Case Study: Student Loans Company

Student Loans Company administers the UK’s student finance system, supporting millions of borrowers and applicants across every stage of their financial journey. With approximately 1,300 frontline colleagues handling sixteen distinct call types alongside application processing, live chat, social media, and back-office work, the operation’s scale and complexity are built into every interaction. SLC had been running NiCE Workforce Management for nearly two decades, with the platform growing alongside the organization. By 2024, the scheduling team recognized that the platform was already capable of solving a question leadership had long known was worth asking. They built a single live skills matrix, framed a 12-month development glide path called ACORN, and used Workforce Management’s block scheduling functionality to recognize colleagues who completed their journey. The change took two years of disciplined work and one decision: to use what was already there.

01 BEFORE

A workforce of depth, ready for a system to match it

Student Loans Company administers the United Kingdom’s student finance system, supporting millions of borrowers and applicants across every stage of their financial journey: application, payment, hardship, overpayment, childcare grants, and beyond. Behind that public-facing mission sits a contact center operation of approximately 1,300 frontline colleagues handling sixteen distinct call types alongside application processing, live chat, social media, and back-office work. Complexity is built into every interaction.

SLC had been a NiCE customer for nearly two decades, with the platform growing alongside the organization since its first implementation. The technology was extensive. The skills tracking, the block scheduling, the workforce visibility tooling: all of it was present and operationally ready. As the organization scaled across channels and call types, the team-level skills records that had served earlier years had grown more elaborate, with each manager maintaining their own view of who was qualified to do what.

What the scheduling team recognized, by 2024, was that the platform Workforce Management was already capable of holding a single organization-wide picture. The era ahead would call for that picture to be live, central, and visible to everyone planning a workforce of this scale. The opportunity was waiting in the system. The decision the organization made was to use it.

“We had reports left, right and centre everywhere,” said Lorraine McAulay, Scheduling Analyst at SLC. “But nobody had one central point of reflection. The capability was in the system. Nobody had thought to ask for it that way.”

“It’s easier because the person at the other end of the phone is going to be more knowledgeable on the product they’re delivering and what the customer is asking about.”

Lorraine McAulay

Scheduling Analyst,
Student Loans Company

02 DESIRE TO CHANGE

Recognition rather than crisis

The turning point was an act of recognition. The scheduling team had eighteen years of institutional experience with NiCE Workforce Management, growing alongside the platform from its first implementation. What the team saw in the platform’s skills-tracking capabilities was a solution to a question leadership already knew was worth asking: a single, central, live skills matrix that every team manager, operational leader, and scheduler could work from simultaneously.

A second opportunity surfaced alongside the first. Workforce Management’s block scheduling functionality offered a mechanism for something the organization had wanted to deliver but had not yet had the structure to support: meaningful, scheduled recognition for colleagues who committed to the development journey. ACORN Achievers, those who completed their structured glide path, could be given protected time blocks away from the phones and toward the application processing work many of them preferred. The scheduling system itself would deliver the reward.

ACORN was named with intention. SLC’s identity is rooted in a tree, and the acorn represents growth from a small beginning. The framework, standing for Anticipate, Collaborate, Own, Respond, Navigate, was built from the inside, in collaboration with the training academy, operational leaders, business managers, team leaders, and Subject Matter Experts. It would become the structure through which every frontline colleague moved from single-skill specialization toward confident, cross-channel capability.

“No one really had a central point of a skills matrix. The system already could.”

Lorraine McAulay

Scheduling Analyst,
Student Loans Company

03 NiCE SOLUTION

A framework built from inside the system, two years in the making

The build took approximately two years from concept to a continuously evolving live program. Every iteration added structure, every cohort refined the approach, and every pulse of feedback from frontline colleagues shaped what came next.

The foundation was the skills matrix. Using NiCE Workforce Management skills tracking, the scheduling team created a single operational view of every frontline colleague’s capabilities across every channel: phones, application processing, live chat, social media, and back office. Skills were now tracked in one system, visible to resource planning, operational leaders, and team leaders simultaneously, with one source of truth replacing multiple parallel views.

From that foundation, the ACORN glide path gave structure to progression. Each colleague’s journey moved through defined milestones at weeks 22, 32, and 38 of their development. Scheduling and the training academy worked from the same picture: what skills were needed, which colleagues were ready, and when capacity could be safely released for training without compromising service.

Underpinning the rollout was the T10 Readiness Program: a 10-week countdown before every training cohort, coordinated across 36 steps in Microsoft Lists. Resource planning identified candidates. Operational leaders and team leaders spoke to them, set expectations, and surfaced any performance considerations or reasonable adjustments that needed accommodating. The training academy issued invitations, delivered the sessions, and provided aftercare where needed.

