To survive in an ever-changing environment such as digital transformation and unexpected crises, agility and flexibility are essential for businesses. This is where Workforce Management (WFM) comes in – the key to success.
WFM includes all processes to optimize personnel planning and deployment planning to increase productivity. From performance management to HR analytics, it aims to give companies a decisive competitive advantage.
Discover in our article how WFM can help you stand out in a highly competitive market and achieve your business goals.
What is Workforce Management?
Workforce Management (WFM) is a strategic approach to effectively managing a company’s workforce to ensure that the right people with the right skills are deployed in the right place at the right time to achieve business goals. It covers various aspects of personnel planning, management and optimization.
What is the goal of WFM?
Workforce Management aims to ensure that the right talents can do their work:
- At the right time,
- In the right number,
- In the right place,
- with the appropriate tasks and
- Available resources
Effective workforce management helps increase employee productivity and satisfaction, reduce operating costs and improve service quality. In short, processes can be designed more effectively and costs are controlled. Often, the use of special software supports workforce management and helps to automate workflows, manage data and make informed decisions in resource planning.
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What are the key elements of workforce management?
Effective workforce management includes essential elements for optimal use of human resources. The demand forecast analyzes historical data, trends, and business requirements to predict future staffing needs. On this basis, personnel planning and assignment takes place, in which employees are assigned according to their abilities and availability. Deployment planning and optimization aims to design work schedules efficiently and minimize idle times.
Performance monitoring and management ensure that employees meet the expected standards and provide feedback and incentives to improve. Time recording and management support payroll and compliance with working time regulations. Finally, shift and holiday planning ensures a smooth operation and promotes a balanced work-life balance.
The analysis of historical data, trends and business requirements to predict future workforce needs. This includes forecasting workload, demand for products or services, and other factors that affect workload.
Assigning employees to specific tasks, shifts, projects or locations based on projected needs, employee skills, availability and preferences.
Fine-tune deployment plans to maximize efficiency, for example by minimizing idle times, optimizing workflows, and taking into account working time laws and regulations.
Monitoring employee performance to ensure they meet expected standards and providing feedback, training or incentives to improve performance.
Tracking employee hours, breaks, overtime and absences to support payroll, working time arrangements and regulatory compliance.
Planning working hours, shifts and holidays to ensure operations run smoothly and employees have a work-life balance.
Workforce Management vs. Personnel planning – where is the difference?
Workforce management and personnel planning are closely related concepts in human resources management. However, while workforce planning is primarily focused on filling jobs, workforce management includes a holistic approach. It includes not only recruitment, but also the analysis, planning and management of employees based on the company’s goals and needs. In this way, Workforce Management helps maximize the efficiency and productivity of the workforce and achieve the strategic goals of the company.
How Workforce Management Works
There are several models for the successful implementation of workforce management. A common feature is the continuous cycle from preparatory analyses to planning and control to the recording of working time, accompanied by permanent controlling. Effective workforce management is characterized by the seamless integration of these process steps, which are interlocking and not isolated.
A possible process chain for workforce management includes the following steps:
- Optimizing the personnel structure for teams, departments and operations.
- Identifying the required employees
- Determination of time, duration, location and qualification
- Identification of relevant variables for personnel needs
- Distribution of these variables over different periods of time
- Consideration of special effects such as marketing campaigns or seasonal fluctuations
- Determining the workload for specific tasks
- Quantitative planning to balance staffing needs and stock
- Qualitative planning to adapt employee skills to requirements
- Consideration of temporal and spatial aspects as well as seasonal peaks
- Selection of models to cover operational, revenue-oriented and service-oriented requirements
- Taking into account the needs of employees
- Recording and calculating working hours and overtime
- Review of forecasts
- Evaluation of the effectiveness of measures taken
- Identification of optimization needs
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How can I successfully implement Workforce Management?
Workforce Management is critical to preparing for the future. With comprehensive workforce management software, companies can seamlessly integrate all HR processes – from recruitment to time tracking.
An all-in-one software is often the best solution as Workforce Management is mainly based on data collection, analysis and evaluation. It is crucial that existing and collected data is available quickly and easily.
Finally, central processing and uniform data storage lay the foundation for precise analyses and forward-looking forecasts. This enables strategic decision-making and moves the HR department from an administrative role to a strategic partner of management. We offer these benefits to both medium-sized companies and global players to make their HR functions more efficient and effective.
Contact us for more information on our Workforce Management Software!