Workforce management solution: questions and metrics you should be utilising

Why are so many different businesses turning to workforce management solutions? The simple answer is that these solutions enhance business productivity, efficiency, and profitability across multiple industries. One industry that is seeing a fundamental shift in the use of these solutions is the cleaning services sector.

Within this sector, workforce management solutions are being utilised to drive competitiveness as well as redefine operations and the scheduling process. We examine the benefits of these types of solutions and the metrics used to measure their success below.

What is a Workforce Management Solution? 

A workforce management (WFM) solution often utilises technologies that enhance and integrate processes aimed at optimising employee productivity. This involves forecasting labour requirements and creating and managing staff schedules to ensure that daily or hour-to-hour tasks are completed efficiently and within the timeframe scheduled. 

Many businesses within this particular industry have struggled to find a way to maximise labour efficiency and scheduling. This is a process that takes up a lot of time and resources. When not managed effectively through a workforce management system, this can end up costing your business. 

Driven by digital transformation within this space, workforce management solutions have evolved. They are utilising  WFM software technology that has been specifically designed to address the challenges related to maximising operational efficiency, enhancing work schedules, automating processes, ensuring compliance to regulations, managing customer experience, tracking employee performance and more. 

This new technology not only assists with human resource management but also has the added benefit of enabling you to determine the exact number of employees required to complete a job. This workload visibility can reduce overtime rates and under and overstaffing on projects, which in turn saves you resources, time, and money. 

Workforce Management Solutions Questions You Should Be Asking

From the above, it is clear that WFM solutions can have many benefits for you as an operations manager, your cleaning services business and workplace. To find the right solution for your needs, you need to ask several questions to help you identify essential metrics that your WFM system should cover. These questions include: 

1. What are our most significant challenges as a business? Are these challenges related to administrative efficiency, compliance, customer satisfaction, absenteeism, productivity, employee engagement or something else?
2. Are we meeting our business targets? 
3. How are our employees performing? Are there any trends or issues that need to be addressed? 
4. What factors are affecting our staffing costs the most? 
5. Is our business seeing a profit, and if not, what contributes to a lack of profit? 
6. Is our scheduling process working as efficiently as possible and do we have streamlined processes? 
7. Do our employees communicate and interact with us by sharing issues/problems that may contribute to their ability to do their jobs? 
8. Is our scheduling process positively impacting our HR department and HR managers by integrating into our payroll software?

Workforce Management Solutions Metrics You Need to Be Using 

By answering the questions mentioned above, you will be able to identify essential metrics and elements that could be affecting your business, its growth, and its efficiency. These metrics are also crucial when implementing a workforce management platform to address all of your unique business needs and compliance risks. These include: 

• Staffing levels –to efficiently plan and execute your jobs, you need to measure labour costs against hours worked and employee time. This will provide you with insight related to overstaffing, understaffing, overtime and more. 
• Schedule changes – your workforce management solution should effectively enable you to efficiently schedule shifts and work hours in a calendar, with no human error and minimal schedule changes.
• Time – you need to measure the time spent on tasks and jobs, especially those related to scheduling. Your software solution should automatically assist with this and allow you to track your time and where it is used. If the bulk of your time is still being spent on rostering, there is a problem. Your workforce management solution should increase productivity, not increase complexity. 

• Employee engagement and collaboration – your workforce management solution should allow your employees to communicate their shift availability and when they can work. This not only enhances employee engagement and allows your team to plan more effectively, but it positively impacts customer satisfaction as well. 
• Staff turnover – staff turnover and talent management are challenges that many businesses within the cleaning services industry have to manage with regards to workforce planning. Through the implementation of a workforce management system, you can measure turnover and identify trends related to this and find solutions. 
• Forecast and budget accuracy – forecasting and budgeting are essential to effective business planning. These analytics allow you to predict different patterns and trends relating to seasonal changes, expenses, admin issues, staffing requirements and more. Your workforce management solution should have reporting capabilities that enhance this process.

Conclusion 

The features above answer all the critical workforce management questions you need to ask and the metrics you should be utilising to ensure business success. As an operations manager, the EasyRoster workforce management software solution will enable you to streamline your workflows, enhance operational efficiency and your bottom line. This solution will also allow you to manage timesheets, improve employee engagement, enhance performance management, maximise labour productivity, minimise labour costs, and more. Book a demo today for more on how this solution works and how it can be implemented into your cleaning services business.