Workforce Management Featured Article
How Are These Trends Affecting Your Workforce Management?
Effectively managing the workforce can be a challenging task in any industry. Correctly matching schedules to availability of staff and demand of the organization is only half the battle; managers also have to right-fit skills according to anticipated needs. If the process falls short, customers don’t get what they need. If it’s overdone, money is wasted.
Business2Community recently posted an article on five trends that are expected to share workforce management. Interestingly, a number of different thought leaders in this space have their own ideas on what’s to come, how to improve performance now and where the biggest challenges will exist. Those who must live these tasks day in and out are likely to have the best insight. Here, we try to match the two to better understand how this space will look in 2014.
The Cloud Debate – whether or not workforce management should move to the cloud has been a debate for the masses for several years now. There are certainly pros and cons on both sides of the argument and no right answer for all. The key here is for the organization to have a strategy in place that addresses all key areas, examining how the cloud may or may not fit with that strategy.
The BYOD Trend – the idea that professionals want to “Bring Your Own Device” to the workforce is not necessarily a new trend, but it is one that is gaining much attention. The difference today is that users want to leverage their own device to access the corporate network. This is causing challenges for both IT and managers trying to leverage workforce management solutions to meet customer demands. With the right tools and enforceable policy, however, it can produce the desired results.
Big Data – for years, companies have been trying to capture data on customers, competitors, the market and more to turn into viable data they can use to generate desired results. The challenge has always been that the data is big in that there’s a lot of it. Companies have to figure out how to take this data and drill down to usable information. From a workforce perspective, the data pool can be smaller, yet still complex. Managers need to determine what information is necessary to optimize workforce management and ignore the rest.
The Mobile / Social Trend – while both elements really deserve a category of their own, they have to be incorporated together in some respects when it comes to workforce management. First, the workforce is increasingly mobile, just like consumers. Second, social media is used heavily to communicate among the consumer base. If the organization hoping to reach out to consumers isn’t leveraging social media and mobile channels, they are missing key opportunities. If they are, they need to incorporate mobile and social elements into the workforce management strategy to ensure customer care is covered and to leverage key opportunities for internal communications through these channels.
The goals within the customer service organization don’t change just because new trends present themselves as either threats or opportunities. To optimize workforce management, managers have to determine how both can impact the organization and make changes accordingly.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi