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An open and honest discussion about Juanita's life, career and trajectory with WFM and Contact Centers.
In this series we will discuss Contact Center industry trends and best practices, as well as sharing success stories and pain points with some of the most innovative professionals in the industry. Join us as we learn and grow together in order to provide world class customer service to each and every one of our clients.
00;00;03;19 - 00;00;21;17
Dave Hoekstra
Welcome to Working Smarter, presented by Calabrio, where we discuss context, center industry trends and best practices as well as sharing success stories or pain points with some of the most innovative professionals in the industry. We're glad you're joining us to learn and grow together in order to provide world class customer service to each and every one of our clients.
00;00;22;01 - 00;00;50;04
Dave Hoekstra
My name is Dave Hoekstra, product evangelist for Calabrio, and my guest today is one Iida Kohli. Now, Juanita goes by many different monikers, and if you've been on LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or any of the other millions of social networks that are out there, you've probably seen her listed as many things. She is officially the founder of Solid Rock Consulting, where she does her thing across the world, but she's also kind of in a fun way, known as the call center whisperer.
00;00;50;04 - 00;01;08;02
Dave Hoekstra
Or in my case, what I seem to be most interested in is she is known as that Wfm girl. Right? And so that is not a name that's going to that is not going to peak a lot of ears outside our industry. But men within it, we are super excited to have one or two here with us today.
00;01;08;02 - 00;01;09;21
Dave Hoekstra
Hi, Juanita. How are things going today?
00;01;10;21 - 00;01;15;01
Juanita Coley
I am living the dream. Dave, thanks so much for having me.
00;01;15;24 - 00;01;38;23
Dave Hoekstra
Oh, you know what? So let's talk right off the bat. What what is the dream for that WFM girl? Right when we you know, just a bit of background on both of us. We have very similar kind of histories to get started. And we both we've both worn the headset in the call center. We've we've both you know, we've we've we've ground our way to the top, right?
00;01;38;23 - 00;01;45;24
Dave Hoekstra
Let's all or whatever we consider the top to be. But for that WFM girl, what is living the dream actually mean?
00;01;46;19 - 00;02;06;17
Juanita Coley
You know, I'm glad you asked that question. Right. Great question. So many times people ask me all the time I've gotten this question a lot. Why, Nina, why are you so passionate about call center? Why are you so passionate about workforce management? And my answer is always the same is it's not that I'm so passionate about call center or I'm so passionate about workforce management.
00;02;06;27 - 00;02;28;17
Juanita Coley
I'm passionate about people, right? I'm passionate about making an impact. I'm passionate about connecting and creating great human experiences, which is why when we talk about C-x and E-x, I'm like, we really should be talking about human experience. Right? And so living the dream for me really means I get to do that. I get to make an impact.
00;02;28;17 - 00;02;48;27
Juanita Coley
I get to normalize women in tech, I get to normalize women in leadership roles. I get to talk about diversity. I get to talk about equity and inclusion. I get to sit here and talk with you like this is what I like to do. And I like to have conversations, sessions that spark an interest and impact change. And so for me, I'm living my dream.
00;02;48;27 - 00;02;52;03
Juanita Coley
I'm living what I want to do because I'm making impact.
00;02;52;25 - 00;03;16;06
Dave Hoekstra
Well, you know, it's funny, we talk a lot to industry professionals, and we could be talking about, you know, someone who is, you know, the chief marketing officer of a large company or we could be talking about the newly promoted intraday analyst at a call center with 12 agents. Right. We could we could be in that in that vast range of people.
00;03;16;21 - 00;03;34;01
Dave Hoekstra
And it's really fun to be able to give people the hope and the dream that they're there's there could be more to this right and I'm sure you get a lot of that in your day to day is you know, how did you get to where you are and how do I get to where you are and those kind of things.
