Workforce Management Featured Article
The Hidden Benefits of Workforce Management: Task Automation
Most contact centers have been using some method of workforce management for decades. In the beginning, it was pencils and graph paper. Later, companies began using spreadsheet systems like Lotus and Excel. In the 1990s, companies began adopting workforce management software that was custom designed to track historical data and use it to forecast schedules, allowing companies to sure they had enough people on the phones to meet service levels.
More and more business functions outside the contact center are finding value in workforce management solutions. Factory floors and production lines, inside and outside sales teams, social media monitoring and back-office operations have all found value in scheduling and forecasting.
In the contact center, the benefits of workforce management are usually sold as better historical data analysis, more information-rich forecasting and automated adjustments of schedules to account for unforeseen events. But another benefit that can save companies significant time and money is the simple fact that workforce management increasingly automates tasks that would otherwise use up a lot of manpower, according to a recent article by George Hillston, writing for the Web site TweakYourBiz.com.
“Automating processes previously performed manually cuts down on time and errors,” writes Hillston. “Functions such as attendance, absences, and other tasks can be completed on a self-serve basis, saving time and paperwork for both managers and employees. HR and payroll information can be accessed right away, instead of having to navigate a complicated, timely process for answers to simple questions. Fewer payroll errors are made, saving the company the costs associated with researching and correcting mistakes.”
Contact center managers once spent a large portion of their day juggling time off requests, vacation requests and schedule adjustments when workers called in sick. They were the go-to people when employees wanted to find out how much sick time or vacation time they had left, or simply to discover what an employee’s shift would be next week. Managers were also expected to settle disputes regarding whose time off or vacation was a priority, and they were often accused of favoritism by disgruntled employees.
Today’s workforce management solutions allow for automated vacation requests that can be granted based on a number of factors, including seniority or performance. Employees can view their schedules themselves, bid for overtime and even trade schedules with other employees. This takes a lot of the manual tasks out of the hands of managers, who are then free to do their real jobs. Employees appreciate the function because it’s more transparent and more fair, and provides them with some control over their schedules.
Companies using modern workforce management solutions today are finding that not only are they building better and more accurate schedules, they are eliminating laborious but unprofitable tasks from managers’ and supervisors’ daily duties.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi