Workforce optimisation and workforce optimization are the same category with different spellings, and the category is a bundle: forecasting, requirement, scheduling, adherence, and quality and performance management on top. This page covers what is in it, which parts a smaller operation genuinely needs, and the arithmetic underneath the part everyone argues about.
The bundle, briefly
Five capabilities sold as one product: turning history into a forecast, a forecast into a requirement, a requirement into shifts, shifts into an adherence measure, and interactions into quality scores. A large operation uses all five. A smaller one uses the first three and pays for five.
The part everyone argues about
The requirement, because it is the number that costs money. Workload is arithmetic, but occupancy is a policy choice and shrinkage is a measurement, and disagreement about either produces two defensible answers that differ by a fifth. That is why the arithmetic should be visible rather than inside a product.
Doing it in the open
Contacts times handle time over the interval gives the raw agents; dividing by occupancy and then by one minus shrinkage gives the roster. The free worksheet on this site does exactly that and shows the intermediate figures, so a disagreement lands on the input it is really about.
What to buy separately if you can
Scheduling, if rostering is slow. A plan record, if the requirement is argued. Those two cover most of the value for most operations under a few hundred seats, and neither requires the analytics half.
Questions people ask about workforce optimisation
Is the spelling meaningful?
No. Optimisation is the British spelling and both refer to the same category.
Where does quality monitoring fit?
Alongside rather than inside. Many telephony platforms already record and score, which is worth checking before paying twice.
What does Orgplanly cover?
Requirement and the plan record, and it says plainly that it does not schedule or monitor.