What Is Workforce Management And Why Is It So Important?

Workforce Management (WFM) is an integrated set of processes that a company uses to optimize the productivity of its employees. WFM is all about effectively forecasting staffing needs and creating and managing staff schedules to perform a specific task day by day, hour by hour.

Importance of Workforce Management

WFM systems allow organizations to gain insight into business metrics, such as the exact number of employees needed to perform a specific job at a specific time of the day, week, or month. It also helps track the daily performance of employees.

For example, in a contact center, WFM helps maximize agent labor utilization by forecasting the volume of transactions (calls, messages, or emails) and scheduling the right number of agents with the right skills for the expected job. transaction volumes.

Workforce management processes

A comprehensive workforce management system encompasses a variety of activities within the broader framework of human resource management (HRM), such as:

• Forecasting and budgeting: Forecasting is knowing how much and what type of human resources will be needed for a specific project at a specific time of the year, for example due to increased seasonal or holiday demand. Budgeting is all about knowing how many employees a business can afford. With WFM, organizations can use calculated forecasts to optimize staffing and balance workloads as work demands change.
• Workforce Scheduling - Scheduling is an important aspect of WFM as it allows companies to automate staffing based on all business variables such as vacations, availability, workload and shifts. absences. Previously, personnel planning was done manually. Without a robust WFM system, it was time consuming, inefficient, and often left organizations without staff in times of dire need.
• Time and Attendance: Tracking time and attendance using WFM tools and processes reveals attendance patterns and helps organizations better predict changes in demand and manage planned and unplanned absences and/or employee absences. By analyzing WFM data, organizations can identify potential coverage gaps, improve payroll accuracy, and address chronic absenteeism and lateness issues.
• Employee Performance Management - WFM gives organizations a better understanding of employee engagement so they can better focus on what drives employee productivity. When employers understand how each employee works, they can reward employees who exceed expectations in a way that aligns with what matters most to them.
• Compliance - Compliance monitoring is one of the most complicated and potentially costly areas of WFM. Failure to comply with state, federal, and local labor laws can result in fines and employee lawsuits. Compliance issues also include tracking required certifications and training for specific roles, missed breaks, labor standards, family/sick leave requirements, and union agreements.
• Payroll and Benefits Management: WFM reduces manual payroll and benefits management by providing custom, audit-proof reports that make payroll processes and requests faster and easier. Labor management also allows for instant payment options such as end-of-shift payroll and syncing timesheets with payroll.
• Time off and leave planning: WFM's tools and processes enable organizations to track workforces and process leave requests and approvals digitally. Through the use of automation and data analytics, organizations can use WFM to manage and track vacation balances, paid time off (PTO), absences, absence schedules, conflict schedule and cumulative time. Benefits of Workforce Management

Benefits of workforce management

The potential benefits of using a WFM system include improved employee productivity, better task scheduling, reduced operational costs, effective time and attendance tracking, and better customer service.

Due to these benefits, companies in industries that demand high-pressure tasks and pay their employees by the hour are increasingly turning to workforce management software to increase the overall productivity of their organization. These sectors include retail, insurance, banking, healthcare, distribution and transportation. Additional benefits of WFM

Other benefits of WFM include:

• Improve payroll efficiency by automating time-consuming and often complex processes and tasks.
• Employers get a better understanding of employee engagement, attendance, and productivity, allowing them to tailor training, coaching, and processes for maximum performance.
• Reduce and optimize labor costs.
• Automation, instant access and simplified reporting for work-related data to improve HR productivity and reduce administration costs.
• Increased employee productivity through fewer absences and late arrivals.
• Reduce the risk of non-compliance with local, state and federal labor laws.
• Increased operational agility so companies can easily deploy people with the right skills at the right time as production schedules and market demands change.
• Improved employee morale through increased transparency and informed communication between managers and employees.

Human Resource Management Software

Companies typically use WFM software, a desktop or mobile program that helps with workforce planning, either as part of an integrated human resource management suite or as a standalone program.

Workforce management software often integrates with third-party HR applications and core HR systems, which serve as central repositories for workforce data. The WFM software also offers self-service options that allow employees to request time off or check paid time off balances without having to consult with HR. This reduces paperwork and allows HR staff to focus on strategic activities.

It is important to note that WFM is not a new concept. Workforce management processes have been automated by organizations for decades to achieve better results – time and attendance tracking is one of the first processes to be automated. However, the concept has evolved significantly over the years and is now used by tech-savvy organizations and human resource departments to monitor and improve worker effectiveness and efficiency.

Recently, due to the proliferation of cloud computing and the rapid expansion of workforce analytics, there has been a significant growth in the adoption of workforce management software. and the workforce management market. According to a study published by Market Research Future, the global workforce management market is expected to reach $9 billion by the end of 2022, with IBM, Kronos, Oracle, ADP, SAP, Workday, WorkForce Software, Infor, and ClickSoftware being the main opponents. the market.

Zoom Contact Center is a contact center-as-a-service solution that helps businesses deliver fast, accurate, and highly personalized experiences to their customers. The solution combines contact center and unified communications capabilities in a single experience with the ease of use and simplicity of the Zoom platform. Zoom Contact Center supports customer service, help desk, and many other use cases across channels such as video, voice, text, and web chat.

Assembled is a support operations platform that helps businesses maintain exceptional customer experiences no matter what comes their way. Leading brands use Assembled's labor and vendor management capabilities to make optimal labor decisions, gain insight into performance and productivity, and discover new ways to respond to changing customer needs.

By combining workforce management with a contact center solution, support teams can be in the right place at the right time. With this first release, Zoom Contact Center customers have access to real-time agent status, compliance tracking, and an open API to manage critical intraday operations. In the near future, updates will include intuitive and customizable device scheduling, accurate and actionable forecasting, and robust real-time reporting. Assembled consolidates metrics from all support channels into a unified dashboard, giving WFMs a single source of information.

“Zoom Contact Center enables businesses to deliver a better customer experience by helping agents work from anywhere,” said Kentis Gopalla, director of the Zoom Phone and Contact Center ecosystem. "Combined with innovative and easy-to-use technologies like Assembled, Zoom Contact Center provides its users with essential tools to improve the agent experience and contact center performance."

"Assembled and Zoom share the spirit of creating magical products that bring joy. We are thrilled to partner with Zoom Contact Center and provide seamless integration that enables businesses to deliver the next generation of customer-centric experiences. customer,” said Ryan Wang, co-founder and CEO of Assembled.