Using Workforce Management Solutions to Attract, Retain, and Motivate Hourly Employees
New paper from The Workforce Institute™ provides best practices for implementing a
workforce management solution
CHELMSFORD, Mass., Dec. 2, 2008 — Organizations tend to think of their workforce management strategy as separate from their recruiting or talent management strategy. According to a new paper from The Workforce Institute™ at Kronos® Incorporated, what they don't realize is that these entities are intrinsically connected. Many organizations implement a workforce management solution — time and attendance, scheduling, and absence management — to control labor costs and improve productivity, but don't consider how these solutions can empower employees, ultimately leading to improvements in attracting and retaining their workforce.
In the paper, titled "Empowering the Hourly Workforce through Enterprise Workforce Management," author Tim Lett, a member of the board of advisors of The Workforce Institute, says the key issues that affect the job satisfaction of hourly workers are family leave, vacation, flexible hours, and shift swapping. How an organization accommodates these issues can determine whether their best employees stay and are factors that potential new employees scrutinize when considering a job offer.
"Despite the critical importance of these issues to employees, we still see many organizations managing these processes manually," said Lett, founder and managing partner of workforce management consultancy Axsium Group. "This is bad for employers because they don't have accurate insight into whether these benefits are being exercised appropriately. It's also bad for employees because cumbersome processes for things like requesting time off and shift changes create aggravation in their every day work life."
Lett argues that a workforce management solution that automates these processes empowers employees by giving them control over their schedules and other aspects of their daily life, leading to higher employee satisfaction and deeper engagement.
"One of the most interesting points of Tim's paper is that organizations often miss the boat when implementing a workforce management solution because they focus too much on increasing productivity and not enough on empowering employees," said Joyce Maroney, director of The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated. "By putting a higher priority on implementing the facets of a workforce management solution that impact employees, organizations could more easily achieve employee adoption of the solution and better manage the change associated with such implementations."
Lett's paper offers the following best practices for implementing such solutions:
- Clearly articulate business goals related to employee empowerment, including the need to improve scheduling flexibility and reduce cycle times for vacation approval and shift changes.
- Provide hard evidence and case studies to decision makers to show that the "leap of faith" on employee empowerment is worth the risk.
- Communicate employee empowerment goals, along with hard- and soft-dollar benefits, clearly and early to build company-wide support. Make achievement of employee empowerment goals an intrinsic part of performance evaluations for project sponsors, team members, and management.
To hear Tim Lett and Joyce Maroney discuss how to empower the hourly workforce through enterprise workforce management, please visit: http://www.workforceinstitute.org/put-down-the-technology-and-step-away-from-the-keyboard.htm
About the Workforce Institute
The Workforce Institute was founded by Kronos® Incorporated in 2006 as a think tank to provide research and education on critical workplace issues facing organizations around the globe. By bringing together thought leaders, the Workforce Institute is uniquely positioned to empower organizations with the knowledge and information they need to manage their workforce effectively and provide a voice for employees on important workplace issues. A hallmark of the Workforce Institute's research is balancing the needs and desires of diverse employee populations with the needs of organizations. For additional information, visit www.workforceinstitute.org.
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