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Designing an Optimal Target Operating Model — Workforce Planning, Rostering & Scheduling. How to Drive Productivity in Financial Services
There are few moments more frustrating for an executive than watching a frontline team drown in peaks while chips sit idle in other parts of the operation. In financial services this tension is everywhere: customer contact spikes when product campaigns land, mortgage processing queues when the market turns, and back-office teams scramble at month-end and EOFY. Organisations either over-staff to be safe (and accept lower productivity), or under-staff and risk poor customer outcomes and compliance slips.
Getting workforce planning, rostering and scheduling right is not a tactical fix — it’s a core element of your Target Operating Model (TOM). Done well, it reduces cost per transaction, improves service levels and lowers operational risk. Done poorly, it creates churn, fatigue and regulatory exposure.
This article walks leaders in Australian and New Zealand financial services through a practical approach to designing an optimal TOM that balances control, flexibility and productivity. We’ll cover the strategic thinking, the nuts and bolts of demand and capacity, rostering principles, technology choices, governance, and the change programmes that make it stick. And we’ll explain how Trace Consultants partners with finance and operations teams to design and deliver these outcomes.
Why workforce design is strategic in financial services
Financial services organisations face a distinct set of challenges that make workforce design strategic, not merely operational:
- Regulatory & compliance obligations. Licensing, responsible-lending checks, KYC/AML, privacy and audit trails require trained people and robust processes. Errors are costly.
- Peaks and seasonality. Product launches, rate changes, tax season, and regulatory deadlines create predictable and unpredictable demand surges.
- Omnichannel customer journeys. Customers move fluidly between phone, chat, email and branch — staffing must reflect that complexity.
- Complex skill requirements. From front-line servicing and advice to complex settlement or claims processing, tasks require varying skill levels and accreditation.
- Remote and hybrid working. Flexibility has changed expectations. Rosters must support remote work while ensuring coverage and security.
- Cost and productivity pressure. Operating margins are under pressure; workforce costs are a dominant controllable item.
A TOM that embeds workforce planning as a strategic capability helps organisations meet regulatory obligations, deliver consistent customer experiences and do so at a lower total cost of ownership.
What a Target Operating Model for workforce looks like
A Target Operating Model for workforce planning, rostering and scheduling defines the people, processes, technology and governance needed to run the operation. Key components:
- Organisational design & roles: Clear role definitions, career paths and skill frameworks.
- Demand management: Forecasting models that translate business activity to staffing requirements.
- Capacity planning & supply: FTE model, contract workforce, cross-skilling and pool arrangements.
- Rostering & scheduling: Shift patterns, skill mixes, leave management, and intraday adjustments.
- Technology stack: Forecasting engines, WFM (workforce management) systems, intraday tools and integrations to HR/Payroll and CRM.
- Governance & KPIs: Clear performance measures, review cadence and escalation paths.
- Change & people strategy: Communication, training and cultural levers to embed new ways of working.
Designing a TOM means making choices across these elements that match strategic priorities: risk appetite, service ambitions, cost targets and employee experience.
Three planning horizons — strategic, tactical and operational
Good workforce planning operates on three horizons. Each requires distinct inputs and decisions.
- Strategic (12–36 months):
Focus: capability, headcount profile, operating model, long-term tech investment.
Decisions: insource vs outsource, centres of excellence, investment in automation, strategic use of contingent labour. - Tactical (3–12 months):
Focus: recruitment plan, training calendar, roster design changes, forecasting improvements.
Decisions: hiring plans for seasonal peaks, cross-training initiatives, pilot new roster models. - Operational (daily/weekly):
Focus: daily schedules, intraday adherence, real-time reallocation, leave cover and overtime.
Decisions: shift swaps, surge plans, intraday redeployment.
The TOM needs to connect decisions across these horizons. A strategic decision to centralise processing should feed tactical hiring plans and daily rostering rules.
Demand forecasting — the root of good capacity planning
A roster is only as good as the demand forecasts that feed it. Forecasting in financial services must combine statistical models with business insight.
Key considerations for forecasting:
- Granularity: Forecast at the right level — by channel (phone, chat, email), by skill group (advisers, processors), by interval (15/30/60 minutes) and by location (site/region/remote pool).
- Drivers: Identify demand drivers — marketing campaigns, product changes, settlement cycles, regulatory deadlines, external events (rate cuts). Tag historical data with these drivers for model training.
- Seasonality & trends: Include weekly, monthly and annual seasonality. EOFY and end-of-month effects are common.
- Event overlays: Incorporate planned events (product launches) and scenarios for unplanned events (market volatility).
- Shrinkage & non-productive time: Model training, breaks, meetings, coaching and admin time. This “shrinkage” can be a large portion of paid time.
- Forecast blending: Combine statistical forecasts with managerial adjustments. Human insight is often necessary for one-off events.
Output: a demand profile that translates into required staffing minutes by interval and by skill.
Capacity modelling and skill segmentation
Once you understand demand, you must translate it into capacity.
Activity-based capacity modelling:
- Task times & complexity: Define average handling times for typical tasks and variance. For advice or complaints, use longer, variance-aware estimates.