00;03;34;01 - 00;04;08;02
Dave Hoekstra
And, you know, so I would suppose, you know, in talking about what we you just mentioned, right, that living the dream, how did you get here? Right. Let's I'm always fascinated to know the first question, right? This is the question that everybody is interested in in a wfm standpoint is how did you land in Wfm? Because unfortunately, nobody when when you get asked in kindergarten what we want to be when we grow up, nobody says, well, I want to be a senior forecasting analyst for a medium sized contact center in the Midwest, United States.
00;04;08;03 - 00;04;12;05
Dave Hoekstra
Right. Nobody says that. How did you how did you land into this ephemeral.
00;04;13;04 - 00;04;29;19
Juanita Coley
Well, first of all, I'm on a mission to change that. Right. OK. Like, I want kids all around the world to know that this is an industry that they can go into. And it can be fun. It can be exciting. Which is also one of the reasons I do tech talks, right? So like, my kids are like, Mom, why are you on Tick TAC?
00;04;29;19 - 00;04;48;17
Juanita Coley
Like, what are you doing with this workforce? Windy character is because I want it to be fun. I want it to be relatable. I want it to be relevant. Current, right? And and you can't be what you can't see. And so if our youth aren't seeing it, then they're not going to know that, hey, this is actually a career that I can do something in and make a wage.
00;04;48;17 - 00;05;08;15
Juanita Coley
I can make a living and I can thrive and survive in this industry. But how I is so that's that's one of my whys, right? But how I got here was, you know, I was a teen mom. Many people here hear this story and I talk about it all the time. So much so that people I've had people say, so, are you advocating for teen pregnancy?
00;05;08;15 - 00;05;25;04
Juanita Coley
I'm like, you can't be that. You can't be that bright, right? Like so, you know, but I say I say it all the time because it is my story and I want other women or you to know that, listen, if you make a, you know, a life decision, it doesn't have to be your end all be all. You can change, right?
00;05;25;04 - 00;05;39;09
Juanita Coley
You can change and be whatever it is that you want to be. It's going to cost you work, right? You're going to have to put in work, but you can be whatever it is that you want to be as long as you put in the work. But, you know, I was a teen mom my junior senior year in high school.
00;05;39;23 - 00;05;57;21
Juanita Coley
I had what was called OJT, which is on the job training right. And so instead of having a class, a traditional class, because I had already taken all my high school classes, I was working in a call center. I was a customer service rep. And so that was my introduction one to the call center space. I was a customer service rep.
00;05;57;21 - 00;06;28;03
Juanita Coley
I had to provide for, you know, my daughter at the time. And I picked up a book that was laying around. It was a user manual actually is actually what it was. It was a user manual. It was called Blue Pumpkin. And we all know a nowadays what Blue Pumpkin is. Blue Pumpkin is now there it is. I picked up that Blue Pumpkin book and I was like super intrigued I don't know why call me crazy, but I love, you know, how things work, right?
00;06;28;03 - 00;06;54;19
Juanita Coley
And so I picked up this book and I was like, oh, my God, this tool helps you understand forecasting. It helps you understand how many people you need you under, you know? And I understood that discipline later on in my career to be workforce management. And so I was really intrigued by the book and the user me. He all really and I said, man, I think I can do this and so I continued to be a call center rep at the time.
00;06;54;19 - 00;07;14;27
Juanita Coley
I was still a CSR for a couple of years and a couple of years later I got my chance to be in the workforce. We spent department our second location, which is where the workforce management team was housed, which is in Sunrise, Florida. That office was closing and none of them wanted to move to the Maitland location. And so I raised my hand and was like, Hey, I think I can do this.
00;07;14;27 - 00;07;27;24
Juanita Coley
I had no idea what I was doing. They've like, No idea, right? I just had read the user manual, never had any really hands on knowledge and to my surprise, right? My supervisor was like, OK, sure, let her do it.
00;07;28;09 - 00;07;31;22
Dave Hoekstra
I was like, Well, whatever gets her off my team, right? Right.
