The Current State of Workforce Management Solutions

While traditional workforce management solutions were heavily dependent on existing data and age-old practises, the need of the hour is a solution that offers comprehensive features, like real-time scheduling, AI-enabled forecasting, and mobile accessibility.

These solutions streamline administrative tasks and enable data-driven decision-making, fostering greater efficiency and productivity.

Organisations also want to partner with companies that offer easy adoption and reduce the time-to-value of subscribing to a particular solution. This renders old solutions ineffective as they take much time to install and are often associated with long learning curves.

The Benefits of Modern Workforce Management Solutions

Below are 7 key benefits of workforce management tools.

1. Understanding sociocultural dynamics

A workforce management tool like WorkAxle is trained using advanced analytics and AI-driven algorithms to understand the language, cultural norms, generational differences, traditions, religious holidays, and social dynamics within a specific location, country, or workplace.

For example, when it comes to the Middle East, WorkAxle supports the Arabic language, allows for dynamic prayer breaks and auto-adjusts employee time cards, and supports facial recognition with hijab to honour cultural and religious traditions.

By leveraging this information, scheduling, training, and communication strategies can be accommodated to suit various cultural backgrounds and preferences.

2. AI-based demand forecasting

Are your employees overburdened? Or are you facing difficulty managing your staffing needs? This calls for a modern workforce solution that helps with AI-based demand forecasting.

Through sophisticated machine learning algorithms, these solutions analyse vast datasets to identify patterns and correlations, enabling organisations to anticipate fluctuations in demand with greater precision. Moreover, these algorithms' real-time updates and continuous learning capabilities allow for agile adjustments, ensuring alignment with current market conditions.

WorkAxle also allows you to factor in your business performance and schedules to anticipate staffing needs. This results in improved resource allocation, customer satisfaction, and business profitability.

3. Access to intelligent scheduling

These solutions allow you to see what your entire team is working on and their weekly schedule. They also provide different views to build or modify your schedules at a shift or individual employee level.

WorkAxle’s predictive guidelines ensure you stay legally compliant while building these schedules. Moreover, you can set rules easily to customise schedules based on different variables and switch employees to different shifts, when needed.

The tool also identifies the right talent to make informed scheduling decisions based on skills, certifications, and employee availability.

4. Beacons to reduce time theft

Beacons are small Bluetooth devices that automatically log employee arrivals and departures, eliminating manual clocking discrepancies. They are usually deployed in workplaces to combat time theft by tracking employees' physical presence in specific locations.

These beacons are integrated with workforce management systems like WorkAxle. Employers can ensure accurate timekeeping through geofencing and proximity detection, preventing unauthorised breaks or extended absences.

Real-time alerts notify managers of irregularities, enabling prompt intervention. By enhancing accountability and transparency, beacons boost productivity and streamline payroll processes, ultimately contributing to a more efficient and equitable work environment.

5. Manage leave and absence

Modern workforce management solutions can track and manage employee absences and leaves of all types. Whether you have 10,000 employees or hundreds working in different locations, these solutions help comply with legal requirements, company policies, and collective bargaining agreements.

WorkAxle provides self-service portals where employees can take control of their schedules with leave, time off, and shift change requests. Managers can then review, approve, or deny these requests based on pre-defined policies.

These solutions also automate accrual calculations, ensuring accurate tracking of leave balances and entitlements. Real-time dashboards and notifications inform employees and managers of leave statuses, reducing confusion and administrative overhead.

6. Increase efficiency and reduce costs

Small things like managing schedules efficiently, reducing time theft, and inculcating sociocultural dynamics into your way of working can lead to major cost savings in the long run.

Advanced algorithms ensure optimal staffing levels leading to cutting unnecessary labour expenses. Compliance features prevent costly penalties and legal issues. Overall, these solutions empower organisations to make data-driven decisions, maximising efficiency while minimising expenses.

7. Strengthen your community

Instead of having your files stored in data silos or having to use multiple communication tools, a workforce solution provides an in-built messaging tool that allows your employees to meet, call, and chat.

Document sharing also becomes possible, and you can set rule-based permissions to allow selective access to confidential documents. This helps everyone stay on the same page and allows your team to stay connected wherever they are.

Workforce Management Case study: How a Retail Pharmacy Group Saved 31% on Employee Wages?

One of the largest pharmaceutical and medical groups in the Middle East, with around 25,000 employees and mobile workers in around 1400 locations, came to WorkAxle with a unique problem.

They wanted to allow and track prayer times and detect time theft. Earlier, they used Oracle, multiple apps, and paper systems to track everything. But this process was complex and they found they needed a better system in place.

To develop that, one vendor said they’d require two and a half years. WorkAxle did that in just five months.

The result? 31% cost savings on employee wages, 74% time savings in timecard management, and 10% reduction in employee turnover.

If you want to gain similar results by adopting a modern workforce management solution, you can count on Optko to make a seamless transition with WorkAxle WFM solutions. Schedule a call with us today.