Question: When in business, what’s the most important factor to focus on?
* The product or service? Of course.
* Understanding the market? Definitely.
* Branding, marketing, and advertising? No doubt.
Ultimately, of course, the overriding goal is business sustainability and maximizing profits – but that’s still not the master key that unlocks every aspect and goal of whatever success you’re aiming for.
Actually, it’s all about the workforce.
That’s because, without the workplace culture, the brawn and the brains, and the effective management and prioritization of your people, that laser-focus on your customers and clients will always miss the target.
And with that said and understood, it’s impossible to overlook the transformational change that is well underway across practically every single industry. And at the steering wheel of that change? Technology.
Thankfully, the business ‘steering wheel’ of 2021 and beyond is now very much within your grasp, courtesy of a tantalizing suite of workforce management tools that were hitherto the exclusive domain of only the most powerful companies, workforces, and executives with the deepest of pockets.
For the rest of the business world, workforces have remained difficult, complex, and often overwhelming to effectively manage. Scheduling is ever-changing. Rapid workforce turnover may be built into your model. Properly tracking employee skills and metrics, staying in touch with everyone, and other human resources challenges may be shuffled down the list of priorities due to time, complexity, rigidity, and budgetary demands.
So what should you be looking for in your workforce management tools that are fit for the pace, change, and technological power of 2021 and beyond?
1. Contactless clock-in
How can workforce management begin in any other place than knowing exactly where your people are at any given moment, and what they’re up to in real time?
Trying to track it all on paper or with fully manual processes exposes you to errors and compliance issues, and eats up time and focus on mundane and unwieldy routines.
What if timesheets could be automated, clock-ins could be done remotely, and security could be ramped up with facial and even vein scanning?
2. Instant messaging
It may sound strange, but it’s often the case that the business world oddly lags behind the ‘real world’. A great example of that is the way we use instant messaging technology each and every day in our ‘normal’ lives, but stick to rigid old communication structures at work.
But your workers and managers need to be in instant touch with one another too – without having to wait for emails that might not be available on every device or sit through a face-to-face meeting that just eats up inefficiently-used time or even stop a task to pick up the phone for a moment. Instant messaging can even eliminate the need for costly travel, facilitate meetings and presentations, and the exchange of files and documents. And the very same technology can be applied to customer relations, too, with similar efficiency benefits.
3. Smart rostering
The word “rostering” can strike fear in the hearts of so many workforce managers and for a few very good reasons. First, it’s just a clumsy and extremely time-consuming task to do manually. Managing to keep your staff in the loop in real time is then the next headache, not to mention the potentially devastating effects that minor mistakes in a hugely complex system can have from a compliance point of view.
But no matter what you need it to do, there are powerful new technological solutions for rostering issues that can adapt to rapidly changing needs. Imagine arranging a highly detailed roster or schedule with no errors and in no time thanks to a drag-and-drop interface. Imagine breaking it down into micro-tasks and goals, multiple locations and events – and getting the best possible head-start with easily-customisable roster templates.
4. Digital onboarding
All workforce managers are familiar with onboarding: the process of getting all of your people – your workers and your customers – in a single place so that you can funnel that togetherness into profits and productivity. In the digital world, the process has not only become more challenging, but the potential rewards are exponentially higher – especially if it can all be customized, perfected, and automated.
So imagine for a moment a process that might currently take days or even weeks and put it all in the palm of your hand – in a single mobile app. Onboard new staff with a simple code that puts power and responsibility in their hands, whilst eliminating errors and guaranteeing tax and super compliance.
Choose workforce management tools that are fit for 2021
Yes, your workforce is a highly complex machine. But no: it doesn’t have to overwhelm you. Remember, though, that because your workforce is spectacularly unique, it will require spectacularly powerful and flexible workforce management tools that are fit not only for 2021 but far beyond in our rapidly revolutionizing world. Make sure you select the solution that’s going to do the work for you, rather than the other way around.