00;07;32;21 - 00;07;51;20
Juanita Coley
Who? Whatever gets her to stop harassing me every day, you know, because I've always been that child or that person that is super inquisitive, curious and I can do it. I can do it. My mom will tell you, if you ever interviewed her, she'll tell you I was that baby. That was like when she's trying to feed me, she's like, I was the one that was smack in the spoon away.
00;07;51;20 - 00;08;10;04
Juanita Coley
Like, I can do it, I can do it, I can feed myself. Right. And so that's how I was in the call center. I was like, I can do it. I can do it. So they were like, yeah, let her do it. I did it. I started working in the workforce management department on just some entry level, like intraday stuff and putting in adherence exceptions and all of that different stuff.
00;08;10;18 - 00;08;28;03
Juanita Coley
And that is really what peaked my workforce management career, you know, my interest in workforce management, the discipline. I later went on to work in companies like United Health Care Walgreens, like companies that, you know, ones you don't know. And and that's really started my career in workforce management.
00;08;28;28 - 00;08;50;19
Dave Hoekstra
You know, I feel like the story that you told is we have a lot of similarities between the way we got into this, right between between us and how Wfm kind of impacted our lives. You know, I haven't told everybody this, but I'm actually in that weird category where my dad was the wfm guy in the call center that I got my start in.
00;08;51;09 - 00;09;18;11
Dave Hoekstra
And yeah, and it's funny because this was before I really had a concept of what Wfm was the you know, it was working at a customer service call center. And my dad I got my dad hired there as an agent. Right. You know, referral bonuses right? There is really super important. And he he he was on the phones for a few years.
00;09;18;11 - 00;09;41;19
Dave Hoekstra
And then got a promotion to be kind of this scheduling analyst. Right. And it was with IEX and this was back in the days where they had to print up the schedule and walk it and put it on your desk every day. Right. And I still really didn't have a strong concept of what workforce management was. I was just I mean, I was cashed 19 you know, and, and taking calls.
00;09;41;19 - 00;10;03;26
Dave Hoekstra
It was just a job at that point and went through a few different phases. And it was actually I went on a, an interview to be a trainer at a different call center here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I sat down an interview and the VP who was hiring looked at across the room, across the desk at me and said, I don't see you as a trainer.
00;10;03;26 - 00;10;07;11
Dave Hoekstra
I'm like, Oh, I'm a good trainer. You don't have any idea.
00;10;07;24 - 00;10;08;29
Juanita Coley
You don't know my rights.
00;10;09;24 - 00;10;33;22
Dave Hoekstra
That's right. And she said, We're starting up this thing called the command center where we do the scheduling. And I was really at that point in my life, like a job and a raise. I'm in, whatever, whatever it is, and I actually end up getting that job. And very similar to what you were talking about, I got in and started looking at what they were doing and this was with TCS.
00;10;33;22 - 00;10;43;10
Dave Hoekstra
So if we want to really go old school and I can show my age that and the scary part was it was old at the time, right? It was, it was, it was old then.
00;10;43;11 - 00;10;44;08
Juanita Coley
It was old.
00;10;45;07 - 00;11;06;04
Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, it was old then. So you can really tell and started working through some of the processes and I really ended up enjoying it. It took me a few years to really understand why I enjoyed it though. And you said this on the very at the very outset of our conversation, it was actually the people element. I was terrible at math and in school.
00;11;06;04 - 00;11;29;29
Dave Hoekstra
I hated math. You couldn't I mean, I literally looked for a college major that didn't have any math classes because I just knew that that would be the end of me. And what I realized was that the math the math was it would not so difficult that the concepts made sense in my head. But what I really enjoyed was working with the people I loved being able to tell people, yes, you can have this day off.
00;11;30;11 - 00;11;51;10
Dave Hoekstra
Yeah. I loved, you know, being the hero of who wants to go home early. Right. I loved the it was the perfect blend between the two. And that was what I really, really enjoyed about it. And then it was only a few years later that someone mentioned to me you do know. So you're like second generation Wfm. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I actually am.
