Workforce management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Workforce Management (WFM) encompasses all the responsibilities for maintaining a productive and happy workforce. Sometimes referred to as HRMS systems, or even the larger ERP systems (ADP, Terrasoft,Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, IFS, Reflexis, WorkPlace Systems, Kaba, Kronos, RedPrairie). There are many software vendors within this space. In addition, there are niche players who specialize in one or two areas of practice (e.g. InVision Software, Authoria, Open Wave or Perbit). Specifically, these areas may include:
- Restaurant and Retail
- Payroll & Benefits
- HR Administration
- Time & Attendance
- Career & Succession Planning
- Talent Management and/or Applicant Tracking
- Learning Management and/or Training Management
- Performance Management
- Forecasting and Scheduling
- Workforce tracking and Emergency assist
A Workforce Management solution can also refer to software that optimally plans and dispatches field service technicians and their properly stocked vehicles to a customer's location in a timely manner in order to deliver on their service commitments. Components include:
- Demand Management - forecast work orders to help plan the number and skills of technicians that will be needed
- Workforce Scheduler - uses predefined rules to automatically optimize the schedule and use of resources (people, parts, vehicles)
- Workforce Dispatcher - automatically assigns work orders within predefined zones to particular technicians
- Mobile Solutions - Mobility allow dispatchers and technicians to communicate in real time
[edit] Definition
In some markets and industries such as call centres or retail, workforce management is all about assigning the right employees with the right skills to the right job at the right time. For a more detailed definition, the term must be differentiated from traditional staff scheduling. Staff scheduling is rooted to time management and encompasses the mere administration of past and future working times. However, during the last ten to fifteen years, this traditional approach has evolved towards an integrated, demand-oriented workforce management which, under economic aspects, also includes changes in personnel requirements and objectives when optimising the scheduling of staff. Besides the two core aspects of demand-orientation and optimisation, workforce management, in a holistic approach, also incorporates the forecast of the workload and the required staff, the integration of employees into the scheduling process, the management of working times and accounts as well as analysing and monitoring the entire process.
The market for workforce management (WFM) is still quite young: In the eighties and nineties, entrepreneurs mainly focused on topics like SCM (Supply Chain Management) or PPS (Production Planning Systems) and, in recent years, on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture). In the context of boosted cost pressure, managers increasingly turned towards HR issues. In all personnel-intensive working areas throughout the world, workforce management has become an important strategic element in corporate management. According to a study of SRH University of Applied Sciences Heidelberg, workforce management is an increasingly important issue for three-fourth of the decision-makers of the top 1,000 companies in Germany – with an upward trend. But only about one third of these companies actually use an appropriate software solution. Industry analysts such as AMR Research and DMG Consulting assume that this market will experience dynamic growth in the years to come. Companies offering software solutions in this field include InVision Software, Aspect, IEX, Interflex and Open Wave.
Workforce management solutions can be deployed enterprise-wide. While special software is commonly used in numerous areas such as ERP, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and HR (Human Resources) management, the management of the workforce often is still handled by using spreadsheet programs or time recording. This often results in expensive overtime, non-productive idle times, high fluctuation rates, poor customer service and sales potentials going to waste. By using a software solution for demand-oriented workforce management, planners can optimise staffing by creating schedules that at all times conform as closely as possible to the actual requirement. At the same time, a WFM solution helps users to observe all relevant legislation, local agreements and the contracts of individual employees – including work-life balance guidelines.
Initially, the demand has to be identified and made measurable by key data. To achieve this, workforce management systems analyse historical data, e.g. the number and duration of customer contacts, sales figures, check-out transactions or orders to be handled. To draw the demand forecast not only upon automatically recorded data but to integrate individual planning experiences as well, many workforce management systems offer manual adjustment capabilities. The calculated forecast values are converted into actual staffing requirements by means of an algorithm that is adjusted to the particular use case.
Current and future staffing requirements, short-term peak loads, availabilities, holidays, budget allowances, skills, labour law-related restrictions, as well as wage and contractual terms have to be integrated into the planning process to guarantee optimal staff deployment. In the workforce management process, the integration of employees is an important factor of motivation. In several WFM systems, employees can log in their availability or planned absences and they can bid for specific shifts unless they have the necessary skills for the activities planned for these shifts. Experience shows that professional workforce management systems realistically fulfil more than 80 percent of employees’ shift requests. Here, various optimisation procedures guarantee the best possible synthesis of optimised staff schedules and employee requests.
The more flexible the working time models and the more complex the staff scheduling becomes, the higher are the requirements for a correct time management. As time recording and accounting of working times are closely connected to scheduling, the integration of time management into the entire process is the logical consequence. Using workforce management systems, working times are booked exactly to the required time accounts and made available for payroll accounting by means of automated processes.
Moreover, many software solutions offer a number of options for evaluating the planning in real-time enabling short-term reactions to deviations of the forecasted demand or expected over- or understaffing: Control functions enable a permanent adaptation of the scheduled staff to the actual requirements, i.e. the optimisation process allows for manual data adjustment, e.g. in case of short-term fluctuations in demand or unscheduled employee absences.
[edit] References
AMR Research, 2006: The Human Capital Management Applications Report, 2005–2010
DMG Consulting: 2009 Contact Center Workforce Management Market Report
