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Workforce Management: Definition, System, Software, Courses & Jobs

Hello people, I hope you all are having a great time. Let us start our discussion with a simple question, how you keep a track of your progress be it daily, monthly, or yearly? Or how your professor for fluid dynamics or any other course keep you on your toes throughout the semester? Definitely by keeping a proper schedule and record or maybe by tracking your progress through an app or anything manual! Have you ever thought about how big companies keep themselves on track? How they manage a huge network of employees by keeping in check their progress individually? Or how the day-to-day or hourly tasks are assigned and kept under check daily for every employee of the company? All these things are done through workforce management. Today, we will be discussing this process of Workforce Management through and through. Let us define Workforce first:

Definition of Workforce

Workforce can be defined as:

• "People duly engaged for performing specific tasks for a company or an individual, through a formal or informal setting are referred as the workforce of that particular individual or company."

You are very well aware of the meaning of workforce, it is time to get back on track and dive into the sea of workforce management.

Definition of Workforce Management

So, we define workforce management as;

• "Workforce management refers to the collection of different processes which keep the performance and progress of employees associated with the organization under check."

Informally, we can say that workforce management is the process through which a company keeps its employees on its toes, calculating every second of their time on the scale of progress! Oops!

Alternate Names for Workforce Management

There are a few alternate names for the workforce management system, I'm listing the possible ones below:

• Workforce Asset Management WAM
• Enterprise Resource Planning ERP
• Human Resource Management System HRM

Moving forward, Have you ever heard, seen, or experienced how established companies like Genesys, Amazon Cloud Services manage their employees or any famously known big company or a small one manages its workforce? let me tell you about Genesys for an overview, They do it through their custom made software specially tailored to keep an eye on the performance and progress of their employees, despite the fact that its employees have to move far away to the sites for installation and other stuff, but still, their system is developed enough to take care of everything.

Ever heard of UKG? Ultimate Kronos Group? Do you know what they do? They provide top-notch workforce management solutions to their clients who are looking for a better way to manage their businesses, Yes! It's a business too. And a highly profitable one, you’ll get to know this later in this article, keep reading!

Workforce Management System

The Workforce Management system is the amalgamation of several processes which keep the workforce or you may say employees of a company under check. That check may be associated with the attendance, performance, and progress of the employees and several other things which are deemed necessary for the well-being of the company.

Importance of Workforce Management

Let us first see why workforce management is important. There are a lot of advantages of workforce management, we will be discussing a few important ones in this section;

First things first, the benefits of workforce management can be summarized in three Rs.

• Right person for the job.
• Right time for the task.
• Right place for the task and the person performing the job.

These three Rs help the company to grow and achieve more.

• Workforce management helps you know the real-time situation of your company i.e. the real ground situation and help you devise a ground strategy accordingly.
• Workforce management results in the maximum use of resources without being heavy on the budget, because the right task is being assigned to the right person so it would lower the hiring cost without compromising the quality and standards of work.
• Companies that lay emphasis on the workforce management have a higher number of happy employees which means they perform well, when your employees are happy their services would ultimately lead to a better experience for your clients as well, leading to the overall growth of the company.

Basics of Workforce Management

There are a few things that are necessary to be taken care of for workforce management. I'm going to list all of them here;

• Data Collection
• Analyzing the workload
• Analyzing your staff
• Staff scheduling
• Analyzing daily performance

Now we will discuss the above-mentioned points in detail.

Data collection

• A record of everything i.e. every task from start to the end is necessary, for example, you are a huge bakery that bakes hundreds of cakes on daily basis, wouldn't it be important to calculate the timing for baking, assembling, and frosting the cake?
• It would help in the following ways;
• In order to make a better estimate of workload, you have at your place no matter how big or small it is or no matter what's the size of the task.
• To divide and assign the tasks in a better way and to schedule them properly.
• Hiring new people whenever needed, divides the workload.

Analyzing the workload

• When you are well aware of the workload at hand, you manage it better, I think we all know this! Don't we?
• For workforce management, it is a necessary prerequisite to know what awaits you in the future and manage it beforehand or at least develop a strategy to cope up.

Analyzing Staff Requirement

• The number of people who are working to get a certain job done must be ample enough to do it easily, accurately, and in time.
• Let's suppose, you have been assigned to write a manuscript of ten thousand words in a day, would it be humanly possible for you to do that in a day? No, it won't be! So, whose fault is this? Obviously, the one who has assigned you the task which is beyond your ability is at fault!
• So, in workforce management, it is necessary to divide the workload among your employees evenly and humanly, if employees are scarce make a room for more to get things done in time with accuracy.