00;11;51;14 - 00;12;16;14
Dave Hoekstra
I didn't even realize that. And so I tell people all the time it's not like my dad sat me down on the fireplace and it was like, son, someday this will be yours. That didn't happen to me. But but, you know, it was really it really a great thing. And to even pull back the curtain a little bit farther, my son, who is now in his mid twenties, is working for a scheduling company.
00;12;16;14 - 00;12;42;24
Dave Hoekstra
Now, it's not what you and I would refer to as Wfm, but just like you were saying, we were trying to create this excitement and this generational approach. Know it's not even just Wfm or Cintas or anything. Like that. It's the excitement that, you know, to to quote one of my favorite books, there are other worlds than these, right?
00;12;42;24 - 00;12;57;16
Dave Hoekstra
And and that's what's really exciting about it. And so as you were going through your journey, did you have that moment or was it was there a moment where you realized this is more than just a job for me? This is this is what I want to do?
00;12;58;11 - 00;13;23;05
Juanita Coley
Yeah. You know, I think that moment for me was when I understood good beyond the technology, right? When I really began to dig into the discipline of it all, like, oh, this is how this connects to this and this is the impact that this makes on this. And if we don't have enough people, then people are holding. And if people are holding, then they're not getting what they need.
00;13;23;05 - 00;13;48;08
Juanita Coley
And like once I understood the discipline of it all and it wasn't just, oh, we fill in this sheet or we, we, we push this button to do X, Y, and Z, then I understood the bigger picture and for me, I actually saw my first book. I've written a book and it's called The Corporate Playbook. And that corporate playbook is actually geared towards helping startups and small businesses with their business, start their business, run their business.
00;13;48;16 - 00;14;13;26
Juanita Coley
But guess what I'm using? I'm using the film discipline, right? I'm talking about real data and why you need the data to be able to put a business plan together. And I'm likening the discipline of workforce management to running a business and where you use that discipline in your business. And so like that moment for me was when I understood how it impacts the greater scheme of even just life workforce management.
00;14;13;26 - 00;14;23;01
Juanita Coley
I use it in in my entire life. If we're doing something and as a House project, I'm thinking workforce management, OK, like what resources do I need? How many people do I.
00;14;23;08 - 00;14;45;03
Dave Hoekstra
How much I can understand that? Because any any time there's ever a project in the House is Workforce Excel spreadsheets. Let's go. We're we're open those up. And I'm, I'm like, what formulas do we need to read the content and anything? Because this this is really important. Right. And I can appreciate that quite a bit. Right.
00;14;45;03 - 00;14;46;24
Juanita Coley
It's I found my journal.
00;14;47;24 - 00;15;23;16
Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, exactly right. And the the ability for us to look at things with a data base approach but it's about the people right. It's about that and and and you can have you can have the best financial tools in the world, the best spreadsheets, the best, you know, QuickBooks, all kind of stuff. But if you don't have those passionate, driven people working for you and and you're taking care of them and again, that's what I always found about w I found to be the exciting part was taking care of the people and helping them.
00;15;23;16 - 00;15;45;18
Dave Hoekstra
And, you know, unfortunately, w often means saying no quite often. But, you know, you and I have talked about this before. If you educate the people that are impacted by the decision on the Y, you know, I think you think you could say a few things about the Y. The, you know, that that is really the driving part and what I've found to be a challenge.
00;15;45;18 - 00;16;09;09
Dave Hoekstra
And let's let's talk about this for a little bit. What I found to be a challenge is that we both had our awakening that that maybe Aha moment. And you've probably had many of them over your over your career. How do we get people who haven't had their aha moment yet to have that moment? What can we do to help these relative newbies to our practice?
00;16;09;22 - 00;16;21;28
Dave Hoekstra
Understand what that impact the power of one? I know as WPP, they like to talk about it quite a bit. And so what can we do to help them find that aha moment?
00;16;22;22 - 00;16;55;05
Juanita Coley
Well, I think it goes back to one identifying the right people for the roles, right? Every everybody isn't the right person for the role. Just like everyone is an entrepreneur, every person is an entertainer, every person like. So you can't force a person into a role that they just aren't they're not a good fit for. Right? And then the second thing is once we have identified the right person for the role education, education, education, education is really important.
