The term ‘Workforce Management’ can be intriguing. What does it mean? Simply put, Workforce management refers to integrated processes that help to optimize productivity in a workforce. Workforce management is uniquely designed to function on individual, company, or team basis. In principle, Workforce Management covers a variety of areas that are crucial in company operation. These areas include training and attendance, timekeeping, benefits and payment, recruitment, scheduling, and performance management.
Workforce Management aims at optimizing customer service while, at the same time, helping to reduce staffing costs. This often means that a delicate balance must be struck between the company’s resources vis- a- vis the demands placed on it. If this succeeds, it usually results in an ideal situation where tasks are effectively assigned to employees with the right skill set, at the right time, and according to demand.
History of Workforce Management
In earlier days, most companies’ workforce management was handled manually and decentralized. This means that all the departments of a given organization would practically utilize different systems of management. The result is a higher likelihood of mismanagement of data and susceptibility to error. Overall, this could hurt the quality of customer service, consistency, labor efficiency, and costs.
In time, the workforce management software was developed to solve this. The software gradually had a massive impact on the process of business and overall management of the workforce.
Among the earliest developments in the automation of workforce management was the streamlining of employee attendance and work-hours records. These slowly came to be automated. Going down memory lane, the first-ever ‘clock-in’ systems required employees to log in using a mechanical clock. They would enter the date, their number, and arrival and departure times. Afterward, the information was printed on a daily business timesheet. Admittedly, this saved the HR department a reasonable amount of time.
Be sure to check out “8 Tools to Help You Schedule Employees at a Restaurant or Café” for tips on providing a well-written schedule for you and your employees.
Types of Workforce Management
There are several types of workforce management software. Let us briefly find out the features and usage of a few:
Time and attendance
This software is designed to optimize and track the time spent by your employees working. It also keeps records of all wages and salaries that your business pays to employees. The features of time and attendance software can bring many benefits to a company.
First, it can lead to improved management of workload. If the employees work on a variety of tasks, this software will allow them to know the time spent on each task. The software also enables you to manage the payroll easily.
Don’t miss out on our piece “Best Small Business Apps for General Productivity” and check out how to improve productivity in your establishment.
Payroll integration
The Payroll software will improve the vital processes, speeding them up. Moreover, other procedures, like recording employee details, payment, and deductions, and reporting information to the government, will also become much easier.
You can quickly produce payslips, record pension deductions, make pension payments, and pay people daily, weekly, or monthly. The payroll software is truly time-saving. Remember that payroll issues can be a very time-consuming process. Automating the calculations and overall process involved will make life easier for everyone.
Another benefit is a massive reduction in the likelihood of errors. This software can be used to pay workers automatically, following your set parameters. This leaves a very thin margin for human error.
Employee scheduling
Employee scheduling can be time-consuming. This is especially if you are dealing with a large workforce, complete with shift patterns. Happily, the employee scheduling device will significantly automate the process, maintaining such schedules efficiently.
Many of these programs allow for collaborative scheduling. This means employees can input their availability and automatically swap shifts when necessary. It will only require minimal input from the management. Gradually, this can foster a stronger team spirit, leading to increased productivity.
Be sure to also check out our piece “How to Schedule Employees at a Restaurant or Cafe” for more info on scheduling in your business.
HR management software
This can be a great time- saver for your business. The HR Management software can help you streamline all elements of human resources. This would easily allow you access to employee records and reduce the time spent on administration and filing. You can quickly generate a detailed report on the activity of the workforce. Even the new starter and recruitment process will be significantly simplified.
It is quite essential and beneficial to automate your HR processes. Doing this will help you improve decision making. Why? You will have, ready on hand, all the relevant details required to make an important business decision. You can, therefore, confidently make decisions, knowing that you have taken into account all factors. This also gives you the key to an effective business strategy.
You can use this HR software to raise employee morale significantly. Why? This software allows workers to administer their benefits. This gives them greater control, in and out of work. It can help boost morale and heighten employee satisfaction. Overall, this translates to higher productivity in business.
Check out “8 Bad Habits of Hospitality Managers and How to Deal With Them” to make sure all your employees know how to behave and interact with customers.
Absence management
The absence management software will help you record and oversee the records of employee absence, beginning from sick leave to holiday requests. You can then analyze the lack of trends within the company. This means you can determine the causes, costs, and impacts of these absences, and, therefore, better understand the issues that could be hampering your business.
Mobile workforce
Interestingly, we live in a world full of mobile phones! The majority of people on the globe are always in touch with their mobile phones. How many smartphones have been sold by mobile phone companies ever since this technology was introduced? A whopping 1.6 billion! True, mobile telephony seems to represent the future of workforce management software.
