What Is Workforce Planning? The literal definition of workforce management stands for the integrated array of processes that are used by the companies to enhance the employee productivity. Workforce management or WFM, include the effective forecasting of labour requirements and create and manage staff schedules for accomplishing a given task on a timely basis.

The Importance of Workforce Management:

Managing the workforce enables the business to get detailed insights into those business metrics that are similar to the exact number of employees needed to complete a given task i9n a specific time. This also helps in tracking the daily performance of the employees. For example:

In a voice process service providing company:

Workforce management maximizes the utility of agent labour thereby forecasting the amplitude of emails, messages and calls. It also schedules the right head of skilled agents at the proper time for handling the expected transactions.

Competent workforce management solutions work around a set framework comprising of:

• Absence planning
• Payroll administration
• Regulation Conformity
• Managing Employee Performance
• Attendance
• Staff Scheduling
• Forecasting
• Budgeting

The advantages of using workforce management software are many which include enhanced employee performance-customer service-attendance tracking- time management and lower cost of operation. There are 5 distinctive pillars of WFM; viz,

• Compensation management
• Success planning
• Recruitment & onboarding
• Performance management
• Learning and development

WFM is prevalent in the sectors which include the accomplishment of high-sensitive tasks, paying the employees on per hour basis, to increase productivity. The industries it covers are transportation, healthcare, distribution, banking, insurance and retail.

The Detailed utility of Workforce Management Tools in Companies:

Companies use WFM service management software solutions in desktop or mobile mediums for staff scheduling for two reasons, either for HR purposes or as a stand-alone program. The solution is majorly integrated with exclusive HR management software for workforce data. WFM also comes along with self-service choices enabling the employees to ask for personal requests, hence reducing the paperwork and increasing the strategic activities.

WFM is not an industry-new concept. The process of managing the workforce has been present even when the workplaces were not digital. With the evolution of technology, it became digital and much to the delight of the users, convenient! The tech-savvy organizations today monitor the employee base with WFM and HR solutions together for extracting greater efficiency and better productivity.

Here we present six workforce management trends for the year 2019 for a better insight into the concept:

1. Popping up of challenging job

Here are some figures as to why people leave jobs:

• Insufficient salary-  44%
• Limited growth- 43%
• Challenges- 30%
• Lack of social life- 28%

Challenges in a job keep the employees committed and dedicated to their roles, instilling in them a sense of belonging and do something significant to accomplish it. This is extremely prevalent with the employees belonging to the generations X and Z where the millennials seek new obstacles and strive hard to solve them, as in their inherent nature.

2. A stress-free Environment for a Healthy Workplace –

Illness is not always physical; today, stress can diminish the productivity of an employee to a great extent. The lack of confidence and constant peer and work pressure can take a huge toll on the staff’s zeal to give his or her 100% at work, resulting in the loss of company’s performance in the competition and also, loss of employees.

3. Integration will be a Mandatory Addition –

Today, nearly every HR manager need app support to perform their daily tasks in the hustle. In the majority of cases, however, the apps lie in the silos in separate modules for benefits, payroll and WFM. Integration, in this case, proves to be a fantastic solution where the expenses of a separate system will be reduced to one. All solutions will be integrated for assisting the HR professionals in regulating the workforce with deftness.

4. Gig Economy will be a more Significant Part –

Hiring freelancers will see a spiked rise this year and the gig economy will definitely become a more significant part of the main one. In this case, the WFM solutions have to be extended beyond their payroll.

5. Accessible Data –

Earlier WFM was managed offline. The employees had to check for the written documents to know more about their roster and other details. With the automated WFM tools, employees can easily know about their job role statuses at the time of their need and requirement.

6. Communication Convenience –

Automated WPM processes ease the communication constraints between the employees and the hierarchy. This broadens the alley for establishing wider and more connected communication. This also enables the employees to gain confidence and put their honest feedbacks, requests and pleas directly on to the digital medium for classified and direct communication with the authorities.

Writing Off:

A happy workplace can result in extracting pleasing figures of growth for the company. The employees will thereby prosper and thrive in the competition because of the enhanced productivity. 2019 is indeed a year full of welcome trends for the workplaces and WFM solution is perhaps the best practical and constructive inclusion of the HR modules of the organizations. exactllyHRMS is one of the most advanced HRMS software present in the market. Wants to know more about exactllyHRMS? Feel free to Contact Us and get a Free Demo.