00;16;55;09 - 00;17;16;17
Juanita Coley
You have to educate them beyond the system, right? The system is great. We need the tool, whether that's, you know, collaboration, whether that's whatever that system is that you're using in your environment. We need that, but we need that to layer on top of the discipline, right? We need that to layer on top of the people in the processes, because that's where we get our scalability from.
00;17;16;27 - 00;17;46;19
Juanita Coley
But we understand that we can do wfm the discipline without a tool, right? We can do the discipline of it all on pins and paper and scratchpad, right? But we let we leverage tools so that we can scale. We can be able to do big call centers, we can be able to automate processes. And so how we get people passionate or how we get people to wrap around to that aha moment is, one, make sure you have people that are in the role that are fit for the role.
00;17;46;25 - 00;18;08;04
Juanita Coley
And then two, we make sure that we educate them beyond this solution of press this button, do this because we've always done it this way, but we actually educate them on the discipline of it all. This is why we do it and the impacts because then we create people who are thinkers. We don't want just people who are button button pressers, right?
00;18;08;04 - 00;18;26;02
Juanita Coley
We want people who are thinkers who think outside of the box like, OK, yeah, we've always done it this way. But what about if we turn this just 360 or 180 angle or degree what about if we turn this this way? Can we do it this way? We want those people and those people because they understand the discipline.
00;18;26;12 - 00;18;33;24
Juanita Coley
Then they will come around full circle to being able to take us to that next level in the discipline in our organizations.
00;18;35;00 - 00;18;59;01
Dave Hoekstra
Isn't it crazy, though? I have noticed this and so for those of you who might be listening, who are in this in this category, this might be your aha moment, but it's often not until we get beyond what Wfm does in the day to day that we realize that the discipline is the important part and not the not the software right.
00;18;59;01 - 00;19;19;07
Dave Hoekstra
It's so many times you have to be away from it for a little while. One of the things that I consistently tell people is, guys, there's no rule book. There is no law that says you have to do things this way. Right? Then you said, you know, it's so easy for us to say think outside the box. Sure.
00;19;19;07 - 00;19;39;21
Dave Hoekstra
Just stop thinking like normal. And not everybody can do that. And I mean, even people that are good at that can't just force themselves to think outside the box. But sometimes it's about stepping away and realizing, you know, that that awakening moment, I think I had it in my career where I just went why is our service level target 830?
00;19;40;12 - 00;19;41;26
Dave Hoekstra
I don't know.
00;19;41;29 - 00;19;50;03
Juanita Coley
Right, right. Because we hear that all the time or Oh, we have to be at 80, 30 or we have to y like.
00;19;50;13 - 00;19;50;21
Dave Hoekstra
Yeah.
00;19;51;00 - 00;20;25;17
Juanita Coley
Who has made that number? How do we know that that's the customer is acceptable tolerance to service like how do we have we access customers you know you know because I'm sure we customers are going to say answer me right away right so how do we come to 8030. Yeah. No exactly. Even know that they want phone you know it may be email, it may be chat, it may be what is their desired channel you know, so like I think we have to and which is why one of the things on my resume Dave as I was, you know when I worked in organizations it always said don't hire me if you don't want to
00;20;25;17 - 00;20;50;11
Juanita Coley
hire you know why? Because I'm always asking why. Right? And that's literally what was on my resume. Right. And I think that intrigued people more than anything. But but yeah, I'm always asking why. And I think we should we should encourage that in our organizations instead of thinking that is a person that's insubordinate. Or difficult to deal with, encourage people to ask, why, why do we do this?
00;20;50;12 - 00;21;11;28
Dave Hoekstra
If you if you're listening to this podcast and you cannot right now answer the question why is your service level or why is your ACA or why is your your, your, your C set score set at an exact level, I want you to reach over to your phone push the pause button right now. Don't worry, we'll still be here when you get back and go ask that question.
