Unpredictable employee scheduling has become the norm in many industries. Workforce management software features help navigate today’s complex business environment by managing and tracking employees’ time.
Whether it’s retail workers, food service employees, on-call tech assistants or professionals in the 9-to-5 sector, the need to handle scheduling issues like overtime, remote work and frequent travel is universal.
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RCreating employee schedules is crucial, but proper workforce management is more than basic scheduling. The ideal workforce management features cover various HR tasks, providing an overview of workforce management solutions with tips for choosing the right one for your company.
What This Article Covers:
Key Requirements
Here are the most common workforce management features.
Read on for details on what these capabilities do to assess how they can improve your workforce management processes.
1. Employee Engagement and Collaboration
Employee engagement is promoted through workforce management features that facilitate communication, collaboration and recognition. Employee directories, internal messaging systems like group chats and team collaboration platforms enable effective communication and teamwork.
Employee engagement overview dashboard by Workday. Source
Additionally, team collaboration platforms offered by workforce management software create spaces for employees to work together, share notes, comments and annotations on various documents and better collaborate on tasks.
By leveraging your workforce management software’s collaboration features, you enhance communication, streamline teamwork and drive collaborative efforts across teams and departments.
- Activity Feed
- Employee Engagement Surveys
- Group Chats
- Notes and annotations
2. Employee Scheduling
Scheduling is a core workforce management software feature. Along with basic schedule building, the key benefit of this feature is gaining insight into your business to create the best schedule possible.
Employee scheduling by Hubstaff. Source
Use dashboards to filter scheduling information by date, location and more.
Workforce management software examines past data on performance and other factors to determine current staffing needs. This automated feature takes out the guesswork, with tools for calculating the number of employees needed for a certain project or potential staffing gaps.
- Configurable Scheduling
- Schedule Change Notification
- Color-Coded Shifts
- Auto Scheduling
3. Labor Planning and Management
Labor planning and management is a crucial aspect of workforce management that helps optimize labor resources to efficiently meet organizational goals. This feature involves strategically allocating your workforce, ensuring optimal staffing numbers equipped with the appropriate skills at the right times.
Workforce planning dashboard of Workday. Source
Workforce management software provides tools for forecasting based on historical data, industry trends and other relevant factors. Equipped with this information, you can more accurately predict staffing needs and plan employee schedules accordingly.
This feature helps minimize understaffing or overstaffing situations, reducing labor costs and maximizing productivity. It also enables managers to monitor and adjust schedules in real time, ensuring smooth operations, proper employee rewards and effective workforce utilization.
- Employee Performance Tracking
- Support Regular and Contingent Workers
- Labor Safety Tracking at the Workplace
- Labor Skills Tracking
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4. Leave and Absence Management
Leave and absence management is a key feature of workforce management software. It streamlines and helps manage employee leaves, vacations and other absences, providing a centralized platform to request time off and allow managers to review, approve or deny requests.
Absence management by Natural HR. Source
Workforce management software automates leave accrual calculations, tracks available employee balances and provides visibility into individual’s’ leave histories. It simplifies the leave request process, eliminates manual paperwork and ensures compliance with internal policies and labor regulations.
By streamlining leave management, you more effectively plan for employee absences, maintain adequate staffing levels and minimize disruptions to daily operations.
- Automated Leave Tracking
- Custom Leave Policies
- Leaves Blackout Periods
- Team Calendar View
5. Mobile Capabilities
Mobile functionality allows for seamless workforce management on the go. Mobility empowers employees and managers to stay connected and engaged, even in remote setups, enhancing organizational productivity and flexibility.
Mobile capabilities by Workday. Source
By providing mobile workforce management features, you leverage the convenience and accessibility of modern technology to improve employee engagement, streamline processes and ensure timely and accurate workforce management from anywhere, at any time.
- Goe-Fencing and GPS
- Mobile Scheduling
- Mobile Time Tracking
- Offline Access
6. Pay Management
Pay management is a core workforce management feature that automates payroll calculations, tracks time and attendance and integrates with payroll systems. It ensures accurate and efficient employee wage processing while complying with local and federal regulations and internal company policies.
Global labor cost dashboard by Workday. Source
Additionally, it provides employees self-service access to pay stubs and other important financial information, enhancing transparency and engagement.
