Workforce Management Blog

http://www.manufacturing.net/Articles-The-Benefits-Of-Automating-Workforce-Management.aspx

As the global market continues to become more fast-paced and competitive, companies across all industries are trying to control costs and meet their budget requirements without it affecting their ability to deliver quality products and services to their customers.

In the manufacturing industry, companies struggle to improve the management of their workforce through optimized scheduling and eliminating unnecessary costs in order to improve productivity, and ultimately improve their bottom line.

Reducing Costs

Recent studies show that human error associated with manually processing employee timecards can account for 1.5-8% of the company’s annual payroll costs. On top of that, another 2-5% of annual payroll costs can be contributed from buddy punching – the practice of an employee punching in the timecard on behalf of another employee who is arriving late, leaving early, or absent from work that day.

On average, it takes payroll administrators 5 minutes to manually process employee timecards. Now in a manufacturing company with 100 employees, that can translate up to 8 hours spent on processing payroll.

By automating your time and attendance system and implementing biometric terminals, unnecessary costs associated with human error and time theft can be eliminated, and the administrative workload can be reduced – saving organizations thousands, or even millions of dollars every year.

Controlling Costs

With a comprehensive workforce management solution, managers are provided with a better overview and stronger control of their workforce.

Time and attendance systems allow companies to accurately track employee work hours, eliminating increases in payment associated with rounding. Coupled with the ability to apply the appropriate rates and agreements to each employee’s shift, both managers and employees can be with confident in the accuracy of their wage payments.

Workforce management solutions assign work in a more cost-effective manner. By creating optimized schedules based on available attendance, absence balances, and monthly limits, workforce management systems have the ability to reduce overtime and outsourcing costs. Rules-based solutions governing legislative, union and contractual agreements assure that payments will be made according to employee schedules, preventing unnecessary payments of overtime due to unauthorized early arrivals and late departures.

Improved Productivity

Combined with the appropriate scheduling and absence management software, WFM solutions can further improve the way you do business by building optimized schedules to maximize employee productivity. WFM solutions help manufacturing organizations ensure they have the right people, with the right skills and certifications, doing the right jobs, for each shift. Managers are also given a complete picture of employee absences so they can plan scheduling employees accordingly, based on operational needs to prevent understaffing.

The ability to track labour costs to identify if a task is profitable is essential. Time Costing systems help manufacturing companies collect, analyze, and calculate work hours by task/project for costing purposes to determine whether a product is profitable. Workforce management solutions help Manufacturers easily identify if the cost of the product is consistent with the investment in it, and if there are any suspicions of a loss, companies can take immediate corrective action.

Making the Change

Every organization is different. Manufacturing companies looking to automate their workforce management solutions need to find the right solution to meet the specific needs of their organizations. The ultimate goal of implementing a workforce management solution is to enable your company to cost effectively allocate employee time by optimizing scheduling and time and attendance management. With the right workforce management solution, organizations can control labor costs, minimize compliance risks, and mostly importantly, improve workforce productivity.

For more information on WFM systems please visit our website

Although many see workforce management as an HR-specific task, effectively monitoring employees benefits the entire organization.

In today’s busier-than-ever business world, company processes are becoming increasingly intertwined. This has led to barriers between departments breaking down, and much more communication between different levels of management and even between managers and employees. Communication should definitely be encouraged throughout an organization, but executives should ensure that above all, the information spread across the company is accurate. This need to have a steady flow of the same information across the company calls for automation of processes, to ensure accuracy and make data easily accessible.

In order to simplify workforce management, there are various systems available. These solutions have a number of functions, including time costing, monitoring employee hours, absence planning, business intelligence & analysis of the workforce, and scheduling. Holistic workforce management solutions include and can integrate with time and attendance modules, as well as payroll systems.

Overall, without good workforce management, a company will suffer as a whole. An organization’s most important resource is their people, and steps should be taken to ensure that this asset is optimized. The return on investment from installing a WFM solution can be huge; the cost savings can be put towards other parts of the business.

For more information on Automating your organization’s workforce visit our website

Implementing an effective and fully-functioning workforce management system is a project that takes time, effort and quite the budget. Using a WFM solution provides organizations with many benefits, including increased control and reduced costs. However, many companies struggle with their WFM projects going over budget – whether this means a time delay, or the project costing more than anticipated.

Listed below are some important things to keep in mind when planning to invest in a WFM system.