00;21;12;07 - 00;21;34;14
Dave Hoekstra
Why is our service level target this? Why is our ACA target this? Why is our SAT score this? And because if you cannot answer that question, you have an arbitrary goal set up and I'm lecturing and I'm on a soapbox, but I've seen it so many times. Like if you start to ask those questions, you will start to really understand what we're talking about, about the discipline versus the button pressing and the lever pulling, right?
00;21;34;14 - 00;21;41;19
Dave Hoekstra
Absolutely. So this is so much fun. Did you did you ever have any of those aha moments? Did anything you could think of specifically?
00;21;42;01 - 00;22;05;05
Juanita Coley
Oh, man, that was one of them, right? I was always y like, why do we have to meet this? How do we know that this is the right? Like I said, the tolerance of service level, like, is there a dollar? And and I got my answer from, you know, from my like there will this is a dollar that every when we don't hit this metric, this is what we are, you know, spending out, you know.
00;22;05;12 - 00;22;23;08
Juanita Coley
And so I was able to get the answer, which made me it prompted me to ask other questions, right? So I it's just it's a never ending. Why with me, I'm always going to be lying. Right? And so yeah, I had a lot of those moments why do we update it here is like that was one of one of them.
00;22;23;08 - 00;22;28;20
Juanita Coley
I'm like, why are we going back and updating schedules? Like, why don't we just move the threshold?
00;22;29;08 - 00;22;46;25
Dave Hoekstra
OK, we don't want to talk too much about that because that is the rite of passage for a person like that. That's that's that's what a boy becomes a man when a girl becomes a woman. Right. It's that is that is the moment where we say wait, what am I doing? Right? And so you have to be careful.
00;22;46;25 - 00;22;50;19
Dave Hoekstra
We don't want to lead people to that. They have to discover that on their own. Right? This is like you can make.
00;22;50;19 - 00;22;59;29
Juanita Coley
The numbers, say what you want it to say. You know, like if that's the case, then we just you get you get an idea. You get an idea. You know, everybody gets a 90.
00;23;01;04 - 00;23;25;16
Dave Hoekstra
I remember talking with agents and they're coming in we go, Dave, I got 100 yesterday and I'm like, yeah, great job. That's just why why are we doing this to ourselves, guys? If you if you if you're if you're spending your whole day updating adherence and exceptions, this is a huge why, right? This is this is where you need to graduate to the next level of Wfm because this is where things go a little bit crazy.
00;23;26;14 - 00;23;59;18
Dave Hoekstra
But I will say one of my aha moments that I had was when I realized I wasn't alone in this in this in this idea. Right? I had been working, you know, I had done the story. I told earlier was for a BPO, and I had been doing firm for this BPO for five or six years and just killing myself, trying to create new Excel spreadsheets with formulas that tried to answer the questions we couldn't answer through the tool, which was a lot back then.
00;24;00;15 - 00;24;26;14
Dave Hoekstra
You know, the trying to solve, you know, adherence issues, exception issues, trying to figure out, you know, FTE calculations that just didn't make any sense. And and and then there was that aha moment when I realized I'm not the only person in the world doing this. And there are there are tools out there for me to use. And it was, it was like the heavens parted.
00;24;26;14 - 00;24;54;19
Dave Hoekstra
And, you know, the, you know, I saw light for the first time because it was so weird. I was just so used to doing things on my own that I had never really contemplated that. And so one of the things that I know that you are pretty passionate about is giving tools and resources that can help people not just understand that they're doing this alone, but help help them reach a level of this where they realize that a lot of these problems have been solved before.
00;24;54;19 - 00;25;19;28
Dave Hoekstra
So I'm curious when when people ask you, how do I get started, I see posts online all the time. Like I just got I just got promoted from my job as a CSR to intraday analyst, one at insert call center name here and where was there anywhere I can go for information? So if somebody asks you that kind of question, where do you where do you tell them to go.
