What does your workforce management system need to be able to do?

Regardless of the size of your organization, maintaining accurate employee attendance records is crucial – and not only because it is required by the law! The costs associated with the workforce are generally the largest expense incurred by a business, so workforce management is more than just about compliance; it is also about supporting your business’ bottom line. Therefore, choosing the right type of workforce management system for your organization is critical. If you opt for the wrong system for your organization, you could end up spending more time and resources than you would normally need to.

On that note, here are five key tasks that an efficient workforce management system should be able to help you with.

1.      Plan and schedule your resources based on the task, project or job - With a simple drag-drop facility, you should be able to effectively manage hundreds of projects, milestones, deadlines, tasks and jobs with no trouble.

2.      Manage planned and unplanned tasks, leaves, and vacations - The resource scheduling software should help you manage all planned and unplanned tasks including leaves, vacations, On-duty leaves, etc.

3.      Manage task requests from team leads and managers - The resource scheduling tools should create a simple workflow for project managers to quickly send their requests to the resource managers and assign suitable tasks to different resources.

4.      Track various metrics like time, billing costs, and variance – There should be a timesheet software integration to help identify the gap between the estimated time, cost, and billing amount to that of the actual output.

5.      Maximize the efficiency and output of your resources - When all the data and reports of your resources are neatly summarized and presented in graphical forms, you get a clear understanding of how you can organize and utilize your business resources in a much better way.

In conclusion, when implementing the ‘right’ workforce management system, you would be under the impression that there may be some user resistance to change. But the ease of use and a friendly interface will eliminate this complication altogether. A good system is easy to use and will undeniably streamline your business processes (by increasing employee productivity and reducing administrative time while noticeably improving your billing cycle). In essence, an efficient workforce management system will assist you in your long-term planning and decision-making.