Staff scheduling

• Staff scheduling is a very important thing when it comes to workforce management.
• Scheduling can help you assign tasks in a better way to an employee who can perform a particular task in an efficient way.
• Take an example of the above-mentioned bakery, you would assign frosting to the baker who frosts in time with accuracy meanwhile the person who assembles and decorates well would be scheduled to do that particular task.
• When we schedule our tasks, it helps up know our workforce in a better way, pointing out who is better for a specific task and who isn't!

Analyzing daily performance

• If you are able to assess the daily performance of your workforce, it would help you achieve your milestones in a more organized manner.
• For this purpose set the following criteria for assessment;
• Are the employees really efficiently doing their indicated designated task?
• Is your workforce really achieving the milestones as a team?
• Are the new additions in your team really an asset to the company?
• Are the older employees up to date enough to cope up with the modern times and trends?

Processes and Departments Involved in the Workforce Management System

Let us have a look at the processes involved in a better workforce management one by one;

Human resource management HRM

• There would be hardly anyone on earth who has searched for a job and still doesn't know about the human resource department. The human resource department helps in managing the workforce of the company through and through.
• From scheduling to assigning and paying employees, they are involved in everything.

Real-time Data Collection

• As we have discussed earlier, real-time data collection is important for the workforce management it helps analyze the performance of the employees on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
• This process is carried out easily through different analytical tools provided by the workforce management software, previously it was done through spreadsheets but now the world has changed its ways!

Performance Management System

• Performance Management makes sure that the performance of the workforce is aligning well with the milestones and long-term goals of the company.
• The outdated practices are replaced, based on low performance with the modern techniques and trends.

Training Management System

• Training management is the process of keeping your workforce up to date with modern trends and technology through proper modules and workshops.

Scheduling and Forecasting

• Scheduling refers to the planning and optimization of the tasks designated to the workforce and hence forecasting is the process of analyzing the future workload of the company on the currently available workforces to manage it efficiently.

Field Service Management

• Field service management refers to the management of off-site and on-site resources such as transportation for machinery and technical staff to the site and delivery of top-notch services to the client on-site.

Budgeting and Financing

• Allocating funds for the projects and employees is one of the most crucial processes in workforce management and needs to be done vigilantly to prevent any loss in terms of talent and resources.

Time Tracking and Attendance

• This is one of the most crucial systems for workforce management, it keeps a track of working hours, off time, paid time off, shift swaps and availability of the employees.
• There are countless available options which can used for developing the time tracking and attendance system of the company, you will get to know a lot of them in our next section about Workforce Management Software

Workforce Management Software

As we are done with the basics of workforce management, the processes and departments involved, let us discuss the software involved in the process of workforce management, the days when everything was done manually are long gone, we live in a modernized society where everything is automated to reduce time and labor cost, workforce management is one of those things as well.

Types of Workforce Management Software

Workforce management software is of different types such as;

• Time and attendance software to track the working hours of the employees.
• Software for absence and leave management of employees.
• Workforce analytics software to keep the check on the performance of employees.
• Workforce scheduling and tasking software to manage workflow.
• Payroll management software to pay according to the working hours and shifts of the employees.

Modern Workforce management software is a combination of one or more above-mentioned software, most of the available options can be tweaked according to the company's demand and culture. We will discuss the qualities and peculiar features of many available options for workforce management system in the market, in this section.

Criteria for Developing a Workforce Management Software

In order to qualify as a proper workforce management software, there is a certain criterion that must be fulfilled by that certain software either it is cloud-based software or web-based software. Let us have a look at the points which are absolutely necessary for this purpose;

• The software must allow the administrators to schedule work for employees, their leave requests, and paid time off.
• The software should be able to develop contingency plans without any delays in the system.
• The software must be able to report labor activities and produce analytics accordingly.
• There must be no technical glitches in tracking the employees' attendance and productivity through the provided app or system.
• The software must allow the users to forecast labor demands.

Famous Software for Workforce Management

So, the above-mentioned points must be kept in mind while developing and buying a software for workforce management, although there are countless available options in the market for this purpose but we will only discuss a few famously known and used ones, or we can say the ones which stood the trials and tests of time are being mentioned below,

ADP Workforce Now

• The first entry on the list of workforce management software is the ADP workforce Now software, it is an all-in-one software based on a single database.
• ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based software which has the features of human resource management, talent management, payroll management, and time and labor management among many available features.
• It is extremely easy to use and above all, it is configurable as well i.e. you can tweak it according to your needs by contacting the service provider.
• ADP Workforce Now also helps in the management of taxation and other legal formalities without any hassle.
• There is an option of advertising the vacancies in the company to hire the new talent, hiring made easy!
• The cloud-based HR system provided by the ADP workforce Now reduces the paperwork with online document storage and helps develop a better workflow in the company.

