A Comprehensive Guide to Workforce Management

Workforce management is a term used to describe a category of business software that can help managers optimize their employees’ schedules and performance levels. 

This guide will take you through all the ways your business can incorporate workforce management protocols into your business to improve the effectiveness of your workers. 

Without workforce management, you might be wasting valuable resources by overstaffing or not tracking time and attendance correctly.

Here you will explore the importance of workforce management and how you can use it to ensure compliance and get real-time data for your employees.

Key Takeaways

  • When integrating workforce management strategies, managers may need to consider all parts of their workforce, including part-time, contract, and gig workers.
  • Companies can choose from a wide range of workforce management software to fit their needs.
  • You can use workforce management to forecast staffing needs, automate staff scheduling, and track employee performance.

Who Is Part of Your Workforce?

Workforce management is a continually evolving topic. When it was initially conceived, it focused mainly on personnel-intensive industries, such as call centers. Today, workforce management practices are used across most industries.

One question that managers must answer is “Who is included in your workforce?” Modern workforces include a variety of workers, including gig workers, software bots, contractors, and part-time workers. According to a 2021 MIT Sloan Management Review, 87% of managers in the study consider external workers as part of their workforce.

Graph showing that most managers include external workers as part of the overall workforce.

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If your business has numerous types of workers, consider how your workforce management protocols will work with each employee category. Not all procedures will apply to all workers.

Types of Workforce Management Software

Most businesses rely on digital tools to efficiently track budgets, scheduling, payroll, and employees. There are numerous software tools available, many of which can perform multiple functions.

Here are some of the most popular workforce management tools:

  • Aspect Workforce Management
  • Avaya Aura
  • CloudTalk
  • Dialpad Contact Center
  • Genesys Engage
  • Nextiva Call Center
  • RingCentral Engage Voice
  • Talkdesk
  • Verint Workforce Management

How Can You Use Workforce Management?

If you use a comprehensive workforce management system, it will include various capabilities like scheduling, tracking, and reporting.

List of common features in workforce management software.

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Here are some popular ways to use workforce management.

1. Understand Your Workforce Forecast

Just like meteorologists forecast the weather using data, you need to forecast your staffing requirements based on data. Workforce management tools can help you track your staffing needs and predict how many employees and what type you will need to have working at certain times.

For example, your business might experience increases around holidays or during certain seasons. Workforce management will optimize your staffing needs to follow your business trends.

This technology can also help you plan for future hiring needs, especially when businesses are struggling with staffing.

This video can give you some insights on how to plan for your workforce requirements.

2. Automate Your Staff Scheduling 

Gone are the days of manually adding employees to a staff calendar. Workforce management systems can automate this time-consuming process for you while considering vacations, availability, absences, and other variables. Without an automated scheduling system, you might find yourself understaffed during critical times.

3. Monitor Time and Attendance  

A workforce management system that monitors time and attendance is an ideal solution to tracking employee patterns. You can quickly discover employees who consistently show up late or have frequent unplanned absences. Other benefits to this data are improving payroll accuracy and pinpointing gaps in staffing.

4. Maintain Compliance  

Every business needs to follow certain local, state, and federal employment laws. If you do not, you risk potential employee lawsuits and hefty fines. Workforce management can help you maintain your legal compliance along with tracking required break times, sick leave, union agreements, and training.

5. Track Employee Performance  

Depending on the type of business you have, your workforce management solution may make it easy to track the performance and engagement of your employees. For example, if you operate a call center, you can track how many calls each employee takes, how long they spend on each call, and how many customer issues they resolve.

With this data, you can find your best-performing employees and reward those who exceed your expectations.

6. Administer Payroll and Benefits  

Payroll management can be simplified and automated when you incorporate workforce management into your human resources processes. You can manage payment options including end of shift payments and syncing timesheets to payroll. Many systems even include custom reports that make audits and other queries faster and easier.

7. Planning Time Off  

The more employees you have, the more complicated managing time off can be. Workforce management software makes it easier by handling time-off requests. You can use automation to track paid time off balances, keep track of absences, and manage scheduling conflicts.

Benefits of Workforce Management

After starting a workforce management program, it should not take long for you to see significant changes in your business. Here are some of the most substantial benefits to using workforce management:

  • Improved employee productivity
  • Lower operational costs
  • More efficient time tracking
  • Better customer service
  • Improved payroll efficiency
  • Instant access to workforce data
  • Lower risk of non-compliance to regulations
  • Reduced absenteeism and tardiness
  • Increased adaptability to market demands and changes

Perhaps one of the most significant benefits is that employees will better understand your expectations for them. There will be clear rules for attendance and productivity that should make them easier to follow. This should lead to an improved employee experience.

Unlock the Potential of Your Staff with Workforce Management

With automated and streamlined processes, workforce management can help you unlock the full potential of your employees. Every person within your organization can benefit from a rollout of this technology. It can help you become a more efficient and more profitable business.

If you are ready to explore the future of your business and experience more revenue growth, Televerde is the brand you can trust. For over 25 years, we have been connecting businesses with the latest technology to improve marketing, sales, and customer experience.

Contact us today to start your Televerde journey.

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