10 workforce optimization software for 2025

Workforce optimization (WFO) is a crucial aspect of successful businesses. This concept combines workforce management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) concepts to help boost agent performance, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the customer experience (CX).

According to the Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report 2023, 76 percent of organizations believe that QA helps to improve customer satisfaction (CSAT). So, if you want to enhance your operations and delight your customers, you need to embrace WFO—and that starts by partnering with the right workforce optimization software.

In this guide, we cover WFO in detail and highlight 10 options to help you find the right solution.

More in this guide:

• What is workforce optimization software?
• The 10 best workforce optimization software
• Features of workforce optimization solutions
• Frequently asked questions
• Ready to try customer service WFM and QA software?

Workforce optimization software, a key component of the broader workforce engagement strategy, equips businesses with the tools needed to enhance team efficiency and minimize customer churn. This technology integrates workforce management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) principles, enabling organizations to analyze performance data, provide targeted coaching, and achieve optimal performance.

Workforce optimization software can help workforce managers succeed in both major components of WFO.

WFM manages resources, optimizes staffing levels to tell you how many employees you need and where you need them, and gives you visibility into team attendance and activity. Workforce optimization software should have WFM features related to forecasting, scheduling, and activity monitoring.

QA is the other side of the WFO coin and focuses on evaluating customer service interactions, customer feedback, and what shapes support quality. Workforce optimization software should have QA features related to scoring, employee evaluation, and actionable feedback.

Next, we’ll cover some of the best workforce management software and QA tools on the market. Below, you’ll find a comprehensive overview of product features, functionality, pricing, and more.

1. Zendesk

Best for customer service WFM and QA

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing WFM, QA, and customer service best practices—and Zendesk is a leader in that transformation. Zendesk offers AI-powered WEM solutions for customer experience teams, which allows them to natively integrate customer insights, performance data, and WFM metrics to achieve a holistic understanding of their operations and boost productivity.

Our WFM capabilities empower you to automate your operations and optimize your workforce. Use predictive AI-powered forecasting to generate accurate staffing forecasts in minutes and automatic agent scheduling to develop employee shifts around task-specific work and breaks. These capabilities combine to create comprehensive schedules that automatically tell you how many agents you need and where they need to be. From there, utilize real-time tracking and reporting to gain insight into schedule adherence and performance numbers.

Our QA capabilities help you automate your quality assurance and cut the cost of your CX operations. Auto QA allows you to evaluate 100 percent of your agents’ conversations—giving you insight into every interaction across agents, channels, languages, and business processing outsourcers (BPOs). Coaching and learning functions empower you to use that data to identify top and low-performers, identify knowledge gaps, and facilitate training goals.

To top it off, Zendesk is built to be scalable, easy to use, and features a fast time to value and low total cost of ownership. Combining our core promises, advanced AI, and WFO capabilities will help you find the perfect solution to revolutionize your operations.

Pricing: $25 per agent/month; a 14-day free trial is available upon request.

Explore more Zendesk pricing plans.

Contact Zendesk sales for a free trial or demo.

2. Paylocity

Best for benefits administration

Paylocity is an HR and payroll platform that helps users build and manage their workforce. The product has various features, including payroll software, benefits administration, HR software, time and attendance, talent management, and employee experience.

With Palyocity’s talent management, organizations can interact with employees as early as the recruiting stage. HR managers can text candidates to schedule interview times and establish ongoing communication. After hiring, businesses can keep track of employee progression through talent assessment templates, and built-in training modules and collaboration tools can help identify growth and development opportunities.

Businesses can also use the time and attendance features to reduce administrative tasks surrounding scheduling and management. The platform’s interface allows employees to view their schedules, request PTO, and communicate with others to swap shifts. Supervisors can also use the features to ensure workers are clocked in and working their scheduled shifts.

Pricing: Contact Paylocity.

3. Bamboo HR

Best for HR

Bamboo HR helps users manage their workforce at various stages of the employee lifecycle. It primarily focuses on payroll, hiring, data and reporting, and the employee experience.

Users can use the onboarding features to assist the hiring process. Applicant tracking helps businesses organize top candidates, while custom permissions allow relevant internal stakeholders to weigh in on resumes and suggest interviews.

With Bamboo’s HR data and reporting capabilities, organizations can monitor their team members’ performance data and other relevant information. Employees can clock in and out, ensure their logged time is correct, and schedule PTO. Managers can review that information with time and attendance dashboards, double-check information, and analyze team performance.

Pricing: Contact Bamboo HR.

4. Calabrio

Best for WFM only

Calabrio helps businesses with workforce management. The software has capabilities related to forecasting and scheduling, automating workflows, employee retention, and building staffing models to predict and prepare for increases in call volume.

Managers can plan schedules through intelligent automation and monitor those schedules in real time. Calbrio’s real-time adherence and agent schedule manager features can help employees stick to their assigned schedules and potentially identify any unplanned increases in demand.