No cohort launched without every step completed. Sessions were capped at twelve colleagues. No upskilling ran during September, when the student return peak required all hands on deck.

ACORN Achievers, colleagues who completed their glide path, were rewarded through block scheduling: protected time blocks with reduced phone exposure and increased application processing time. Team leaders began approaching the scheduling team to ask when the next upskill cohort would open. Enthusiasm became organic.

Change management was built into the program from the start. Colleagues were consulted, not instructed. Feedback loops ran throughout. SLC moved its scheduling function from a team that produced rosters to a team that shaped how the organization built and sustained its workforce. The shift did not require new technology. It required the organization deciding to use what was already there.

“I think what we don’t do enough is celebrate each other’s success. If you’ve completed your journey on ACORN, you should be celebrating that you have all of the key skills in order to do your job.”

Lorraine McAulay

Scheduling Analyst,
Student Loans Company

04 RESULTS

A workforce that knows more, answers more, and stays

The headline numbers tell a consistent story. Average handle time in-house dropped from approximately 900 seconds to between 650 and 670 seconds. The calls-answered rate moved from roughly 75 percent, fluctuating, to 98 percent.

Skills adherence data from the ACORN glide path, which commenced on May 5, 2025, confirms the depth of the change. In the GLA A2P area, telephony skills template accuracy rose from 15 percent to 70 percent over the program period. Processing skills accuracy moved from 16 percent to 30 percent. In Darlington, telephony accuracy increased from 21 percent to 67 percent, and processing from 29 percent to 43 percent. These are not marginal gains. They represent a workforce operating with substantially greater confidence, knowledge, and consistency.

A parallel shift has taken place in first-contact resolution. Improved technical knowledge, greater confidence in systems, and end-to-end understanding of the student finance lifecycle mean more queries are now resolved at the first interaction. Fewer calls elongate while colleagues search for answers. Fewer calls reach Tier 2. The cognitive load on frontline colleagues has decreased alongside the load on customers.

Colleague engagement increased by three points relative to the end-of-2024 survey, reflecting the program’s effect on motivation and connectedness. Annual survey results confirmed that staff motivation has seen significant positive impact. Sickness has decreased, supported by greater flexibility through Time Off Manager, colleague self-service for flex time and holiday booking, and manager-approved emergency leave options.

“We never celebrate anything that we do with the system. There’s a lot of function I believe we should be celebrating with NiCE.”

Lorraine McAulay

Scheduling Analyst,
Student Loans Company

For the students and applicants SLC serves, the difference shows up across every stage of the journey. Customer satisfaction surveys captured responses from applicants at the Pre-Apply, Apply, Assess, Pay, and Repay stages. One described the process as clear, well-organized, and easy to follow, with support that was always professional and friendly. Another rated their experience a perfect ten, citing staff who genuinely cared about their customers and went the extra mile. A third noted the interaction was resolved quickly and effectively. The pattern holds across every touchpoint: more knowledgeable colleagues producing more consistent, confident customer experiences.

Retention has improved. The pattern that had once defined the operation — colleagues leaving rather than staying because of the relentlessness of phone-only work across sixteen demanding call types — has shifted. Cross-skilling, variety, and the recognition embedded in ACORN Achiever block scheduling have changed what the job feels like. Colleagues are staying. The scheduling team’s own experience has transformed alongside them, from a manual, reactive operation to a system of planned visibility and self-service.

05 FUTURE

A platform approaching its full capability

SLC is in the process of upgrading NiCE Workforce Management to its latest release, opening additional capability the scheduling team has been preparing for. Employee Engagement Management is incoming, extending the digital experience directly to frontline colleagues.

The mobile app rollout will allow colleagues to book holidays and manage their schedules from their phones, removing the laptop dependency that currently constrains self-service. Bank holiday management is being redesigned: auto-generated bank holiday allocations will be removed from the system, giving part-time colleagues full ownership of how they use their pro-rated hours. That reform closes a gap that previously drove end-of-year time-back debt and sick-day workarounds.

Time Off Manager will be extended to host mandatory e-learning modules. Colleagues will self-schedule their compliance training against shrinkage time, removing the monitoring burden from team leaders and embedding learning into the rhythm of the working day. Back-office colleagues are being onboarded to real-time monitoring through aux and Mac codes, moving the operation toward full visibility across every channel.

ACORN itself is not changing. The framework will mature. Pulse surveys continue to test how block scheduling and the glide path are landing with colleagues, with iteration following. The framework has already proven scalable: adoption has extended into the Repayment department, with the structure of the platform making replication consistent and sustainable. One scheduling team’s question is now an answer the rest of the organization is building on.

“The possibilities from where it started to where it is now is amazing. You just need to think out of the box.”

Lorraine McAulay

Scheduling Analyst,
Student Loans Company