Manager, Vendor & Workforce Management (Utility Contact Center)

Description

The position drives the balance between customer experience, reliability, and cost to serve—ensuring that customers are supported 365/24/7 across voice, chat, and digital channels.

This role is accountable for optimizing the performance of both internal and outsourced contact center operations serving gas and electric customers. This role ensures service delivery excellence through effective vendor governance, forecasting, staffing optimization, and operational analytics.

• Ensure vendors adhere to company policies, data privacy, and customer protection protocols.
• Support vendor onboarding, training readiness, and technology integration for new lines of business or storm response capacity.
• Partner with Procurement, IT, and Legal to manage vendor contracts, renewals, and performance incentives.
• Maintain and enhance workforce systems (e.g., NICE IEX, Verint, Aspect) to improve forecast accuracy and intraday efficiency.
• Lead forecasting, capacity planning, and staffing models across internal and vendor sites to meet service level, regulatory, and cost targets.
• Establish and manage performance scorecards with clear SLAs, KPIs, and compliance standards aligned with regulatory requirements and internal expectations (ASA, FCR, CSAT, Quality, Safety, and Cost per Contact).
• Collaborate with Operations, HR, and Finance to align headcount, shrinkage, and overtime budgets.
• Identify improvement opportunities in call routing, digital deflection, automation, and agent enablement.
• Monitor operational health indicators such as occupancy, utilization, and shrinkage to improve productivity and service reliability.
• Develop executive dashboards and insights to inform operational decisions and leadership storytelling.
• Drive Lean and continuous improvement principles across vendor and internal teams.
• Lead structured governance routines (weekly operational reviews, monthly business reviews, quarterly performance reviews).
• Oversee scheduling, real-time management, and adherence to ensure consistent coverage and performance.
• Serve as the primary relationship owner for all third-party vendor partners supporting the contact center.
• Use workforce data to anticipate demand impacts due to seasonality, rate cases, weather events, or system outages.
• Partner with Quality Assurance and Training teams to ensure workforce readiness and skill alignment with evolving customer needs.
• Provide visibility to daily, weekly, and monthly performance trends and take proactive steps to optimize staffing and service delivery.
• Perform root cause analysis on SLA misses or cost variances and lead resolution action plans.

Requirements

• Proven experience managing outsourced vendor relationships and workforce operations.
• Utility industry experience in electric, gas, or combination operations.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• Lean Six Sigma, PMP, or equivalent process improvement certification.
• Strong analytical and technical skills, including proficiency in Excel, Power BI/Tableau, and WFM platforms.
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills with ability to influence cross-functionally.
• Demonstrated success implementing governance frameworks and process standardization across multiple locations.
• This position requires travel to locations in the United States and occasionally to the head office in Canada. A valid passport is required for international travel.
• Strategic thinker with a hands-on approach to daily performance execution.
• Knowledge of regulatory reporting, call quality compliance, and customer satisfaction drivers.
• Understanding of contact center metrics and their impact on regulatory compliance, affordability, and reliability.
• 5+years of experience in a large-scale utility or regulated industry contact center environment.

Benefits

Collaborative environment with a genuine flexible working policy

Full insurance benefits (health/dental/vision/life)

Employee Assistance Program

Share purchase/match plan

Defined Contribution savings plan

Volunteer paid days off

401k with Company match

Achievement fund

Training + Development

Interview process

Visa Sponsorship

Security clearance