Workforce Management at Heart of Organizational Transformation

Once upon a time, “workforce management” was as simple as a time clock, and a lot of manual tabulation by a manager. While keeping track of the hours worked by employees is still an integral part of workforce management, it’s about so much more, and it can DO so much more for companies of all sizes. For starters, it can allow organizations to precisely match their labor needs to their labor resources to avoid both overstaffing and understaffing. This saves money while ensuring quality doesn’t suffer.

“While labor is the most expensive line item it is also the most stable and easily managed when you have the right tools and the right strategy in place,” wrote Kronos’ Linda Misegadis for the government business publication Governing.

For this reason, workforce management should be at the core of any organizational transformation, and it’s the beginning of a host of positive processes, including performance management, workforce management automation, quality monitoring and budgeting. It can also have a positive affect on interpersonal relationships between employees, and relationships between managers and employees.

“In my personal experience, not having the proper systems in place to effectively manage your workforce is the root of many performance issues,” wrote Misegadis. “While we like to think about fairness and equity, to truly have this you must know what your employees are spending their time doing. Other employees are watching what their co-workers are doing and improper management can create a culture of distrust and can impact employee engagement and morale.”

While Misegadis writes about the public sector, the same principles apply in the private sector, particularly in contact centers. A properly designed workforce management system should be at the heart of contact center operations to ensure efficiency, cost savings and high-quality customer support. Having the breadth and depth of “good data” a workforce management solution provides means managers can more effectively plan, schedule, forecast, make changes on the fly as necessary, and analyze operations after-the-fact.

“A manager must have the tools at their fingertips to be able to properly, efficiently and effectively manage their employees,” wrote Misegadis.

Edited by Maurice Nagle

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