Workforce management

Workforce management (WFM) is an institutional process that aims to optimize the productivity, competency, and engagement of an organization's workforce. Generally this process utilizes software to plan business needs more effectively than through a spreadsheet. The process includes all activities needed to maintain a productive workforce, such as human resource management, performance and training management, budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling.

While WFM has traditionally focused on operational efficiency and cost reduction, its focus has expanded to include enhancing the employee experience (EX), particularly for frontline or hourly workers. Modern WFM systems are used as tools to improve employee engagement, provide flexible work arrangements, and reduce attrition.

Core Components

Workforce management software helps users to observe all relevant legislations, local agreements and the contracts of individual employees – including work-life balance guidelines. The starting point is a clear definition of the work required through engineered standards and optimal methods for performing each task as efficiently and safely as possible.

As workforce management has developed from traditional staff scheduling to improve time management, it has become more integrated and demand-oriented.

It's seen as a complete approach to make an organization's workforce as productive as possible, reduce labor costs, and improve customer service. Core processes often incorporate:

Forecasting and Budgeting: Creating demand-based forecasts to determine the required workload and number of staff. This is often based on analyzing historical data (such as sales figures or customer contacts) to establish engineered standards.
Scheduling: Creating and deploying schedules to workers. This includes integrating staffing requirements, peak loads, skills, labor laws, and contractual terms.
Employee Involvement: Providing tools for employees to be involved in the scheduling process, such as managing availability or bidding for shifts.
Performance Management: Measuring performance, providing feedback and coaching, and managing incentives and online training.
Time and Attendance: Capturing time-worked data for payroll and managing working time accounts.
Process Analysis: Monitoring and analyzing the entire WFM process to find efficiencies.

Employee Experience

A primary driver for modern WFM adoption is the improvement of the employee experience, especially for deskless or hourly workers who may not have corporate email. This includes capabilities such as:

Flexible Scheduling: Empowering employees with tools for shift-swapping, shift-bidding, and self-scheduling based on their preferences.
Employee Communications: Delivering targeted corporate communications (such as updates or training modules) directly within the WFM application.
Sentiment Capture: Using pulse surveys to measure employee sentiment at key moments (e.g., after onboarding or a promotion) to improve the work environment.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

The WFM market has been impacted by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI), shifting the software from a simple system of record to a "system of intelligence." Uses of AI in WFM could include demand forecasting with predictive analytics, optimizing employee schedules, and assigning workers to tasks based on their skill set.

Field service management

Workforce management also uses the process of field service management in order to have oversight of company's resources not used on company property. Examples include:

Demand management – to help forecast work orders to plan the number and expertise of staff that will be needed
Workforce scheduler – using predefined rules to automatically optimise the schedule and use of resources (people, parts, vehicles)
Workforce dispatcher – automatically assigning work orders within predefined zones to particular technicians
Mobile applications for technicians – allowing dispatchers and technicians to communicate in real time.

Market growth

In the 1980s and 1990s, entrepreneurs focused on topics such as supply chain management, production planning systems or enterprise resource planning. As cost pressures have increased, managers have turned their attention to human resources issues. In all personnel-intensive industries, workforce management has become an important strategic element in corporate management. The process has experienced growth in all sectors, including healthcare.

Delivery Models

WFM systems are typically delivered in three ways: as an on-premises system (where software is installed on a business's own servers), a hosted system (managed by an outside provider), or as a cloud-based computing service (Software as a Service, or SaaS). While many large enterprises historically used on-premises systems, cloud-based solutions have become the standard for modern WFM.

As society continues to adopt new technologies such as smartphones and enterprise mobility tools, more companies are allowing employees to become mobile. Mobile workforce management refers to activities used to schedule the employees working outside the company premises. It helps distribute workforce efficiently across various departments in an institution.

The need for social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about major changes in both employer's and employee's vision of remote work, which will likely have a long-lasting impact on workforce organization and management in the coming years.

References

Sources

AMR Research, 2006: The Human Capital Management Applications Report, 2005–2010:
DMG Consulting: 2009 Contact Centre Workforce Management Market Report:
Workforce Asset Management Book of Knowledge (John Wiley & Sons Publishing, 2013):
Portage Communications, LLC:

Category:Business software
Category:Human resource management

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