The Best Workforce Management Software

Workforce management is a struggle in every industry. Whether you're running into problems maintaining employee schedules, performing accurate productivity tracking, or detecting shortfalls, the right workforce management software will be an indispensable tool in the process.

Our buyer's guide will cover:

What Is Workforce Management Software?

Workforce management software (WFM) improves employee efficiency and productivity. You can match employees to jobs that fit their skill set or qualifications, track hours worked, and monitor attendance. Workforce management software also includes human resource capabilities like payroll, recruiting, benefits management, performance reviews, and training.

WFM Software Functionalities

Benefits of WFM Software

• Reduce HR administration process time -- Your human resources department can spend less time and resources on tedious processes like payroll processing, tracking down onboarding paperwork and other important documents, and reviewing job applications with the right workforce management solution.

• Improved communication -- Workforce management software lets you communicate with your employees through real-time messaging. Improved communication and collaboration will boost performance throughout your company.

• Manage schedules from anywhere -- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are web-based, allowing you to update staff schedules and have them view it from anywhere. Your employees will easily be able to see when they need to come into work without having to physically go in to see a posted schedule. If your software solution has employee self-service portals, staff will even be able to request open shifts for overtime, ask others to trade shifts with them, or request time off & vacation online.

• Customizable scheduling -- You can schedule according to the needs of your company or industry -- schedules can be determined based on your employees' skills or positions, as well as availability. With a workforce management system, employees can even input times and dates they're unavailable if they are in school or work multiple jobs.

What Do You Need in a Software Solution?

• Small & Medium Businesses: Small businesses and medium businesses need workforce management software that takes some of the burdens off of human resource managers and automates time-consuming tasks to save your company time and money. Important functionalities to look for in WFM software include employee time & attendance tracking, payroll, and scheduling.

• Large Businesses: Automating HR processes and improving workforce management is critical for large businesses that need to manage hundreds or thousands of employees. Look for WFM software with robust features like leave management, recruiting and hiring management, benefits management, labor scheduling, attendance and time tracking, and performance review management.

Common Pain Points

• Employee engagement: Gallup surveyed over 195,600 employees in the United States and found that only 33% of U.S. workers stated they are engaged at work. 67% of employees were either not engaged or actively disengaged. Providing ongoing training, encouraging collaboration between workers, and recognizing good work are a few of the ways to improve engagement. Workforce management software can streamline ongoing training processes, allows employees to share and collaborate on projects, and analyze performance.

• Employee retention: Finding and keeping good employees is a challenge. A report by Compdata stated that workplace turnover reached an all-time high in 2018 at 19.3%. According to Gallup's survey, "Millenials: The Job-Hopping Generation", 6 in 10 millennials stated they are open to new opportunities, and only 50% of millennials plan to stay working at their current company in a year. Some ways companies improve employee retention include competitive pay and benefits, flexible schedules, and better training and onboarding. Workforce management software will assist in managing benefits, streamlining the training process, and assist with scheduling.

• Unnecessary or unplanned overtime: Excess overtime is costly for every business. This unnecessary or unplanned overtime can come from unexpected employee absences requiring other employees to work overtime to cover a shift, employees punching in and out outside of their scheduled shift hours, or unfilled positions that cause others to work overtime. Your workforce management software assists with scheduling so you can minimize the number of overtime hours employees need to work and gives you real-time visibility into when employees clock in and out, as well as when employees take unscheduled time off.

• Integration with existing accounting or payroll system: Many companies have a longstanding payroll or human resources management system. If you're planning on sticking with an existing system like QuickBooks, you'll want to find a workforce management software solution that integrates well.

Industry Trends

• Growth in the WFM market: According to a study by Market Research Future, the global workforce management market is expected to grow to $9 billion by 2022. More companies are investing in WFM software to cut down on labor costs and improve business performance. As more small and medium-sized businesses form, the acquisition of workforce management software grows as well.

• Schedule forecasting: Some WFM software solutions use data analytics to help you determine when your busy and slow times are. You'll be able to have more people working during busy times and fewer people when business is slow, so you can avoid being under or overstaffed.

• Gig economy: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10.6 million people were independent contractors, 2.6 million were on-call workers, and 933,000 worked for contract firms in May 2017. More people are switching to freelance or contractor work in a variety of industries. Companies will have to find a solution that offers remote workforce management to hire and manage freelance work as people switch from traditional in-office work.

• AI for human resources activities: Large organizations are beginning to introduce AI to cut down on overhead, especially in the HR department. According to Forbes, DBS Bank's talent acquisition team created a recruitment bot powered by AI to conduct screening of candidates for wealth planning managers. Since using the bot, the talent acquisition team at DBS was able to shorten screening time from 32 minutes to 8 minutes per candidate and increased response to 96% of all candidate queries. The chatbot is also able to answer questions from candidates. Other chatbots can be used within organizations to automate new employee paperwork and allow employees to ask for information about holidays and paydays or request vacation time.

• AT&T Workplace 2020: Large enterprises are continuing to find ways to optimize their workforce, increase employee productivity, and retain top talent for their industry to gain a competitive advantage. For example, AT&T is investing $1 billion in improving its workforce. Research found that only about 50% of the 250,000 AT&T employees were up-t-date and had the skills in technology, engineering, science, and math that was required. Instead of going through the process of finding and hiring new employees to fill in the gaps, AT&T decided to reskill their workforce. Workplace 2020 is AT&T's initiative to transform the workplace with things like open, collaborative workspaces and electronic smartboards to increase productivity.