- Automatic Pay Calculation
- Pay Classification
- Retro Pay
- Payroll Preview
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7. Platform and Compliance
Platform and compliance are essential workforce management features, providing a centralized and scalable platform for seamless HR management.
Compliance features ensure adherence to legal and regulatory requirements, minimizing risks and ensuring a compliant work environment. It includes features like automated work hours tracking, break policy enforcement, overtime limits monitoring and easily generated compliance reports.
Compliance management by Paycom. Source
Whether it’s the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) issues, or Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulations, you can set your mind at ease with the right platform and compliance features!
- ACA Compliance
- ADA Compliance
- Configurable alerts and notifications
- Custom Fields
8. Reports and Analytics
Reports and analytics functionality are vital workforce management requirements. Reports provide comprehensive insights into workforce data, enabling performance assessment and identifying areas for improvement.
Reporting and analytics by Workday. Source
Analytics capabilities go beyond reporting, leveraging advanced techniques to uncover patterns and trends, facilitating data-driven decision-making and optimizing workforce management practices.
Reports and analytics enable proactive planning, resource allocation and strategic decision-making to drive operational efficiency and improve workforce management practices, all from a handy, customizable dashboard.
- Custom Reports
- Customizable Dashboard
- Reports Scheduling and Sharing
- Prebuilt Reports
9. Time and Attendance Management
Time and attendance is a vital workforce management requirement. It automates tracking and managing employee work hours by recording clock-in/out times, breaks and attendance data.
Time and attendance dashboard by Insightful. Source
Time and attendance provides real-time visibility into employee availability, enabling managers to schedule shifts and delegate workforce resources efficiently. By automating time tracking, you reduce manual errors, improve productivity and promote fair and accurate employee compensation.
- Biometric Time Clocking Options
- Custom Attendance Policies
- Exceptions Tracking
- Group Clocking
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What Is Workforce Management Software?
Workforce management software is a suite of tools that streamlines and optimizes your workforce operations. Its key capabilities are employee scheduling, time and attendance tracking, labor forecasting, task allocation and performance management. Workforce management software enhances efficiency, reduces errors and boosts workforce productivity by automating and centralizing processes.
Think of workforce management like a well-oiled machine. The main goal of workforce management software is to guarantee your business has enough human capital to function. This involves assessing moving parts and can be tricky without proper tools. That’s why workforce management software is becoming increasingly popular.
With the right workforce management software features, it’s easy to assess your long-term business goals and ensure your team is fully prepared to reach them. These functionalities have become even more important as more businesses allow employees to work remotely, either full-time or on a flex schedule.
Transition to a Mobile Workforce
While remote work offers countless benefits, it comes with its own challenges. The mobile workforce can be tricky to manage, with employees from various locations and fewer face-to-face interactions with managers and coworkers.
However, a robust workforce management system gives managers insights into each employee’s activities through a single platform.
It all sounds great, but what does your business need? And how do you know where to start your search if it is? The best place to start is to focus inward and assess exactly what you need this software to do.
Begin Your Software Search
The realm of HR software offers countless solutions for various needs. Some, like payroll software or a learning management solution, focus on one HR task and have additional features that meet one or two other needs. Other solutions, like an HRIS, will provide modules to meet your HR needs. Workforce management solutions fall somewhere between these two categorizations.
Before you begin your search, it’s best to identify your internal pain points. Determine if workforce management software features will be able to address those needs or if you’re better off with a different type of product.
Below, we’ve listed the most popular workforce management capabilities. You can start by reviewing the list and assessing how these features can help improve your business practices.
The features you prioritize will become a requirements guide you can use when comparing vendors that make it onto your shortlist.
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Next Steps
At its core, workforce management software facilitates the tasks that allow businesses to be successful. The base functionality of these platforms involves scheduling, planning and attendance tracking.
Workforce management features that facilitate performance management provide insight into your top performers and the missing skills in your workforce. Advanced analytics tools examine trends and offer insight, leading to informed decision-making. Additional features like security and deployment ensure the system runs smoothly.
When implementing a workforce management system, it is important to determine your business’s needs and examine your current environment. It is especially true for companies with an existing human resource management system.
Many HR platforms include workforce management functionality, so understanding where you stand in established processes is the first step to choosing your requirements. To that end, our free workforce requirements template is a great place to start!
What are the top workforce management software requirements for your business? Leave a comment and let us know!