When deciding how to build a customized workforce management solution, make sure to:

1. Find the right provider: ensure that the company you are buying from can provide an industry specific and customizable system
2. Be careful with customization: using methods in the system that are uncommon can lead to glitches; you may want to steer away from any complex ideas altogether
3. Consider integration: ensure that the system can be integrated with payroll and other HR systems that the company already has in place

Here’s what you should consider when developing a timeline for the project:

1. Time needed for communication: costly projects like this usually require approval from upper management, who may take time to analyze the decision
2. The complexity of the system: the more complicated the system, the more time it will take to be trained and fully understand its use
3. End-user adoption: the system cannot be integrated in the company fully until the end-users are comfortable with it

Here are some other suggestions:

1. Choose the project team wisely: make sure that the people being trained on the system are the ones who will be using it, or are capable of training others on it
2. Avoid false expectations: ensure that the company and the provider are on the same page in terms of requirements (this will allow for a more honest cost and timeline estimate)
3. Research, Research, Research: find out more information on pricing and timelines  by talking with partners, consultants, and other companies in your industry or individuals you know who have overseen the implementation of a WFM solution in the past

Aside from the technical aspect, it is important to:

1. Align the system with company objectives: for example, if your company strives for employee satisfaction, don’t use the system to implement shorter break times and reduced tolerance for absences; this will ultimately lead to decreased worker morale
2. Examine current processes and policies: automation helps with organization, but if the policy itself is hard to follow, it should be reassessed as a whole
3. Be realistic: don’t think that your company will be “the exception”; if similar companies in parallel industries have had problems with implementing a WFM solution, address these potential conflicts and find ways to prevent them from occurring
4. Be patient: don’t rush the project, as it will undermine the potential benefits

The potential benefits of implementing a workforce management solution are huge – centralized information, faster communication across levels of the organization, decreased costs, and increased control. However, it is a large investment, and should be thought through accordingly. By taking into consideration the advice mentioned above, your company will have a solid project plan, ultimately leading to an accurate time and budget estimate.

Visit our website to find out more about workforce management systems, and how the above mentioned practices can be considered when choosing a solution for your company!

So the time has finally arrived, and you are starting to look for different solutions to automate your workforce management practices at your organization. Now do you need time and attendance, absence planning, workforce planning, scheduling, or business intelligence tools? Where do you begin?

The first step in determining the right solution is taking a look at how your organization is currently tracking and monitoring your employee’s time and attendance. Construct a list of “must-haves” and certain pain points with your current system. You want to make sure that the system you choose can automate the things that are most important and eliminate those pain points to make your job easier.

Now that you have determined what you need the system to do, is the system fully customizable? Or is it an out of the box solution that has a few variables that can be changed? Don’t get me wrong, out of the box time and attendance solutions are great with their low price tag and if you are only interested in tracking employees punching in and out. But if you are looking to do more, most likely there will be several functions that are missing.

This is why customized demos are so important. There is no such thing as a one size fits all solution for time and attendance. Organizations handle their time and attendance operations differently everywhere. Identifying your must-haves and pain points are key for the demo to be successful, so you can make sure that the system you choose is fully customizable and has the capabilities you need.

Lastly, do some research on the service provider. How are their implementation and technical support teams? Are they seasoned and quality professionals? Or when you call for help, are you getting a call centre that doubles up as a pizza delivery order desk?

Implementing a workforce management solution is a big investment. Take the time to do your research and look at different options; ensure you are getting the highest return on investment, and you are completely comfortable with the system before signing on the dotted line.

Visit our website to find out more about customized time and attendance systems. Follow us on Twitter and join our Linkedin group for updates on workforce management solutions.

Over many years, companies have struggled to define attendance issues within an organization. Having to deal with excessive absenteeism on a daily basis has become a great burden for organizations all around. With the use of automated Time and Attendance systems companies are now able to define and track absenteeism. Now companies are able to track their organizations absenteeism on a day to day basis to help them manage attendance more effectively within a large organization. Automation also enables companies to define attendance issues and provide qualitative information with quantitative data through the use of statistical reporting.

Managing attendance within a large or geographically-widespread organization:

The first step in gaining control of an organization’s workforce is being able to effectively manage attendance within a large or geographically-widespread organization. Company policies and procedures are put into place to provide a fair and positive workplace environment. In order to achieve a productive workforce, management must take into consideration the organizations operational needs, to ensure that they have the right number of people with the right skills, when managing employee attendance. The ability to track labour hours and labour cost allows an organization to determine how much manpower is required at all operational times to have the company operating efficiently. Time and Labour Management software can calculate absence accruals and report on an ongoing basis, while taking into consideration company policies. Absence Planning software takes the occupational needs, as well as company policy and seamlessly allows a company to know at all times their scheduled attendance and absences.

Whether you are a large organization, or a company with multiple locations around the world, monitoring your workforce can be very difficult. Now with the evolution of today’s technology, Time and Attendance software is moving through these barriers and allowing open communication between employees and management.  By being able to operate through the use of the internet or a company’s internal intranet, managing attendance within a larger or geographically wide-spread organization is now possible.

With Absence Planning software, it makes managing your absences easy. Employees simply log onto the software and request an absence and then an email will be sent to their supervisor for approval. Before giving final approval, managers can quickly see if their departmental or classification occupational requirements will be staffed to the appropriate efficient levels, with the absence of that employee. Taking into consideration the company’s policies, Absence Planning software also notifies managers if the employee has enough time in their absence current or forecasted balance before approving the request. Visual warnings of being understaffed or a negative employee accrual balance will appear making the decision to approve a request a very simple task.

Absence Planning Software allows a company to be able to view past information by seeing actual versus planned attendance on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily view. To find out more about Absence Planning and automated Time & Attendance, visit our website.

Follow us on Twitter and join our Linkedin group for updates on Time & Attendance and the associated modules, including Absence Planning.