- Skill tiers: Segment roles into tiers (e.g. junior, senior, specialist). Each tier has different processing capability and escalation rules.
- Occupancy targets: Decide acceptable occupancy (the % of time agents are active). Too high = burnout; too low = wasted resource.
- Multi-skilling: Map skills across roles. Multi-skilled agents reduce queues and improve flexibility, but require investment in training.
- Contingency & reserve: Model contingency pools for sick leave, spikes and unplanned absences.
Capacity models should output required FTEs by role and timeframe, with clear assumptions documented for productivity, occupancy and shrinkage.
Rostering & scheduling design principles
Rostering shifts from an administrative chore to a productivity lever when designed well. Key principles:
- Match supply to demand: Rosters should align staffing minutes to the forecast demand curve to avoid over- and under-staffing.
- Skill mix alignment: Ensure the right number of each skill tier is rostered per interval (e.g. at least one senior for escalations).
- Fairness and predictability: Rosters that respect employee preferences and entitlements improve retention and morale.
- Minimise fragmentation: Excessively fragmented shifts increase handovers and reduce productivity.
- Fatigue & wellbeing: Build fatigue rules — minimum rest, maximum consecutive shifts and consideration of commute times.
- Flexibility built in: Design flexible blocks, split shifts or part-time blends to cater for hybrid work and peak coverage.
- Cover for leave and training: Plan for routine and unexpected leave within roster templates.
Roster types common in financial services:
- Fixed template rosters: Predictable, easy to manage; suit transactional processing teams.
- Flexible block rosters: Employees work blocks that can be scheduled into demand peaks; balance flexibility with predictability.
- Split-shift rosters: Cover peaks mid-day and evening; useful for contact centres.
- On-call pools: For specialised skills or urgent remediation.
- Hybrid/remote rosters: Combine in-office presence for coaching and remote work for deep tasks.
Rostering must also be legally defensible — compliant with enterprise agreements, awards, and local employment practices in Australia and New Zealand.
Scheduling optimisation and intraday management
Scheduling optimisation uses algorithms to convert capacity plans into rostered shifts that meet constraints and preferences. Modern optimisers consider:
- Skill requirements per interval
- Minimum and maximum shift length
- Break patterns
- Employee availability and preferences
- Labour cost differences (penalty rates)
- Continuity and handover rules
Once the day begins, intraday management keeps performance on track:
- Adherence tools: Track scheduled vs actual, with alarms and dashboards.
- Real-time reallocation: Move staff between channels to close service gaps.
- Short-term hiring/contingent access: Quick access to casual pools or overtime for spikes.
- Supervisor dashboards: Prioritise activities: callbacks, triage, or reassignments.
Intraday capability is critical in financial services where a small surge can produce regulatory breaches or missed SLA windows.
Technology that enables modern workforce management
Technology is an enabler — but you must choose the right tools and integrate them well.
Essential WFM capabilities:
- Forecasting engine: Statistical models with scenario overlays and driver tagging.
- Schedule optimisation: Constrained optimisers that generate legally compliant rosters.
- Intraday management: Real-time dashboards, adherence, and shift swap approvals.
- Employee self-service: Shift bidding, swap, availability and leave requests.
- Skill management: Skill matrices, accreditations and training expiry tracking.
- Integration: Links to CRM, telephony, HRIS, payroll and BI tools.
- Analytics & reporting: Drillable dashboards for performance, productivity and costs.
Emerging tech to consider:
- AI forecasting: Better handling of short-term variability and event impact.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Automate repetitive admin tasks to free up staff.
- Micro-scheduling & gig-style platforms: For highly flexible pools, though governance is required.
- Mobile apps: For shift notifications, verification and communications.
When selecting technology, focus on practicability: the system must fit your data maturity, integration capabilities and people capability to operate it.
Compliance, skills and training
In financial services, compliance is non-negotiable. The TOM must embed capability and controls:
- Accreditation tracking: Ensure staff only perform tasks for which they are accredited; track CPD and re-certification.
- Audit trails: Rostering and scheduling systems should maintain auditable logs for who did what and when.
- Quality frameworks: Link coaching, calibration and quality assurance into the rostered time (e.g. coaching windows).
- Training capacity: Account for learning time in capacity models and schedule training during low-demand windows.
- Security & privacy: Rosters should consider clearance levels and data-security requirements for remote staff.
Building capability is a continuous investment — catalogue skills, map career pathways and plan for capability ramp-up during recruitment.
People, culture and change management
The best-designed TOM will fail without a people program that addresses engagement and ownership.
Practical change levers:
- Stakeholder engagement: Involve HR, unions (if relevant), team leaders and staff early.
- Transparent rules & fairness: Publish roster principles and how preferences are treated.
- Pilot & iterate: Run pilots in a single team or site, gather data and refine before scaling.
- Training for leaders: Supervisors need coaching in intraday decision-making and using dashboards.
- Employee self-service: Empower staff with tools to manage availability and swaps; autonomy improves satisfaction.
