What is Workforce Management (WfM)?

I am often asked, What is Workforce Management (WFM)?

Well in my opinion, It is a crucial set of skills, expertise, processes and technologies that organisations use to optimise their workforce. It's about ensuring you have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. Whilst ensuring that the output is as efficient and cost effective as possible. Ensuring continuous improvement whilst analysing and adjusting to achieve maximum optimisation and efficiency.

Core Components of WfM:

• Strategy:

  • An effective WFM strategy requires precise forecasting, planning / scheduling, and real-time management. Accurate forecasting involves predicting demand to ensure proper staffing levels, while scheduling ensures the right mix of employees are available to meet this demand.

  • Business objectives and growth plans need to be considered at this point to ensure they are factored into the strategy.

  • A robust and up to date set of policies and processes need to be agreed at this point. This ensures consistent planning and delivery from all staff.

• Forecasting:

  • Predicting future workload and staffing needs based on historical data, trends, organisational strategy and objectives as well as other factors.

• Planning / Scheduling:

  • Planning and Creating employee schedules that align with forecasted demand, while considering employee availability and skills. Ensuring this is optimised to get the most efficient, cost-effective use of the workforce.

  • Flexible scheduling is a key component of Workforce Management (WFM) that allows organisations to create work schedules that accommodate both the needs of the business and the preferences of employees. This approach involves planning and creating employee schedules that align with forecasted demand while considering employee availability and skills. By offering flexible scheduling, organisations can ensure that they have the right mix of employees available to meet demand, which helps to optimise efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

• Time and Attendance Tracking:

  • Monitoring employee work hours, including clock-ins, clock-outs, and

  • breaks. This is a critical piece of information to feed the activities above.

  • Feeding Planned v Actual and reflecting on Actuals.

  • Ensuring automated, accurate Digital Timesheets are processed.

  • Controlling Spend and reducing Overtime and external costs.

• Absence Management:

  • Tracking and managing employee leave, such as holidays, sick days, and other absences. A & U data needs to be dissected and absorbed to ensure that it reflects Actual data.

• Compliance:

  • Ensuring adherence to employment laws and regulations related to working hours, overtime, and other employment practices. Also considering future laws and regulations that will have an impact to change the decision-making process today. (i.e. Make Work Pay – Employment Rights Bill)

  • This needs to be reflected in a realistic, up to date training plan that highlights gaps in skills and plans for upskilling and succession planning.

• Analytics and Reporting:

  • Analysing workforce data to identify trends, measure performance, and make informed decisions. A&U data needs intensive scrutiny and analysing to ensure it feeds back into the continuous improvement cycle.

  • This also creates the visualisation of business KPI’s.

Key Benefits:

• Increased Productivity:

  • Optimising staffing levels and schedules to maximise efficiency.

• Reduced Employment Costs:

  • Minimising overstaffing and overtime expenses.

• Optimising Establishments.

  • Reducing external dependencies (Agencies etc).

• Improved Employee Satisfaction:

  • Providing flexible scheduling and empowering employees with self-service tools. This approach allows employees to have more control over their work hours, which can lead to increased job satisfaction and reduced stress.

  • Providing quality work-life balance and ensuring employees have quality time off.

  • Providing visualisation of all relevant data.

• Enhanced Compliance:

  • Reducing the risk of legal penalties by ensuring adherence to employment laws.

  • Have the right skills available to utilise.

  • Ensuring the welfare of employees including fatigue management.

• Better Decision-Making:

  • Providing data-driven insights to inform workforce planning and management.

  • Better visualisation of company objectives and goals.

  • Fact based, data-driven decision making.

The Role of Technology:

WFM software plays a vital role in automating and streamlining workforce management processes. These solutions often include features such as:

• Automated scheduling.

• Real-time time tracking.

• Digital timesheets.

• Mobile access for employees and managers.

• Advanced analytics and reporting.

• KPI Dashboards and Monitoring.

• Automated / Assisted authorisations and workflows.

• Payroll data files.

In today's evolving work environment Workforce management is becoming increasingly complex, with the rise of remote work, contingent workers, and the gig economy. WFM solutions are adapting to these changes by providing tools for managing diverse workforces and flexible work arrangements.

However, having a the right mix of an SME and Technology is absolutely essential to ensure the output has been sensed checked and has an expert to critique, adjust and continuously configure, together with technology to speed up the execution, report on demand and provide and visualise the data it holds.

In essence, workforce management is about strategically managing your most valuable asset: Your People.