Workforce Planning Lead Customer Services

Summary

At M&S, exceptional customer service starts with having the right people in the right place at the right time.

As Workforce Planning Lead, you will lead our Forecasting, Scheduling and Real Time teams to deliver effective workforce planning across our in-house and outsourced Customer Services operations. Working closely with key stakeholders and third-party partners, you will ensure accurate forecasting, resource optimisation and service delivery performance, whilst maintaining robust operational plans that support both customer experience and business objectives.

To stay close to our customers and colleagues, our support teams are in the office for at least three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected.

• Lead demand forecasting, capacity planning and resource management across in-house and outsourced contact centre operations, producing accurate forecasts aligned to agreed service levels and commercial arrangements.
• Create, maintain and continuously improve workforce plans, including recruitment, training and long-term capacity plans, whilst analysing forecast performance and leading in-year reforecasting activity where required.
• Oversee workforce management and scheduling processes, ensuring resources are planned effectively, schedules are optimised and adherence, shrinkage and operational performance are continuously monitored.
• Lead real-time service delivery, monitoring intra-day performance, making resource adjustments as required, measuring productivity and service levels, and providing data-driven insight to support performance management.
• Manage operational activity planning and business continuity, ensuring all activity impacting Customer Services is effectively sequenced, communicated and executed whilst maintaining excellent service delivery for customers.

• A highly analytical leader who can challenge data, assumptions and calculations to drive accurate forecasting and effective decision making.
• A proactive and organised planner who can balance short-term operational demands with long-term workforce and capacity strategies.
• An influential stakeholder manager, capable of working collaboratively across Customer Services, wider business functions and third-party partners.
• A confident communicator who can translate complex operational data into clear insight, recommendations and service delivery communications.
• A continuous improvement champion who is passionate about enhancing workforce planning processes, operational efficiency and customer outcomes.

• Proven experience leading workforce planning, forecasting, scheduling or workforce management functions within a customer service or contact centre environment.
• Strong experience producing and validating forecasts, capacity plans and resource models, with the ability to analyse forecast versus actual performance and identify improvement opportunities.
• Expertise in workforce management principles, including forecasting, scheduling, resource planning, shrinkage management and service level performance.
• Experience managing real-time operational performance, analysing productivity metrics such as AHT and contacts per hour, and making informed adjustments to optimise service delivery.
• Excellent analytical, organisational and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to govern planning processes, manage operational activity plans and maintain robust business continuity arrangements.

Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We're an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special

• 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with…