00;25;21;13 - 00;25;38;15
Juanita Coley
Well, one, I'm always I'm a huge advocate of WPP, like a society of workforce planning professionals. Absolutely. Love the organization. And I actually belong to the organization is ran by Vicki Harrell. And oh.
00;25;38;16 - 00;25;40;14
Dave Hoekstra
Vicki was a guest on the podcast last year.
00;25;40;14 - 00;25;45;08
Juanita Coley
Oh, she is amazing. She's amazing, amazing, amazing. I can't say enough.
00;25;45;19 - 00;25;45;23
Dave Hoekstra
Good.
00;25;45;27 - 00;26;08;22
Juanita Coley
Stuff about her penny rentals all of them that are over there that are, you know, on the board and helping to run the organization. I was just speaking at the annual conference this year, and it was amazing that my session was Your Solution Alone Can't Save You. So I love talking about workforce management, of course, obviously. And so we had an amazing time.
00;26;08;22 - 00;26;39;25
Juanita Coley
She they do an annual conference every year, right in Nashville. So huge is a huge event, very so much information. But then they also have just resources of information you can get. I'm always just reading information. We also at Solid Rock, we have a course that we have coming out that is like basically a theme for beginner. So if you're wanting to understand more about the be a firm where there is career padding, the discipline of it in and of itself, what you should be on the lookout for these are things that we're talking about in the self-paced course.
00;26;39;25 - 00;27;05;01
Juanita Coley
So that should be dropping sometime around September. So I'm super, super, super excited about about their course is self-paced. You can take it at your at your own leisure. Also follow Shiva. He has a global workforce management form, I think it's called the Global Institute of Workforce Management. So I'll let me see if I can find it real quick.
00;27;05;01 - 00;27;14;13
Juanita Coley
I think it's Global Institute of Wfm. Yeah. So you can find that group on LinkedIn as well. So those are some of the resources that I use.
00;27;15;18 - 00;27;45;22
Dave Hoekstra
Yeah. And you know, we talk a lot about these certifications that are out there and certifications can be a great way to kind of get your foot in the door. But Bill, you know, my advice to people is don't feel like you have to get it right. There's no trust me, as someone who has spent many, many an afternoon looking for the right person, to, to, to handle a workforce management position, I would much rather find somebody with an analytical and inquisitive mind.
00;27;46;00 - 00;27;49;15
Dave Hoekstra
And I would somebody who has a bunch of certifications that really don't get used.
00;27;49;19 - 00;28;11;24
Juanita Coley
Yes. Because a lot of times in the industry, what I've found, Dave, is that I do a lot of unlearning you know, as I start start saying that that's just utterly wrong. Right? Or yes, we did that ten years ago because of why the reason we had to do that is because we didn't have this right or we didn't have this understanding.
00;28;11;24 - 00;28;18;13
Juanita Coley
So I'm doing a lot of unlearning with people. A lot of times and when I go into organizations like Please stop saying that.
00;28;19;19 - 00;28;41;24
Dave Hoekstra
Yep. And, and that. But that's the important thing too, is, is that for those of you that are getting your start in this industry and learning things, obviously you're going to learn the vast majority of information from the people who have preceded you in the position. Right. You're going to be taught things, but please don't make that the only way that you learn about what it is we do and why we do it.
00;28;42;12 - 00;29;06;09
Dave Hoekstra
There are you know, there are some great researchers out there. There's a great some great podcasts that are popping up. The We Wfm podcast is actually one that's pretty, pretty interesting. There's these institutes for Wfm, what what Solid Rock is doing, right? There's some really good information that's out there. And Nwp, I mean, I've I've been a part of the BPP for a long time as well.
00;29;06;09 - 00;29;41;01
Dave Hoekstra
And it's, there's so many good resources out there and so many people that are willing to help. And I will tell you, I have many times over my career been pinged on LinkedIn. Hey Dave, can I ask you a few questions about w a firm and I've never turned anyone down and neither would Juanita. Right? These are these are things that as the firm community we are strongly passionate about, about enabling and helping others who but you have to ask for it I cannot go online and find a struggling forecast analyst who lives, you know, in Nebraska.