Ceridian Dayforce

• Ceridian Dayforce is a Human Capital Management HCM company which provides modern HR solutions.
• Their motto is to "Make Work-Life Better" by providing top-notch business solutions for human capital management to their clients.
• Their software provides a user-friendly solution to the complex HR operational processes to the companies which are loved by their employees.

ADP, LLC

• ADP, LLC is the human resource management software and service which automates the HR Management, tasking and scheduling for small and big businesses.
• Alongside HR management it also manages payroll and taxation of the companies using ADP, LLC services.
• ADP, LLC helps companies achieve productivity at lesser costs and lesser employees to do a task, with best available tools for tasking and scheduling and then analyzing employee’s performance.
• It's a cloud-based software with an efficient mobile app to connect employees at a single platform, reducing paperwork and making hassle-free communication possible.

Paycom

• ADP, LLC, and Paycom are often compared with each other, but the main difference lies within the fact that Paycom is used by big companies i.e. Enterprise level companies meanwhile ADP, LLC is used by small or medium-sized businesses.
• Paycom is a cloud-based solution for HR management and Payroll management.
• Paycom being cloud-based also has a user-friendly mobile app to connect the employees of the company using it, each employee has its own user id and login pin.

Workday

• Workday is also a workforce management software provider which is particularly focused on developing a better Human Resource management solution and Finance management solution for its users.
• It is a cloud-based software that provides a personal id to each and every employee of the company using it, the employee can enter and alter personal information such as emergency contact and address, and employees can also view their work schedules, off time, paid time off and can print the details as well.
• You can download the workday app easily from the play store if you are an employee of the company using it.

Rippling

• Rippling is also a famous workforce management software that helps manages the HR, IT, and Payroll of their client's company.
• Rippling works by collecting and managing the data of employees and the company all in one place on its cloud based system.
• It performs fully automated functions with a single click without any paperwork, easy! Isn't it?

UKG Workforce Central

• UKG Workforce Central is one of the most famously known software for workforce management.
• It was previously known as Kronos workforce central.
• UKG Workforce Central helps in scheduling, attendance, absence management, and a lot of other things associated with this section of managing the working hours of the employees.
• UKG Workforce Central organizes the entire workforce of a company on a single cloud-based software.
• UKG Workforce Central claims that its service is mobile, secure, and efficient.

Deputy

• Deputy is one of that workforce management software, which have received rave reviews from its users.
• It is a web-based solution for workforce management.
• Deputy makes it easier for its clients to manage payroll, scheduling, timesheets any tasking easier with a single click.

APS Core HR Solution

• As the name indicates it is almost clear what does APS Core HR Solution provides to its users?
• It provides HR and payroll solutions.
• It helps automate the complex processes of HR management without any disturbance in the workflow.
• APS Core HR Solution helps process the payroll in hours which is itself an unmatched ability of workforce management software.

EPAY HCM

• EPAY HCM helps in human capital management.
• It considerably reduces the cost of HR management for the company by automation of the workflow.
• EPAY HCM takes responsibility for new recruitments in the company, time and attendance, payroll management, and taxation.
• EPAY HCM also provides its customer support throughout the clock in case of any system failure.
• It provides a highly user-friendly experience to the employees for better workforce management.

Namely

• This workforce management software provides a seamless solution for Payroll management, HR, and Benefits platforms.
• Namely provides an HR software tailored according to the needs of the company using it and above all, it is cloud based and user friendly.

PayloCity

• PayloCity is a very well reputed software that provides customized software for workforce management to its clients.
• It is responsible for HR management, Payroll, and benefits.
• PayloCity is extremely client-oriented and user-friendly which paves a way for better automation of day-to-day tasks.
• You can save a lot of time by using PayloCity for workforce management without having to do a lot of paperwork.

Bamboo HR

• Bamboo HR is a SaaS company which means Software as a service.
• It is usually a preferred choice for companies which are having a larger system or workflow. On the parallel lines, Bamboo HR is used by small businesses as well which are on the road to progress because it is not that much costly.
• Bamboo HR is a cloud-based software and above all, it is fairly reasonable or you may say affordable.
• The Mobile app for Bamboo HR is easy to use and has personalized information stored for each employee in the company. You can easily manage everything with a single click.

