Having a great workforce management system in place is crucial to running an efficient operation. This article will cover just a few things that can help you on your journey to building a workforce management system that you can be proud of. Let’s start at the beginning; when someone first gets the job.

1. The hiring process On average these days, it can take about 25 business days to hire someone to fill an empty spot and at companies that have more than 5,000 workers, the hire time goes up to 58.1 business days. The simple answer to this is to outsource the process. Find someone else to do this part for you, so your HR representatives can get back to the tasks they need to be working on. This may seem like an added expense to the budget but if you look at all the extra time you are paying your employees to find someone suitable to fill a position whether it be extra days or overtime or both, you probably will not spend much more outsourcing the job and taking the added burden off of your employees.
2. Payroll Achieving the productivity you want in your payroll system marries the payment with technology and law and accounting. Having the correct software is the first step. Workforce management software starts with the payroll software. Other simple ideas to implement are things like making sure the policies of the company are simple and easy to understand and follow, using direct deposit and electronic pay stubs, establish and follow a payroll calendar and lastly, outsource. It is very common to outsource payroll to make it easier and more doable to process it properly, accurately and within good timing. Doing these simple things could drop your payroll expenses to somewhere between 15% to 30%.
3. Outsourcing Now, that outsourcing has been mentioned twice, it deserves it’s own point. Using a contingent workforce like independent contractors or freelancers that only works when there is work to do can save companies a lot of money.
4. Schedule optimization This is a complicated area because schedules are something that are subject to change. However, if you could use a system whereby you also have a time frame of how much time can be lost if could eliminate a lot of wasted time.
5. Plan to be flexible It’s harder to do this than it sounds. Plans change. That is the reality of business but if you can set your workforce management system around the idea that change is okay, even good, then you have got a solid plan that can work. Keep this kind of workforce planning point in the forefront of your mind and life will be much easier for you.