Experts in Payroll science argue that companies must use mobile technology more and more. Again, why? The modern workforce is generally dominated by tech-savvy people who expect a degree of digital expertise in their employers. To stay on course, your business must, of necessity, keep up with the latest digital technologies. Yes, go ahead and incorporate mobile technology into your company’s business! Your employees will most likely utilize it. This will undoubtedly put your company far ahead of the competition.
Learn how to also structure your staff’s vacations with our piece “Standard Vacation Policies for Small Business“.
The Processes Involved in Workforce Management
The workforce management system also involves a range of activities in human resource management. Let us discuss a few:
Talent management
Many organizations are increasingly embracing workforce management software to enhance business productivity. It has mainly been found to be effective in businesses that pay workers hourly or handle time-sensitive tasks. Examples of such sectors are distribution and transportation, banking, insurance, healthcare, and retail.
Sometimes your employees and yourself just need a little push to get to your true potential. Be sure to also go read “9 Tips to Help You Be More Positive at Work“.
Budgeting and forecasting
The term ‘Forecasting’ means discerning the nature of staff resources that are required to execute a given project at a specific time of the year. An example of this is the heightened demand during a holiday or a particular season. In a company setting, the term ‘Budgeting’ essentially means the knowledge of the maximum number of staff that a company can employ at a given time. As a manager, WFM allows you and your company to take advantage of these calculated forecasts. Using it to balance the workload and optimize staff deployment according to changes in labor demands.
Staff scheduling
This is a highly significant element of WFM. Scheduling allows a company to automate its staffing needs based on certain vital variables. These include availability, absences, vacations, and workload. Interestingly, such staffing processes were, in the past, done manually. Because there was no robust WFM system, these processes were generally inefficient, time-consuming, and often resulted in understaffing even when critical needs existed.
Employee performance
WFM offers businesses a greater understanding of the levels of employee engagement. This enables them to focus better on what impacts on employee productivity. To be sure, understanding how individual workers function would help employers to organize how to reward high-performing employees in a way that syncs with the management and the worker value most.
Make sure you check out “How to Motivate an Employee Who’s Underperforming in Your Café” for helpful info to getting your staff to the highest level of performance they can get to.
Time and attendance
You can easily track time and attendance with WFM tools and processes. This would further help reveal critical attendance patterns and enable companies to predict changes in demand. Moreover, they can efficiently manage any planned and unplanned staff leaves or absences. By monitoring WFM data, companies can also address issues like chronic absenteeism or tardiness, pinpoint any potential gaps in coverage and improve the overall accuracy of the payroll.
Payroll and administration
With automation, WFM reduces or eliminates benefits administration and manual payroll. Indeed, payroll queries and processes are made easier and quicker using audit-ready custom reports. Workforce management further enables efficient instant payment options like timesheets synching to payroll and end –of- shift payments.
Leave and vacation
WFM processes and tools enable companies to deal with time- off requests and track staffing levels digitally. Companies can also use WFM to track paid time- off, leave absences, and time-off calendars. This is possible through the use of data analysis and automation. Moreover, they can efficiently schedule banked time and conflicts.
Check out “How to Structure Employee Vacation Policy” for our guide to providing your employees with a fair vacation policy.
Compliance
Compliance tracking happens to be one of the most costly and potentially complicated areas of WFM. Non-compliance with local, state, and federal employment laws can lead to fines and unwarranted lawsuits. Compliance also involves the tracking of needed training and certifications for labor standards, specific roles, missed breaks, union agreements, and family/sick leave issues.
A Roundup of Benefits
- Improved payroll management: WFM enhances efficiency through the automation of many complex, time-consuming tasks and processes.
- Employers can gain better insight into worker engagement, productivity, and attendance. This allows the management to adjust training procedures, coaching, and maximum performance processes.
- Reduced costs
- WFM employs automation to enhance instant-accessibility and data reporting, thus highly improving productivity in the HR department and significantly reducing administrative and operational costs.
- Enhances employee productivity by reducing late arrivals and absences.
- Lowers non-compliance risks relating to local, federal, and state labor laws.
- Increases operational processes. In this way, as market dynamics and production schedules change, companies can effectively assign those with the right skills. This can be done at the most appropriate time.
- Improves employee morale due to better management, enhanced transparency, and excellent communication.
- Better work-life: Employees’ preferences are always taken into account during the staff planning processes.
- Lower attrition rate: employees get to be assigned tasks matching their qualifications and skills. They will, in this way, be more motivated.
Workforce management technology can bring plenty of benefits to your company or business. For instance, the employee directory applications can be integrated with it, simplifying the recruitment process, apart from making it efficient and faster. It can help you make a quick decision while also allowing authorized personnel to access details and contacts of candidates.
Finally, the workforce management software will help you reach fact-based decisions by allowing you to check talent ratio and identify diversity issues. What is sweeter, you can do this at the touch of a button, anywhere, and at any time. Amazing, isn’t it? Choose the best Workforce management software to streamline your business operations and get ahead.
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