The New Face of Workforce Management for 2015

For many companies, particularly small to medium-sized ones, workforce management software is often considered one of those “nice to have” solutions. A surprisingly large percentage of these SMB companies still engage in workforce management by spreadsheet, or even more primitive…by hand.

In the contact center, workforce management is essential to ensuring proper staffing levels so customers aren’t faced with long hold times or, conversely, too many agents are sitting around idle. While this is the function of workforce management at its most basic level, it can also be vital to remaining in compliance with a variety of regulations, according to a recent article by Sharon Florentine writing for CIO.

“With today's regulations administered not only at the national and state levels, but down to the municipal and individual union levels, new compliance requirements will shake up processes for organizations while adding another layer of complexity for national and multinational organizations, according to the Institute's predictions,”’ she wrote.

Many companies that are tasked with providing healthcare to employees under the terms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, or “Obamacare”) must do so based on the number of hours employees work. While part-time workers are exempt, it can be difficult to manually juggle the schedules of part-time employees to ensure that they aren’t working too many hours.

Another feature modern workforce management can offer to companies is the ability to create a better work/life balance. As the Baby Boomer generation retired in large numbers, they are being replaced by workers from Generation-X in executive positions and Millennials in more entry-level work. Research has shown that Millennials, in particular, are more aware of quality of life issues when it comes to work than older workers were. In order to retain these employees, companies will  need to ensure they are offering more flexible scheduling.

Florentine, who spoke with Kronos’ (News - Alert) Workforce Institute to identify trends in workforce management, noted that talent retention and career development will be key in 2015 as organizations train new managers while working to simultaneously shrink the skills gap and hold onto the knowledge assets of a retiring workforce.

A third critical benefit that modern workforce management will provide is the ability to run complex analytics on workforce management processes in order to spot trends, correct problems before they occur and make better use of existing assets.

“Most organizations were drowning in data in 2014, but few unlocked the secret to analytical success, according to the Workforce Institute,” wrote Florentine. “However, organizations that have lagged behind will take notice of successful big data best practices from previous years and begin to apply them, while workforce management tools will deliver analytics for evidence-based decision making in 2015.”

Workforce management today is about so much more than filling out a schedule. Increasingly, those who use a “DIY” approach are likely to get left behind.