The Gartner Hype Cycle for Customer Service and Support Technologies, 2025, is now live, giving leaders a clear view of the innovations transforming the industry, including a focus on workforce engagement solutions.
The Gartner Priority Matrix evaluates both the level of market hype and the maturity of innovative technologies anticipated to shape the second half of 2025, while also assessing the business value they can deliver. Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) sits at the very top of the matrix—an unmistakable signal that it is exceeding expectations and positioned to deliver transformational impact within the next two to five years.
This ranking underscores WEM’s potential to fundamentally reshape contact centers. Standing alongside AI for Agents as one of Gartner’s top investment recommendations, WEM represents not only a strategic priority but also a crucial, long-overdue dimension in how organizations manage and empower their contact center employees.
In this year’s report, Gartner explains that WEM is now emerging as the natural progression from workforce optimization (WFO) marketing and expands its focus beyond operational performance to include employee engagement.
As Gartner explains, the underlying WFO component unifies quality monitoring, workforce management, e-learning, performance management, and speech analytics tools—and has been crucial in driving operational improvement at contact centers for the past decade. However, as the report notes:
“Employee needs are evolving. Incumbent management and career development philosophies and technologies focused on operational performance enhancement fail to address these ambitions.”
Simply put, the old ways of managing the workforce are no longer enough.
What’s Powering WEM Adoption?
The evolution of the contact center into a hybrid model, blending work-from-home and on-site operations, has reshaped expectations for onboarding, scheduling, coaching, and evaluation, and led operations to move away from the traditional “side-by-side” training approach. At the same time, AI and automation are stripping away routine tasks, leaving agents to handle the most complex and emotionally charged interactions. This shift is putting pressure on organizations to create a positive, supportive work environment that attracts and retains top-tier talent, especially as advisors now have the freedom to work remotely from anywhere and can easily assess employers through platforms like Glassdoor.
Meanwhile, the technology landscape is rapidly changing. CCaaS and customer engagement center vendors increasingly see WEM as essential, yet many still lack robust solutions, making procurement challenging. Gartner expresses the need for modern WEM to go beyond scheduling and quality management to include AI-driven interaction insights, next-best-action guidance, and unified desktop experiences.
Gartner also stresses that while mobile support for agents has expanded, it remains underdeveloped by many vendors, with most tools offering only basic functions like schedule viewing or shift changes.
Finally, Voice of the Employee (VoE) programs, critical for identifying what drives or hinders engagement, are gaining traction but are often still basic, underscoring the need for richer, more integrated WEM capabilities.
Obstacles to Transformation
Gartner goes on to explain that a major obstacle to advancing WEM lies in the immaturity of many CCaaS vendors, which are often the preferred procurement channels for sophisticated organizations. This gap, between offerings and needs, creates friction for businesses seeking fully developed WEM solutions through their existing providers. Compounding this is a lingering focus on operational performance over employee well-being, leading to a WFO versus WEM mindset, where efficiency is prioritized at the expense of engagement.
A shift in both strategic thinking and software will be necessary, as the frontline agent environment continues to undergo dramatic changes, posing new and nuanced challenges to engagement and productivity. Issues like work-life balance, the suitability of employees for remote work, feelings of inadequate support or recognition, limited networking opportunities, and the perception that on-site agents are favored by management all erode morale, as well as performance. Gartner states that the software market is still catching up, with applications needing further refinement to align with this evolving reality and support the “future normal” of hybrid and flexible contact center work.
Our Bread and Butter
This is where Calabrio steps in. Workforce Engagement isn’t just a feature for us, it’s our foundation. While many CCaaS providers offer “tick-box” WEM capabilities, Calabrio delivers enterprise-grade Workforce Engagement Management built to tackle the complex realities of today’s contact center. And with advanced integrations to all CCaaS platforms, we give businesses the freedom to choose the best communication infrastructure while still getting world-class WEM.
Too often, companies default to their CCaaS provider for WEM because it feels easier to keep everything “under one roof.” But this shortcut rarely solves the real challenges—CCaaS vendors aren’t WEM specialists, and their add-on tools can’t address the deep, evolving needs of today’s workforce. Instead, Calabrio delivers the dedicated expertise and powerful capabilities that only a true WEM leader can provide.
We’re ahead of the curve, having launched 70 new innovations this year alone, and we offer a truly unified suite of WEM solutions: from AI-powered insights and next-best-action guidance to integrated Voice of the Employee programs, a unified desktop, and robust mobile tools that empower agents anywhere. That’s exactly why Gartner recommended Calabrio not once, but twice in this year’s report.
Gartner’s Playbook for the Next Era of WEM
Gartner recommends that organizations take a proactive and holistic approach to WEM by shifting away from a narrow focus on operational performance and embracing employee well-being as a core strategic priority. This means moving beyond traditional WFO-centric thinking and embedding engagement-driven tools and practices into everyday operations. Gartner also urges leaders to consider complementary solutions, such as Calabrio, to avoid being limited by immature offerings in the procurement chain.
Equally important, Gartner advises aligning WEM strategies with the realities of the modern, hybrid frontline environment. That includes addressing challenges such as remote work suitability, agent support, recognition, and connection, while refining software and processes to meet the needs of both on-site and remote staff.
By prioritizing technologies and programs that foster engagement, development, and empowerment, organizations can build resilience, attract top talent, and position themselves for long-term success in the evolving contact center landscape.
To find out more, download the full “The Gartner Hype Cycle for Customer Service and Support Technologies, 2025” report today.