- Wellbeing measures: Monitor overtime, leave balances and fatigue indicators.
Change is a process of building trust — clear communication, visible benefits and making it easier for managers and staff will win support.
Measuring productivity and performance
Productivity in workforce terms is more than headcount. Useful metrics include:
- Cost per transaction / per claim / per mortgage file processed.
- Output per labour hour (transactions or value-weighted tasks).
- Occupancy and utilisation rates.
- First contact resolution and average handling time (by channel & task).
- Schedule adherence and intraday variance.
- Quality & compliance scores.
- Employee engagement and attrition.
- FTE per workload (e.g. FTE per $m of AUM serviced).
Design a balanced scorecard that combines efficiency, quality, employee experience and risk. Importantly, show the link between workforce metrics and financial outcomes: productivity improvements should translate into lower cost per unit and improved margins.
Implementation roadmap — from design to steady state
A pragmatic implementation roadmap reduces execution risk.
- Diagnostic (4–8 weeks): Current state mapping — activities, costs, systems and pain points.
- Target design (6–12 weeks): Define TOM principles, role design, forecast methods, roster templates and tech roadmap.
- Build & pilot (8–16 weeks): Configure tools, create training materials, pilot roster models in one or two teams.
- Scale & integrate (12–24 weeks): Roll out across the organisation, integrate systems and institutionalise governance.
- Optimise & sustain (ongoing): Continuous improvement cycles with periodic benchmarking.
Critical success factors: executive sponsorship, cross-functional governance, a realistic pilot that tests the hardest constraints, and a people plan that addresses change fatigue.
How Trace Consultants can help
Designing and delivering a Target Operating Model for financial services teams requires deep experience across finance, operations and technology. Trace Consultants supports organisations across the end-to-end journey:
- Diagnostics and current-state mapping: We analyse activity flows, time studies, cost baselines and performance to create a single source of truth for decisions.
- Demand and capacity modelling: Using activity-based models, we build transparent forecast and capacity models that capture shrinkage, training and contingency.
- Roster design and optimisation: We design rosters that align supply to demand while balancing fairness, compliance and cost. Our approach focuses on practical roster templates that supervisors can manage.
- Technology selection & configuration: Trace evaluates WFM and optimisation tools, helps procure the right fit for your data maturity, and configures systems to your constraints and rules. We’ve delivered workforce tools using Smart Excel and Microsoft Power Platforms for clients across services sectors to accelerate forecasting and rostering capability.
- Intraday & workforce operating model: We implement intraday processes, dashboards and shift escalation playbooks so your supervisors can keep the day on track.
- Change management & people strategy: We design communication plans, train leaders and embed employee self-service to secure adoption and reduce churn.
- KPI design & governance: We craft balanced scorecards and governance cadences that tie workforce performance to financial outcomes.
- Continuous improvement: After go-live, we run optimisation cycles, benchmarking and productivity programs to sustain benefits.
Trace’s approach is pragmatic: we focus on outcomes that are measurable, defensible and operationally sustainable. We don’t sell technology for its own sake — we recommend tools only where they solve a real problem and can be operated by your team.
Quick checklist — 12 pragmatic steps you can start today
- Map your work. Capture the activities, frequencies and skill requirements for every team.
- Get the data right. Pull historical demand by channel and interval and tag events that drive variation.
- Model shrinkage. Don’t forget training, meetings and admin — it changes required FTE materially.
- Segment skills. Define tiers and required accreditations for routing and escalations.
- Pilot roster templates. Test one team before rolling out across the business.
- Set occupancy targets. Pick sustainable targets and test sensitivity for service risk.
- Invest in intraday. Start with simple adherence dashboards and work towards automated intraday suggestions.
- Enable self-service. Give staff visibility of shifts and easy swap mechanisms.
- Audit compliance. Ensure your roster rules meet EA/award and licensing obligations.
- Link to finance. Translate productivity gains into cost per transaction and FTE reductions.
- Train supervisors. They are the linchpin of intraday performance.
- Plan for continuous improvement. Build fortnightly or monthly optimisation sprints.
Financial services organisations that treat workforce planning, rostering and scheduling as strategic elements of their Target Operating Model unlock three things: predictable customer experience, lower cost per unit of work, and reduced operational risk. The challenge is less about discovering new ideas than about doing the hard work of modelling, piloting and embedding new ways of working.
If you’re responsible for customer service, operations or finance in a bank, insurer or wealth manager, now is the time to move workforce capability from the “we’ll worry about it later” box to a formal TOM initiative. With the right design, technology and people plan, workforce optimisation becomes a sustainable source of productivity and a competitive advantage.
Trace Consultants works with Australian and New Zealand financial services leaders to design and implement TOMs that deliver measurable outcomes — from rigorous costing and forecasting through to roster optimisation, intraday controls and change management. If you’d like to explore how your TOM could be redesigned to deliver better service at lower cost, Trace Consultants can help map the path forward.
Want to understand where the biggest productivity gains live in your operation? Start with a short diagnostic: map one function, forecast demand for two weeks and model three roster alternatives. The numbers will tell the story.
