Workforce Management Software

Workforce management, often shortened to simply WFM, is about managing staff schedules and services within companies. Workforce management software incorporates most software that focuses on managing and simplifying the process of scheduling staff work hours as well as managing their work and productivity.

Managing large amounts of staff members turns into a massive task for human resources teams if they have to do everything manually.

For smaller companies, monitoring work schedules, sickness, contracted hours, task completion, reduced productivity, etc. isn’t a large task and can often be performed without needing software. However, as companies grow,  managing employees without software becomes incredibly complicated and can lead to failure, loss of revenue, or reduced productivity.

What is Workforce Management Software?

Workforce management software is a collection of tools that help to manage staffing requirements to fit company needs. There are many functions that workforce management software can require.  For example, it helps to partially automate the scheduling of staff by basing schedules around project requirements and any data already collected. It can use historical data to suggest when more or less staff are required in a specific area of the business. However, this software is often quite-inclusive and covers many other aspects of managing staff.

Common features of Workforce Management Software include:

• Work schedules
• Data analysis for scheduling (adjusting to busy periods)
• Attendance
• Employee skill to job matching
• Employee tracking/monitoring

Not all software solutions will provide all features, but these are some of the more common elements of staff management that companies need to organize and control in bulk. Without an effective employee monitoring software solution, a single element could require an entire human resource department and many man-hours to manage monthly. Most importantly, workforce management software provides the data necessary to empower the company and its employees and thus improving workplace productivity.

Finding a Workforce Management Solution

An effective workforce management solution will not only allow for easier scheduling of staff but also provide the information needed by the HR department to schedule staff based on availability, productivity, job performance, and specific project needs.

By scheduling the correct amount of staff for the required work, companies can also greatly reduce their expenditure or make more profit by applying staff in more efficient ways.

Not only this, but the staff that is well managed and has the correct tools are normally happier with their workplace. We’ve mostly all experienced working with an employer who’s always calling last minute, or constantly changing schedules. Worse than that is how unhappy staff become when salaries are late, or insurance is not paid. It really isn’t acceptable from a staff member’s point of view.

Then, of course, there is the issue of being understaffed or overstaffed. While many employees like the idea of overstaffing, both can lead to employee dissatisfaction long-term. This is because employees in an overstaffed environment get bored and distracted, while those in an understaffed environment often get stressed and make mistakes.

This doesn’t even touch on your human resources team that needs to organize all of this.

However, all of the above doesn’t really work well if you don’t combine employee monitoring software with workforce management software. These systems are almost symbiotic to the wellbeing of the business. So, let’s look at how employee monitoring software works.

The Need for Employee Monitoring Software

In the past, SMEs and corporations had all of their staff in large office buildings with all of their staff coming to work every day. As remote work becomes more prevalent, there’s an additional level of complication.

Some companies now use freelancers around the world, providing cost-effective support that smaller businesses need. Other businesses use a mixture of on-site and remote staff. Then there is the issue of remote staff monitoring and tracking, as not only do schedules need to be planned, but productivity needs to be tracked and activities remotely recorded for security purposes.

Why use Employee Monitoring Software?

Workforce management software assists with scheduling, employee packages, skill matching, and other HR requirements. However, it doesn’t monitor productivity, staff actions, actual time spent on specific tasks, or for malicious staff.

Here are a few things that employee monitoring services can bring to the table:

• Reports on the productivity and focus of staff members in detail
• AI monitoring, prevention, and reporting of internal threats (such as malicious staff)
• AI behavior monitoring
• Records screen activities and can playback if needed
• Records and monitors all online activities
• Reports on staff actions, application usage, etc.
• Records all movement of files and information (emails, USBs, uploads/downloads)
• Reports usage statistics on time spent on chat apps, social media etc.
• Data breach response strategies
• Print recording
• Device location tracking
• Keylogging

With all of the above, a company can quickly see which staff are working well and reward them appropriately. With AI-driven security reports, management can use the information to move high-risk employees away from sensitive data or from the company.

A lot of this information can also be fed into a good employee management software to increase productivity and accuracy. Speaking of productivity, the simple fact that staff knows they are being monitored often deters negative actions, and yet, often staff job satisfaction increases as they can work more autonomously with management monitoring everything from a distance.

In order for a company to reach its full potential, everything needs to be managed and monitored efficiently. Without increased productivity and security, management software simply can’t be as effective. But, when combined, the results in accuracy, motivation, efficiency, and more can be truly impressive.

What is the Best Employee Monitoring Software?

If you are looking for software to monitor processes, employee activities and more, take a look at the services we provide at Veriato. We have a comprehensive range of cloud solutions to make managing and monitoring your staff easy. From comprehensive monitoring, to ransomware protection and employee investigations, we have you covered.

If businesses want to grow and be efficient, it is vital that they are organized and embrace new technologies. Our main aim is to make managing staff safer and easier for employers and to protect employees from making costly mistakes. Not only that, but many of our systems result in staff actually feeling happier in the workplace.