00;29;41;07 - 00;29;54;11
Dave Hoekstra
I, I can't do that. I need that person to reach out to me. And so if you're hearing this and you feel like any one of us could be of service, please find us. We're on LinkedIn. We're not that hard to find. We're pretty visible people yeah.
00;29;54;11 - 00;29;57;12
Juanita Coley
I'm definitely on LinkedIn intake dock and Instagram.
00;29;58;06 - 00;30;19;27
Dave Hoekstra
That's right. So so when needed, this has been amazing. I feel like honestly, I'm a little nervous because I feel like we could go for another 2 hours, which some some people would find pretty interesting. But I don't know if everybody would, but I have really appreciated you spending time and kind of giving us your perspective on this. And I feel like there's a lot more to uncover.
00;30;19;27 - 00;30;36;06
Dave Hoekstra
So what would probably have to have you back at some point to turn to hit another area, but I'm very thankful. So real quick, before we get out of here, give us a little bit what's coming up for you in the relatively near future? And you know what? What have you got planned? Anything is super exciting.
00;30;36;28 - 00;30;58;24
Juanita Coley
Oh, day. I have so many things that are coming out that I'm super excited about then, you know, so I'm on this tour because I'm running for Miss Corporate America. You guys already know there are. If you don't know now, you know, right I'm running for Miss Corporate America. Women come from all over to for to talk about whatever their platform is.
00;30;58;24 - 00;31;22;01
Juanita Coley
And mine just happened to be normalizing women in tech in leadership roles and workforce management roles. And so I'm super passionate about that. And so that is happening in Orlando Florida June 23rd through the 25th. So I'm super excited about that also super passionate just about you know we're going into season four of Call Center Chronicles, which is a show that I had that airs on LinkedIn.
00;31;22;01 - 00;31;37;21
Juanita Coley
And on YouTube on Tuesday. So we're headed into season four of that. So I have some amazing guests that are lined up. So you got to tune in to find out who they are. And, and just keep following me. And I promise you I won't I won't disappoint.
00;31;38;20 - 00;31;43;22
Dave Hoekstra
So is that, is that the best place to find Juanita? LinkedIn or is there a new website?
00;31;44;07 - 00;31;49;03
Juanita Coley
So one idea has a website, right? I love when people talk about me in third person, right?
00;31;51;29 - 00;32;10;14
Juanita Coley
Juanita Kohli dot com. But then you can also find me on all the social platforms on LinkedIn. If you connect with me on LinkedIn, you'll probably find me everywhere because I cross-promote my YouTube channel. They're my ticktock page, the business page, all of all of the pages lead back to LinkedIn oh.
00;32;10;14 - 00;32;29;07
Dave Hoekstra
All right. Well, guys, you can tell Juanita is a busy, busy lady who spends a lot of time making sure that great information gets out there, which is the big reason why we wanted to have her on. So, Juanita, thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate it. I'm sure our listeners are and we are super excited to get this episode out into the stratosphere for us.
00;32;29;07 - 00;32;38;05
Dave Hoekstra
But appreciate the time and we really look forward to what's next for Anita. So hopefully we'll get a chance to catch up again real soon. But thank you so much for joining us.
00;32;38;24 - 00;32;49;16
Juanita Coley
Thank you so much for having me. And I got to work on this second generation workforce and management in my in my home. I love that. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
00;32;50;09 - 00;33;12;03
Dave Hoekstra
Absolutely. And to our listeners, thank you again for giving us the time. As always, we're excited. This has been the Working Smarter podcast presented by Calabrio. My name's Dave Hoekstra. Thanks to our guest Juanita Kohli, that Wfm Girl, among other titles. We really appreciate it and everybody have a fantastic rest of your day and we will talk to you soon on the Collaborators Working Smarter Podcast.
00;33;12;07 - 00;33;12;27
Dave Hoekstra
Thanks, everybody.