The labor demand curve is the intraday distribution of forecasted workload (e.g. labor demand) used to generate a schedule and measure scheduling effectiveness.
The more accurate the labor demand curve, the more precise the schedules that a WFM can generate will be. Depending on the type of task, there are generally three mechanisms for distributing workload within the day:
- Fixed (or absolute), a predetermined range of times (e.g. trailer unload always occurs from 4am to 9am)
- Variable according to the 15min/30min/60min distribution of a volume driver (e.g. customer traffic or transactions). Sometimes this can include an offset assumption, if the workload is triggered before or after the driver is systematically recorded (e.g. customer service labor is offset 15 mins before the transaction time)
- Independent (or off-peak) where workload is distributed across the times of day where fixed and variable workloads are at their lowest (e.g. performing recovery when customer traffic is low)
