What are the key workforce management trends we can expect to see in 2026? In recent years, we’ve had to incorporate remote and hybrid working into the planning process. We’ve needed to integrate with cloud communication platforms. We’ve had to learn how to plan for omnichannel customer support. And of course, artificial intelligence (AI) has been all over the news for the last 2 years. It promises to boost agent productivity and reduce average handling time (AHT). It has the potential to replace human agents with automation. And workforce management (WFM) software vendors claim to be harnessing AI to improve planning performance and save planning effort. What’s coming next, now that the impact of AI is becoming clearer?
Peopleware’s WFM experts speak to leading contact center and planning professionals every single day. They are uniquely placed to form a clear picture of the workforce management trends that will emerge in 2026 and beyond. We’ve distilled that intelligence into a concise, actionable eBook that explains the trends we confidently expect to see play out, and what each of them means for the planning team. It’s a must-read for contact center leaders, customer service managers, and workforce management professionals.
The trends we predict include:
The remainder of this post summarizes the trends.
In 2026, many contact centers will move beyond experimenting with AI. Sometime soon, business leaders will expect clear evidence that chatbots, agent assistance tools, and even AI-powered WFM are improving the customer experience, increasing agent productivity, and reducing costs. Of course, there won’t be a single date when every contact center AI project is suddenly deemed to be a success or a failure. But those people who championed the adoption of AI in their contact centers must be ready to measure and report on the return on investment (ROI) that AI has delivered. The conversation will shift from innovation to accountability.
The eBook explores how contact centers and planning teams need to prepare for this workforce management trend. For example, planning teams must be ready to explain why forecasting variances still exist. If more customer queries spilled over from AI to human agents than expected, leadership will want to know why. As always, solid data will be key.
Automating simpler, lower-value customer inquiries means that the number of human agents needed to handle a given workload can be reduced. That translates into lower operating costs, and that’s how contact center AI pays for itself. But robots will never be able to handle 100% of customer queries. Humans will always be needed to focus on tasks that require empathy, creativity, rapport-building, and nuanced decision-making. Soft skills will always be needed. And the day when no customers demand to simply ‘speak to a human’ is surely far in the future. One challenge is to identify which contacts should be entrusted to AI and which will remain the domain of human agents. This obviously has implications for the workforce management process.
In the eBook, we identify the characteristics of queries that are likely to always need the human touch. We also explore the consequent workforce management trends that the planning team will need to prepare for.
The news is full of stories about organizations that have adopted AI and reduced headcount or stopped recruiting as a consequence. Klarna and Salesforce are examples. The agent headcount may gradually reduce, but those agents who remain will need to be skilled in empathy, judgment, and advanced problem-solving, rather than transactional tasks. And they will also be expecting higher salaries. Recruiting and retaining these ‘super agents’ will be a challenge. Contact centers will need to pay even more attention to employee experience (EX) than they did in the past. And they will need to up their game when it comes to training & development.
The eBook explores the indicators of employee satisfaction that are appropriate in this new environment. It covers the changing nature of agent training and development. And it explains the role of WFM in improving agent engagement, empowerment, and development.
As AI takes care of more and more customer inquiries, the volume that needs to be handled by human agents will inevitably fall. Let’s call this workforce management trend the Big Quiet. It’s going to make the task of forecasting more difficult. Experienced planners already know that it’s easier to forecast accurately for high volumes than for low volumes. Forecasting average handling time (AHT) will also be more difficult. Once the simple, predictable contacts have been removed, those that remain will tend to have longer and more volatile AHT. On the other hand, the rise of AI-based agent assistance tools may lead to shorter AHT. And we may need to rethink occupancy goals.
The eBook explores these topics and the new challenges that planners - and WFM software vendors - must rise to. It also reveals how human input will continue to be vital in forecasting, and how the long-range capacity planning process will need to evolve.
‘Super agents’ will reasonably expect ‘super salaries’. The cost of hiring, onboarding, and training will also rise. Workforce management is all about optimizing the organization’s most valuable resource: the employees. In the new world of highly-skilled, highly-paid agents, WFM will be even more important than ever.
As well as rising to the challenges of forecasting a different pattern of contacts, it will be necessary to get the most from a multi-skilled workforce. Skills-based routing and multi-skill scheduling will no longer be a minority-interest topic. Avoiding a shortage of specialist skills will be vital in every contact center. Of course, the concepts of skills-based routing and multi-skill scheduling are nothing new. But there are good and bad ways to approach multi-skill scheduling, and the eBook lists some of the things to watch out for.
In its most basic form, business process outsourcing (BPO) is about selling the services of a given number of full-time equivalent (FTE) workers at a given hourly rate to handle a given contact volume with a given AHT. AI has disrupted that business model. Now, the simpler, higher-volume interactions are taken care of automatically. The remaining work is lower in volume but higher in complexity. Clients expect the productivity gains of AI to mean lower BPO service charges. In reality, the reverse is true: AHT is longer than it used to be, and BPO agents need to be more highly-skilled and expensive.
In the eBook, we explore how leading BPOs are adapting to this new environment by offering their clients options like outcome-based pricing and value-added services. And by placing greater demands on their WFM software partners.
The role of the planner is to consistently deliver against customer service goals while optimizing efficiency and ensuring an appropriate experience for their front-line colleagues. Successful planners have always been good with numbers, technically savvy, and good collaborators. Their personality is analytical yet empathic, and resilient yet persuasive. Read more about These characteristics will continue to be essential. Nevertheless, AI is increasingly automating many of the numeric aspects of WFM. Consequently, a key workforce management trend is that the planner’s role will need to evolve. In the past, contact center workforce planning was mainly about calculation. From 2026, it will be mainly about interpretation.
The eBook elaborates on how the planner’s role will change. From understanding business intent to ethical and cultural judgment, we highlight the areas where human planners will always be indispensable, even when much of the calculation involved in WFM is automated.
Find out what these trends mean for your team and how you can prepare your contact center for the year ahead.