Written by: Erica Niesse
Now that you’ve made your personal resolutions for this year, it is time for your company to make Workforce Management technology resolutions. Is your current solution meeting your company’s needs? If unsure, ask yourself these questions:
- Is your time tracking system behind the times or are you still manually entering your employees time on paper?
- Are you spending hours or days each week consolidating spreadsheets or validating employee’s time entry and pay?
2016 could be the right time to revamp your current solution or adopt a Workforce Management (WFM) solution if you answered yes to any of these questions.
I suggest to start exploring your Workforce Management options. There are many companies in the marketplace that offer a wide variety of solutions, including scheduling, absence tracking, attendance, fatigue management, time tracking automation, and much more. It is best to understand what each company offers and make an informed decision that will help solve your time and attendance struggles.
- Resolution 1: Streamlining your existing processes
It is always a good idea to evaluate your current solution whether you need to implement a new system or you already have a Workforce Management system. I have seen many companies set-up complex configurations for a small group of employees. This is often needed due to cumbersome union agreements or pay rules.
Other times, these types of set-ups are due to users that are opposed to changes within their current processes. I suggest to ask the following questions to identify any broken processes: What group is this complex configuration for? How many people are within this group? Is this configured for the employees to abide by company/state/federal guidelines or for other reasons possibly related to Change Management? Could we simplify the complexity of the setup for this group or possibly lump these employees into another group?
- Resolution 2: Getting up to speed on current technology
Each year Workforce Management vendors spend a large part of their development costs on updating their current systems and expanding the reach of their technology. This includes everything from mobile platforms, “real time” solutions (time tracking, scheduling) to geographical location technology. I suggest to continue to get updates from vendors and what they are doing today as well as what they are doing in the future.
- Resolution 3: Spend less time on mundane tasks
How much time a week do your administrators spend trying to reconcile employees’ time, reviewing reports from different systems and verifying that payroll is correct for processing? If your Administrators and Managers are spending multiple hours (if not days) on these tasks, then it is time to review your WFM options. Real time tracking and reporting can assist you with doing these tasks more efficiently and can you save a lot of time!
- Resolution 4: Getting your staff up to speed on existing processes
How long has it been since your staff has been trained on your current time and attendance processes? Are new hires trained on these existing processes? It might be time for a refresher training if it has been awhile since your staff has been trained. Start with taking an inventory of what processes your staff is having difficulty learning, or a list of system features that they don’t understand. From there your company can put together a plan for retraining all necessary staff while focusing mainly on the problem areas.
Choosing a WFM system is often a difficult task. Using a consulting firm like HRchitect to assist you with the Strategic Planning, and Evaluation and Selection will result in a HCM solution which is the best fit for your organization and requirements. As a vendor neutral company, we will work with your organization on developing a strategic plan and evaluating the multitude of vendors available, and how they work with the rest of your HCM technology. By having a strong foundation to your technology selection, you will have a better opportunity to get the system adoption you had hoped and achieve your return on investment.
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