Workforce management requires you to consider numerous parts of your business. It involves forecasting staffing requirements, creating, reviewing and updating rosters, planning new hires, overseeing communications, dealing with attrition and managing labour costs. Each of these can become tedious and complex tasks without a strategic workforce management solution.
So, how can a workforce management system improve the experience for you, your employees, and even your customers?
Workforce management software saves time and increases efficiency
With 75.7% of Australians between the ages of 15-64 active in the workforce, workforce management or employee roster management is an essential process. Workforce management software reduces friction within a business by minimising unnecessary administrative processes that would only cause the company to lose efficiency.
A typical operational workforce plan focuses on both the immediate, day-to-day priorities as well as longer-term planning for six to twelve months and can reduce uncertainty within a business significantly. Creating an operational approach like this can maximise your company’s efficiency and save time by automating key processes.
Mistakes in forecasting, scheduling, rostering and payroll can trigger necessary remedial actions that cost a business time and money. Automated processes provided by a workforce management system can help by reducing the time managers and business administrators spend inputting and validating data and following up with staff on errors or mistakes.
Workforce Management software reduces scheduling errors
Managers coordinating shift-based workforces and casual workers can encounter scheduling issues on a daily basis. You can resolve these issues by leveraging workforce management software for even the most challenging scheduling problems. It ensures the employees with the appropriate skill set are in the right place, at the right time, and keep you on budget.
A strategic workforce management system can help resolve scheduling issues by:
- Enabling employees through self-service, to better manage their availability, their own schedule and give them a forward view of when they are rostered.
- Ensuring compliance with the latest workforce rules and regulations. A workforce management solution takes into account modern awards and other rules that apply to your business – at all times.
- Optimising staff forecasting to minimise understaffing and overstaffing.
- Providing line managers with simple to use tools to deal with daily operational issues like no-shows, absences and last minute changes.
An employee roster, published digitally in advance, can significantly reduce labour costs and give staff ample time to plan ahead, arrange swap shifts, organise transportation or move clashing appointments. It can help to limit any changes to the schedule and avoid rostering staff on shifts that clash with their availability.
Smarter employee scheduling reduces labour costs
Your business can make significant savings through a combination of business insights and smarter employee scheduling. Strategic workforce management allows you to balance demand and supply of staff, which can reduce over and understaffing.
Over and understaffing can become extremely costly for your business. Understaffed businesses will find more employees working overtime at a higher rate. Alternatively, if you are overstaffed and have more staff than required, you are wasting money by paying underutilised staff. You can resolve these issues with business insights that outline daily trends and occurrences and inform your line managers of how best to approach each situation.
Additionally, a strategic approach to hiring helps businesses make smarter decisions about the people they want to hire, whether they need additional people, and what types of skill sets or employment types they need to fill first. Businesses that hire strategically can build a team of people with the right mix of skill sets and availability and provide true value in their roles.
An organised workforce provides better service
Solving customer problems outside your business is much easier when operations inside your company are smooth. Strategic workforce management and planning delivers various benefits for your customers.
Here are three workforce improvements that can lead to better customer experience (CX):
- Rostering enough staff for each shift means employees can promptly attend to every customer or task.
- Publishing rosters in advance to accommodate employees’ preferences results in less management and staff stress, which ultimately leads to better employee experience and customer service.
- Acknowledging employees who significantly contribute to ensuring a positive CX and providing incentives or rewards is a great way to motivate staff and contribute to workplace culture. When staff feel valued, they are more likely to continue working for the company, which means less turnover and better-skilled staff to optimise CX.
Analytics provide valuable business insight
Workforce analytics gathers, analyses and provides managers with insights on employee data to better inform business decisions.
There are three kinds of workforce analytics. These include:
- Speculative analytics: These kinds of data leverage historical information to anticipate skill shortages, employee turnover and changes in the labour market. This helps managers forecast future talent needs and outcomes.
- Diagnostic analytics: This data type evaluates past performance through metrics that attempt to uncover the causes of workforce outcomes. It provides businesses with clear trends and key performance indicators that can optimise workforce planning.
- Suggestive analytics: Suggestive data builds upon speculative data by recommending and planning the next course of action to maximise the likelihood of desired staffing outcomes.
A data-focused approach will assess current hiring needs and plan for the future by modelling how those needs evolve, helping businesses recruit and retain talent.
Strategic workforce planning with Tambla
A comprehensive strategic workforce planning solution is critical to the modern enterprise. The right platform can boost manager and employee morale and facilitate more focus on providing outstanding customer service. This means businesses can optimise growth and plan for success today, tomorrow and in the future.
Visit our Workforce Planning solutions and workforce planning software page for more on our capabilities.
