Workforce management (WFM) software is an all-encompassing term for mobile and desktop programs that are created to support a business at managing its staff scheduling. The software began in call centers and other service businesses that have a large number of workers who are normally paid by the hour.

Helping a company gain insight to utilize business metrics, WFM software gives management the ability to better judge the number of service agents that are needed or the number of people it takes to make a product within a certain amount of time.

According to Gartner Inc., one of the top research firms, workforce management software has five main roles:

Labor scheduling:

Help administer employees’ skills and compliance requirements more effectively.

Time and work data collection:

Capture and give very detailed information about the best use of labor.

Leave management:

Process paid time-off requests with a keen understanding of the staffing and liability implications.

Task and activity management:

Provide a detailed view of labor-management requirements to help with complex decision making required for activity-based management.

Time and attendance:

Receive feedback from other modules and employ rules alongside the reported times, based on the company’s needs.

Let’s break down the benefits of using workforce management software as your company begins to experience the positives and negatives of growing.

Engaged Employees Lead to a Better Customer Experience

A national poll has shown that 51% of workers in the United States do not feel engaged. These employees cost their employers as much as $300 billion each year, according to that same poll.  Forecasting manually may mean your organization is spending too much time scheduling agents at times when they are not needed and not scheduling when they are in high demand. At the same time, it is far easier for you to over- or under-schedule your employees, which then leads to both employee disengagement and, ultimately, customer dissatisfaction.

The use of WFM software for your company has the ability to achieve the following:

• Administer work scheduling, paid time-off requests and day-to-day business happenings.
• Collect time and labor data.
• Evaluate past performance and call volume developments.
• Accurately predict staffing and scheduling demands.
• Foresee unexpected events which will help you know when to add incentives or give encouragement to your employees.
• Add labor flexibility to provide multiple scenarios that simulate future scheduling restraints.

Having accurate quantitative data that WFM software provides will help you assess and understand your employee’s satisfaction and engagement levels. This will ultimately guide you to providing a quality work environment where engaged employees will transfer this positive experience directly to your customers.

The Use of Real-Time Analytics Will Help You Predict the Future More Accurately

As WFM evolves, the next generation of this software will combine real-time, speech, and emotional analytics with agent-enabled workflow engines and computer telephony integration (CTI) applications. What this ultimately means for your business is that it will help managers stay one step ahead of developing situations.

These accurate clarifications allow managers to apply emotional or voice analytics, which can help them better understand what is happening in real-time in the call center. Also, while staying informed about the current work environment, it allows you to include a process that automatically notifies customer agents and gives them suggestions for handling high volumes or escalated customer related issues.

For example, your company has just rolled out a new product that has an unforeseen issue or glitch. The advanced WFM software will be able to detect an issue, alert management, and give up-to-the-minute feedback and advice to the customer service department so they can have ready solutions for the upset customers.

Can Workforce Management Software Help With Compliance?

Having proactive processes that address issues before they emerge, will also allow managers to ensure that the company complies with all call-recording requirements. These requirements include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), HIPAA, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). With these requirements and policies always changing, this gives you the peace of mind of avoiding potential penalties in the long-run. The newest workforce management systems guarantee your organization complies with these regulations and has records for all of the calls just in case you get a surprise audit.

Helping Your Business Launch to a New Level

Workforce Management (WFM) is a strategic asset in advancing your business goals of providing the highest-quality customer service at the best rate. In today’s need for quality customer service, interactions take on ever-evolving shapes and forms. WFM creates forecasts and schedules for agents with various skills who are handling customer and employee interactions in a variety of ways. WFM enables managers to create proposed future schedules, agents to bid on the schedules, and managers to incorporate the bids into final schedules.

Conclusion

Having the ability to maintain employee engagement and customer satisfaction will give you the opportunity to focus on the quality of the product or service that you are creating. Ultimately, it provides the needed tools to move your company to the next level. Experience continued growth and success with today’s innovative workforce management software.