Enterprise e TIME

• Enterprise e TIME helps the big and small companies to automate their system.
• They provide help with talent management and analytics along with these two, Enterprise e TIME is also responsible for Payroll management.

Planday

• Planday is an employee scheduling solution, you can easily manage a shift-based business with this platform.
• Planday takes responsibility for scheduling, shift swaps, payroll management, and working hour management of the employees.
• Planday is a web-based system.
• The most amazing feature of Planday is that it is fully integrated employee communication system which enables the authorities to text or email an employee within its designated portal.

Zoomshift

• Zoomshift is a cloud-based software which is responsible for scheduling and tasking.
• You can easily manage and publish work schedules through this software for your employees to check and comply.
• Zoomshift takes responsibility for managing overtime, availability, working hours, and shift conflicts of the employees.
• One of the most amazing features of Zoomshift is sending notifications to employees when a new schedule has been uploaded or an older one has been updated.

When I work

• When I work is an app-based workforce management software.
• It helps in scheduling, payroll, time tracking, and communication for businesses which hire hourly employees.
• When I work can be integrated with the payroll provider of the company and you can pay your employees according to their working hours, without any hassle and with a single click.
• It also manages the scheduling of the employees according to their availability and is amazing in managing shift swaps as well.

Paycor

• Paycor is a human capital management platform that pays attention to the strategic goals of the company.
• It is a core HR solution that provides everything in a single place with a single click without the hassle of switching between different platforms.
• Paycor analytics is one of the most powerful systems available in the market providing enterprise-level insights to the small businesses.

Hireology

• If you are looking for workforce management software that can be used to hire people easily and efficiently then hierology is your best bet.
• Hireology hires the best available team required for your day-to-day tasks according to the culture of your company.

Intradiem

• Intradiem is an AI-powered system that provides solutions for the automation of customer service teams.
• Intradiem manages the call centers with a huge influx of data as they can't manage it on their own efficiently.
• It can effectively determine and manage the activity of every employee in the call center.

So, this last entry concludes our list of software available in the market for workforce management, finally! As I told you earlier there are countless other options as well, but it is another story for another day!

Pricing of Workforce Management Software

Let us talk about the pricing of this software for workforce management, pricing varies from company to company and totally depends on the nature of the contract between the two parties, by two parties I mean the service provider and the company which is buying the service from them, sometimes a third party is also involved in the process which adds to additional costs. Cost is calculated by adding in all the on-site and off-site expenses and charges for using cloud based system. The service provider can charge per user price or it may charge according to the amount of data that is to be handled.

Let us move to the next section of our discussion which involves the detailed account of courses you can get yourself enrolled in if you want to be an efficient workforce manager.

Courses for Workforce Management

Now it's time to know how you can learn workforce management. Read the following section to explore your options.

• Up till now, there is no specific degree particular to workforce management, meanwhile, a separate degree for workforce management is not essentially important too if you want to pursue it as your career, Bachelor's in human resource, finance, and other fields related to social sciences would be enough for this purpose when topped with available online course related to workforce management.
• Workforce management can easily be learned through online available courses present on educational sites such as Udemy, Coursera, and many others.
• Some of these courses are free meanwhile some of them are paid, the cost of each one varies according to the site from which you opt to buy one!
• One of the famously known courses involves the call center school workforce management online courses, it is a paid course available on their website. You can complete the whole course in six months by having video lectures, written notes, and a self-assessment kit provided by them. The call center school has thoroughly explained the whole process of workforce management, its challenges, and everything you need to know and learn about workforce management.
• Icmi Bootcamp is also an available online course for workforce management, you can learn the whole process through different modules dedicated to each step required to learn the workforce management. I'm listing the modules included in this course;
• Workforce management
• Statistics and Excel
• Forecasting
• Long-term staffing
• Weekly staffing and scheduling
• Real-time management
• Report and Data administration

Pricing varies for every intake of their Virtual classroom, it's a four-day-long course and for the rest of the information you can check out their website.

