8 Reasons to Invest in Workforce Management Software in 2024

Workforce Management Software empowers businesses to create efficient and flexible employee schedules. By implementing a Workforce Management System, you can match employee skills with specific tasks, reduce overtime costs, and ensure adequate staffing levels during peak hours. This brings numerous benefits to the business such as time saved and a reduction in costs.

When evaluating solutions, it’s important to ensure that you purchase a system that also provides an app for smart devices so employees can feed into this process by stating preferences, swapping shifts, and applying for leave at a time that suits them. This is proven to increase morale and engagement across businesses.

Workforce Management Software automates Time and Attendance Tracking, minimizing errors and ensuring accurate payroll processing. This is a powerful tool that is easy to use and helps both leadership and employees keep an accurate record of hours worked.

A major pain in tracking time and attendance manually is having to thrall through huge amounts of paper-based records to answer queries as they arise – having a cloud-based automated system eliminates this and allows full audit trails at the click of a button. One Softworks client stated that by implementing a Time and Attendance system, they eliminated payroll queries by 90%!

Having an accurate source of historical and current data is really important for organizations to make data-driven decisions. Real-time monitoring feature of Workforce Management Software is another vital aspect of staying on top of your workforce activities and also to future-proof your business by anticipating demand and levels of staffing needs.

It lets you track employee performance, identify bottlenecks, and quickly make informed decisions. Real-time insights are invaluable as they allow teams to solve problems before they arise by identifying scheduling gaps, eliminating cost creep due to unnecessary overtime and time theft, and keeping employees engaged and informed.

We are living in an age of enhanced data privacy. More people are becoming aware of their rights under the various data protection regulations globally. Putting employees in the driver’s seat and allowing them to see exactly what data is being held on their personal records and allowing them to update it as and when needed greatly improves their trust in their employers.

Employee Self-Service tools allow employees to record their working hours, check their schedules, request leave, and view those balances. Employees don’t have to wait for an available slot with their Manager or HR partner to check in and see how many hours they’ve worked, what leave they are entitled to, and what the balance of those leaves is.

This greatly improves not only employee engagement but also work-life balance – which is vital not only for your employees but also when that annual pulse survey time comes around!

In this post-COVID (the only time we’ll mention it throughout this post!) world, there is a profound change in how people work. Commutes have gone from hours to seconds as spare bedrooms globally were transformed into working offices. While remote working offers many benefits, it also raises the question of its impact on employee engagement and productivity.

We’ve seen again and again with our clients that by providing a scalable and functional Workforce Management system, employees can access the employee self-service app and interact with time tracking exactly as they would if they were in the office.

Our client base is stretched across the US, Canada, and Europe so we know firsthand how huge the number of regulations that exist today is. Overall, they are similar with endless numbers of nuances. Navigating these is a challenge for any business – even if you’re just operating in one jurisdiction, legal exposure is a credible risk if you’re not adhering to these regulations.

Having a set of rules-driven workflows developed by industry experts offers comfort that you are meeting the requirements scoped out in your system. A workforce management system is the backbone of any compliance aspect of an organization.

With workforce management, you can ensure that your organization is saving money. By automating repetitive tasks, reducing overtime, and minimizing errors in scheduling and payroll, businesses can realize significant cost savings quite quickly.

In an EY QUEST paper from December 2022, after a vast survey, they calculated that the number of errors across time and attendance, time off, and leave requests were 1,860 per 1000 employees resulting in costs of over $400,000. The errors stem from frequent time & attendance and expense tracking errors, missing and incorrect time punches, and failing to update shift availability. These three issues were in the top five issues of cost creep overall.

As your business grows, so do its workforce management needs. Investing in a scalable workforce management solution ensures that the software can adapt to the changing size and requirements of your organization.

Future-proofing your business with a solution that can evolve alongside your organization and partnering with the right provider can make that process so much easier. This ensures that resources are aligned with business needs, preventing over-hiring or underutilization of staff.

2024 sees Workforce Management Software as a key enabler for businesses seeking to optimize their operations, enhance employee satisfaction, and stay competitive. By investing in these tools, businesses can unlock new levels of efficiency, productivity, and success. Embrace the future of workforce management and propel your business towards sustained growth and prosperity.

Softworks has over three decades of experience and is embedded in organizations all over the world. If the time is right in your journey then get in touch with us today!