and predict and prevent attrition.

• Learn how automation can help prioritise agent development and provide customers with exceptional service.
• Understand how AI can proactively identify signs of burnout and attrition risk, providing team leaders with invaluable insights to support their teams.
• Explore why it is time to redefine the role of agents in the era of AI, focusing on the critical importance of agent well-being and engagement.

Matt is Chairman and CEO of Intradiem. He founded the company in 1995 with a vision of reinventing customer service through automation and artificial intelligence. Today, Intradiem is the leading provider of Intelligent Automation solutions for customer service teams. Matt graduated from The Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Mitchell Kesby – Senior Manager of Workforce Planning,  Auto and General

Mitchell is a dedicated and accomplished professional currently serving as the Senior Manager of Workforce Planning at Auto and General, a leading company in the insurance industry. With a passion for optimising workforce operations, Mitchell has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s future through strategic planning and innovative technology implementation. His career at Auto and General has been marked by significant achievements and contributions, with one of his most notable accomplishments being the successful rollout of the Intradiem platform within the company. This initiative not only streamlined operations but also significantly enhanced employee productivity and overall customer satisfaction.

Nimesh Dhanak – CEO, Call Design

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.

Robert Hall – Workforce Optimisation Consultant, Call Design

Session: Alvaria v23

Are you curious to know what’s new in Alvaria version 23? Wondering what enhancements will help you most? Robert, our newest addition to the Call Design Consulting team, will be unveiling the cutting-edge enhancements in Alvaria version 23, highlighting what’s new, what’s changed, and what has improved in this latest version of the software.

Robert is a seasoned Workforce Optimisation Consultant and the latest addition to the dynamic Call Design Team. With an impressive 14-year tenure within the Alvaria ecosystem, Robert boasts an extensive track record of overseeing workforce optimisation operations across a spectrum of contact centres, ranging from 50 FTE to 1600 FTE. His expertise extends across inbound, outbound, multi-channel, and back-office processing teams, with a primary focus on the intricate dynamics of the banking and insurance sectors.

Throughout his illustrious career, Robert has been a witness to numerous contact centre milestones. From inaugurating entirely new centres to the disbanding of existing ones, navigating changes in operating hours and structural overhauls, as well as overseeing the outsourcing and transitions between companies, he has amassed invaluable experience. Robert’s extensive knowledge of workforce optimisation practices has consistently proven instrumental in guiding his stakeholders and organisations toward achieving success.

Robert is passionate about nurturing the next generation of workforce optimisation professionals to achieve success through building strong stakeholder relationships and understanding workforce optimisation principles.

In his spare time, you’ll often find Robert treading the boards on stages around Sydney as an active member of multiple community theatre groups.   Perhaps we can convince him to perform for us at WOW

Sarah Duval – Manager Resource Planning, RACQ

Sarah Duval is a dedicated professional with a passion for optimising resource planning and workforce management. As the Manager of Resource Planning at RACQ, she holds a pivotal role in supporting the various operational centres of the organisation.

With a wealth of experience in the field, Sarah has become an expert in developing and fine-tuning staffing forecast models. Her expertise extends to delivering comprehensive workforce reporting and providing strategic insights across all areas of RACQ, including the Contact Centre, Insurance Claims, Retail and the Roadside Patrol Network.

Sarah leads a committed team that works tirelessly to ensure the seamless and efficient operation of RACQ. Their efforts are instrumental in delivering effective services to RACQ’s valued customers and members.

Topic: Self Service Workforce Reporting: Empowering your leaders to effectively support their team’s success.

In today’s fast-paced and data-driven business landscape, Contact Centre Managers are under increasing pressure to make informed decisions quickly. The demand for real-time data has never been higher, and the ability to access this data is crucial for optimising performance and customer service. In this presentation, Sarah will showcase some of the cutting-edge tools and solutions that the Data and Insights Department at RACQ which Sarah belongs to has produced. These reports leverage insights from the wider business environment and operational workforce solutions empowering leaders to excel at supporting their team’s success.

Shadey Sidawi – Workforce Analyst, Nationwide Towing

Shadey Sidawi is the Workforce Analyst for Nationwide Towing in Victoria, spearheading workforce management initiatives for the company’s nationwide services. Shadey has been instrumental in transforming the company’s contact centre operations by rolling out workforce management across the organisation since he started there a year ago.

Upon joining Nationwide Towing, Shadey identified the absence of workforce planning structure and processes. Previously, all processes, from rostering to payroll, were handled manually. Recognising the need for innovation, Shadey was brought in to revolutionise the company’s approach to workforce planning.

Having spent the last 6 years in the field, Shadey’s journey began at RACV, Victoria’s equivalent to NRMA, followed by Australian Motoring Services, where they managed roadside assistance for dealership programs across Australia. Now, as a key player at Nationwide Towing, Shadey continues to learn and adapt, as each company brings a whole new dimension to workforce management requirements.

Although there is still work to be done, the impact of Shadey’s efforts has already marked a significant shift in Nationwide Towing’s operations. With a keen eye on the future, Shadey envisions further expansion into other areas of the business, making a huge impact on how things are done.

Simon Clements – Customer Success Consultant, Call Design

Session: There’s a reason the windscreen is larger than the rear vision mirror.

Simon has extensive experience managing Real Time Planning teams in high-pressure, high-complexity environments. During this session, Simon will share his key insights and strategies for achieving optimal real-time results. This includes essential ACD statistics, identifying the most valuable contributors to Alvaria Workforce and exploring the future of Real Time Management.

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.