• Oracle workforce management, cloud training, and certification is another important name in the available online course for workforce management. There are several certifications available on their website, you can get yourself the one you think suits you the best.
• Some of the available options include;
• Benchmark portal workforce management certification
• Strategic workforce planning SWP certification
• Society of workforce planning professionals SWWP
• Call center workforce management Bootcamp
• All the above-mentioned online resources are paid and prices vary from course to course, let me be honest, if you are really into something invest in your choice if you have chosen the workforce management as your career path you should take the course keeping up with your pocket.
• No doubt some of the available resources are free as well but they are only basic ones i.e. you would only be able to cover the basic aspects of the job, you can't get full fledge workforce manager or workforce analyst training for free at all!
• I hope this section has cleared everything about the courses available in the market which can help you learn workforce management, now, we will be moving towards the last section of our discussion which involves the jobs related to the workforce management. Let's get started,

Workforce Management Jobs

Talking about jobs related to workforce management, there are two important roles which include;

• Workforce manager
• Workforce Analyst

We will be discussing both the roles in this section one by one.

Workforce Manager

• We talked about the system and courses related to workforce management, role of a workforce manager revolves around that i.e. keeping a check on the performance of employees, tasking, and scheduling and lot of other stuff.
• It is one of the key roles of a workforce Manager to keep the track of employees' performance and assign them due tasks according to their utmost capabilities. In simple words, assign them the task they are best at!
• A workforce Manager must have a problem-solving approach with a higher emotional quotient because it is easy to lose your calm at the end of the day, as everyone is coming with their due problems you need to solve. I would recommend a reading for this, if you have got enough time, read a book titled Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, it would help you understand how the best workforce manager keeps calm and navigate through his or her day to day work routine.
• The most important of all the things at which a workforce manager must be efficient is tasking and scheduling, timing and the right move is everything in terms of business if you really want to excel! Isn't it?
• A workforce manager is in charge of the overall workflow of the company, the processes that are going on, and their relevant things.
• A workforce manager also takes care of the culture and policies of the company i.e. is everything aligned with the goal and vision of the company or not?
• Workforce manager is responsible for the milestones set for production, if the company is achieving them efficiently or not? If not, then what are the key factors that hindering the growth of the company?
• Good Communication is the key to a better workflow, for this purpose workforce manager is responsible for carrying out meetings with the head of departments and teams involved in the processes to keep everything going or we may say running on the road to progress and success.
• Workforce manager is an important entity that checks the viability and feasibility of a project when the company has to sign any contract with a second or third party.
• The workforce manager must be picky enough to pick the right one for the right job as it falls under the duties of the workforce manager to appoint team heads for the day-to-day tasks of the company.
• Now you must be thinking about how much a workforce manager earns after performing all these jobs? According to an estimate, a workforce manager earns up to $75000 a year.
• It not necessary that the workforce manager would perform all these duties alone, instead, the workforce managers work in collaboration with their team and higher authorities to perform all these duties.

Workforce Analyst

We will now talk about the role of a workforce analyst.

• As the name suggests, workforce analyst works closely with implementation and analysis.
• Workforce Analyst is responsible for gathering real-time information about the procedures going on in the company and implement ways to improve the situation.
• Problem-solving especially the technical ones is also an important job of the Workforce Analyst, gathering information on everything related to the problem and steps to alleviate the situation.
• Workforce Analyst must be aware of the modern trends and requirements of the market and should be confident enough to implement them when needed.
• Workforce Analyst also works closely with the technical teams to assess the requirements for the pieces of equipment required in the off-site and on-site work.
• The most important of all Workforce Analyst is responsible to keep in check the finances of the ongoing projects if they are going well with the budget of the project or there is a need to improve the situation.
• Replacing the outdated practices and trends also falls under the responsibility of Workforce Analyst, important decisions make a brighter future for the companies meanwhile sticking to the old practices yield nothing but loss.
• Workforce Analyst works closely in monitoring the changes implemented in the company to undo a change or make amendments in a decision if it is not working in favor of the company.
• Workforce management jobs are available remotely as well, it is not necessary for a workforce analyst to work from the office they often work on contract on an hourly basis or virtually from anywhere in the world.

I hope this section has cleared everything you need to know about the workforce management jobs, both these roles were a sort of workforce management job description either be it office-based or remote, these roles are the same almost everywhere despite the type of company you are being hired in i.e. either it’s the call center workforce management job or a hospital workforce management job, the roles would only differ according to the culture of your organization.

So, it's a wrap for today! That was all about workforce management and everything you need to know about it, I hope you have learned something new from this discussion, in my opinion learning something new is not a difficult task at all, the most difficult of all is to unlearn the things and concepts that aren't right. I really hope to see you with another discussion real soon, for any suggestions or feedback either positive or negative you can use the comment section below. Have a good day ahead!