Data and analytics features give users a single view of important metrics. Businesses can identify and track relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) through customizable dashboards and reports.

Pricing: Contact Calabrio.

5. Rippling

Best for businesses in the finance industry

Rippling is a workforce management platform with three main branches. While the product also has IT and finance capabilities, its HR Cloud helps organizations manage their workforce.

The HR Cloud has features for multiple stages of the employee journey. Onboarding capabilities provide new hires with automated documents, transition automation aids in the promotion process, and automated offboarding procedures give employees the information they need as they leave.

Furthermore, Rippling allows managers to keep track of employee hours and other payroll information. Time and attendance features allow employees to track their own time, which managers can review. Performance management can assist with the review cycle by keeping track of employee progress, goals, and KPIs.

Pricing: Plans start at $8 per user/month.

6. Verint

Best for customer engagement

Verint is a workforce optimization software that uses AI and automation to assist customer engagement. Verint has several workforce management capabilities, such as forecasting, scheduling, and compliance.

The product’s forecasting features can help businesses anticipate demand, monitor employee efficiency, and allow workers to manage their schedules via PTO requests and shift swapping. Employees can access their schedules and other requested activities through their desktop or the mobile app MyVerint.

In addition to scheduling and forecasting, Verint WFM Enterprise has features related to the hiring process. Businesses can create hiring plans and use AI-powered bots to find candidates.

Pricing: Contact Verint.

7. Playvox

Best for contact centers

Playvox is a workforce optimization platform that is specially designed for call centers. Its features are primarily related to workforce management and quality assurance.

On the workforce management front, users can automate scheduling, track KPIs with custom reports, and allow employees to request PTO or swap shifts with their coworkers. Quality management features allow businesses to manage employee performance. Customer intent gives users insight into how customers feel across every interaction, and reporting can identify where employees are succeeding in customer interactions and point out areas of improvement.

Pricing: Contact Playvox; a 15-day free trial is available.

8. Five9

Best for gamification

Five9 offers workforce management, quality management, and other customer and employee engagement capabilities.

Businesses can use Five9’s workforce management to help align call volume with scheduled agents to assist with reducing customer wait times. Forecasting, scheduling, and intraday management capabilities help managers monitor employee activity and see if the team has enough resources to match customer demand.

Quality management capabilities like recording, evaluating, and coaching can assist employee development. Users can capture voice and screen recordings, review call transcripts, and send targeted coaching packets. Also, gamification features can help agents hit productivity and performance goals.

Pricing: Plans start at $175 per month.

9. monday.com

Best for project management

Workforce optimization software monday.com helps businesses manage their employees with a customizable interface. In addition to workforce management capabilities, the product also offers features for sales and dev teams.

Resource and portfolio management features can help businesses manage ongoing projects and allocate resources or employees to meet demand. From there, project management capabilities help managers oversee projects and workdays in real time, collect data, and collaborate with other departments.

Also, monday.com has customization capabilities, so businesses can build custom workstations. Starting with a board, users can customize their views, dashboards, automation features, integrations, and more to find what they need.

Pricing: Plans start at $0 per month with limited features and two seats.

10. Workday

Best for human capital management

Workday helps organizations with human capital management. Its workforce optimization capabilities include scheduling and labor optimization, time and attendance tracking, absence management, and extended workforce management.

Users can use AI-driven schedule generation, demand forecasting, and labor optimization to create schedules that align with their team. Time tracking features help ensure employees adhere to those schedules and give managers insight into real-time activities, operational costs, and compliance monitoring.

Additionally, employees can manage time off and PTO requests directly through the app or via Slack. From there, managers can update future schedules accordingly to ensure they have enough coverage.

Pricing: Contact Workday; a 30-day free trial is available.

Not every workforce optimization software is the same—different products specialize in different areas. That said, there are several features that you should look for when evaluating these solutions, like:

• Forecasting: Workforce forecasting features can leverage AI to help you predict staffing needs and avoid periods of under or overstaffing.
• Scheduling: Eliminate manual scheduling by enlisting automation to create the perfect employee schedule that factors in demand, breaks, and other task-specific work.
• Real-time tracking: Know how your employees spend their time in the moment and identify opportunities for improvement and streamlined workflows.
• Reporting and analytics: Examine your team's performance—and use that data to improve your workforce management metrics and other important figures.
• Automated QA: QA is key for customer service teams looking for a WFO tool. With it, you can utilize AI to automatically identify good and bad customer interactions—allowing you to evaluate every one of your agents’ conversations.
• Employee coaching: Analyze data to identify top and low performers on your team, as well as any common knowledge gaps and other training needs to coach and improve your employees.

You should look for these capabilities at a minimum when determining which WFO software is best for you. However, some options, like Zendesk, have all of these and more.