Have you ever felt like your business is not doing as well as it could be and that you could get better results and operational efficiency from your employees? For many business owners, this feeling is justified as there is always room for improvement.
But how do you even get started?
What you need is workforce optimization and when done right, it can improve your bottom line and make your employees happier. Today, we’re going to show you what it is and how to do it successfully.
What Is workforce optimization?
Workforce optimization implies business strategies that improve employee efficiency. These workforce management strategies are implemented by identifying an activity and assigning the right number of employees to complete the activity.
WFO strategies are mainly adopted by retail, financial services, and manufacturing industries. WFO is meant to improve customer experiences and provide benefits such as low operational costs, cross-functional processes, integrated technologies, and shared objectives.
Why do you need workforce optimization?
The following are some of the justifications for implementing a workforce optimization system.
Improved customer service
In any business, your customer’s level of satisfaction is equal to your level of success.
Therefore, if your customer’s level of satisfaction rises, your success rises as well.
Workforce optimization allows you to tailor your employees to the demands of your clientele throughout handling customer interactions. This involves assigning the appropriate number of employees to handle certain customer demands as well as other processes to offer extraordinary customer experiences.
Reduces non-compliance
Workforce optimization involves policies that are in line with local, state, and federal laws. Therefore, it helps you minimize the risk of non-compliance all the while doing performance management.
WFO abides by all the regulations, ordinances, and statutes like work hours, overtime, and payroll. As a result, you will avoid the problems and penalties associated with non-compliance.
Cheap labor costs
Labor is among the largest business expenses. Optimizing your workforce means you can control how your employees work and the costs of their activities. Ultimately, this affects the success of your business.
For example, you can get better agent performance from your sales team by hiring more employees at a lower price point, all without hurting the experiences for customers.
Improves employee efficiency and productivity
Keeping your team’s efficiency and employee productivity high is a daunting task. WFO makes this easier with insights and analytics on your employees’ activities on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. You can easily do quality management and ensure that everyone is performing as they should at all times.
For example, you can track your employees’ time at work and get key insights about how productive they really are and where they get stuck. This real-time WFO solution lets you spot inefficiencies easily as you have deeper insights into your employees’ workloads.
Increased visibility
Workforce optimization makes your company popular in the business landscape and also increases your visibility to the public. Your business earns the reputation of empowering its employees. A good reputation translates to traffic to your organization and higher sales or more business.
For example, with the right workforce optimization solutions, your contact center managers can see how many calls each of your contact center agents are making per day or month. And with this business intelligence, you can hire additional staff or train your contact center staff to be more efficient.
Attracts talent
Workforce optimization helps you find the most competent individuals for your team. It involves identifying the skills required for specific tasks and targeting top talent to work on these tasks. When employees are assigned to tasks where they can exercise their skills and apply their talents, they are more productive, which also increases employee retention and employee satisfaction.
If you can accurately predict your employees’ workloads and give them challenging tasks to help them in their career path, this is an excellent way to improve the employee experience. This means that the work they do has a purpose and they’re not just working for better business outcomes and a salary.
As a result, you have better employee engagement and more people will want to work for a successful organization like yours.
Monitors employee performance
With workforce planning, you gain a better understanding of the way your team works, including cohesion, teamwork, and engagement. This helps you gauge how well your employees are performing.
Understanding how each team member works and how they relate to each other helps you place individuals in an elastic workforce where they mesh well with other members. This helps you improve productivity and operational performance. Your evaluations focus on the individual and ways you can improve their efficiency.
Promote customer loyalty
An effective workforce optimization model improves customer service. As a result, this builds customer loyalty. This means that your customer base is more willing to do more business with your organization.
When customers are loyal, they are not easily influenced by attractive offers from other brands. Instead, they are more inclined to transact with a familiar company and continue their customer journey. Furthermore, customers will give you feedback on how to improve your brand and will refer your company to their family and friends.
With better customer relationships, you can also hope to increase your customer lifetime value as well as a host of other key performance indicators.
Best workforce optimization methods
With all the benefits of workforce optimization, you are probably wondering how to make it work for your company. Here are some of the best workforce optimization techniques.
Scheduling
Scheduling employees contributes to the success of your business. Instead of doing it manually, you can save a lot of time by using scheduling software.
For example, if a worker wants a day off, instead of writing a request, they only have to log into the system and post their request.
Tracking time management and attendance
There is workforce optimization software that enables employers to track time in and out. When choosing these software programs, determine whether you will know if employees are coming in late or on time. You should also determine whether the software has measures to prevent false clock-ins and outs and if you will know when employees are clocking their friends in when they are not at work.
Time management and attendance software help businesses ensure they are prepared for peak business hours so they can meet customer expectations during peak hours. It also helps prevent overstaffing on slow days.
Tracking performance
When you know about your employees' attendance, the next thing is to assess how they are using their time. There are many software programs for tracking your employees’ tasks.
These tools allow you to outline the tasks your employees are working on and show their progress. Tracking tools give you an insight into how long an employee is taking to complete a task. For example, you can track communication with customers and see who is taking too much time to resolve customer calls and who is a top-notch agent.
They also help show if a worker is struggling at their job and which individuals have a high skill set. These tools also enable you to prioritize work in a particular order, which is easier than creating an Excel spreadsheet.
Improving communication
For workforce optimization to be effective, there has to be improved communication between employees and managers. The employees need to air their concerns about working conditions and the duration of activities. On the other hand, managers have to identify working conditions that will improve employee efficiency.
One way of improving communication is by using technology to simplify and automate processes like creating accurate schedules and time cards. This is a valuable resource that gives managers more time to interact with employees and identify and address problem areas.
And with better communication comes better team productivity - what’s not to like?
In conclusion
Workforce optimization is a strategy that is adopted by many successful enterprises. This approach aims to ensure workers are at their best. It also improves the turnaround time for tasks by allocating the right human resources for individual tasks. Consequently, WFO promotes productivity, employee retention, and customer satisfaction, all of which are crucial for the prosperity of any business.
The starting point can be monitoring your employee performance, taking care of scheduling and tracking their time at work. You can do all of this with Unrubble, so start your free trial today!
Frequently asked questions
What is a workforce optimization manager and what do they do?
This crucial role analyzes employee performance and the overall impact of that performance on the results of the entire organization. They take a deep dive into organizational efficiency and find ways to change workflows and tasks to get more out of an existing workforce.
For example, they can find that you have skills gaps in your team that prevent you from reaching your organizational goals. Or maybe you want to adjust your staffing levels and cut your overtime costs - these are all things a workforce optimization manager can help with.
What is the difference between workforce optimization and workforce management?
Workforce management focuses on standard operating procedures day-to-day and real-time data regarding employee performance. Workforce optimization deals with a wide range of high-level metrics and insights about a company’s overall performance and efficiency.
For example, workforce management can show you that you have bad customer service, but workforce optimization can show you actionable insights about poor customer service and the overall impact on customer engagement and your revenue.
Can you explain what workforce optimization strategies are and how they can improve our customer service levels?
Workforce Optimization (WFO) is a comprehensive set of strategies and tools aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your business operations. These strategies often include workforce scheduling, performance of employees, and agent engagement. By implementing WFO tools, you can achieve better customer service levels, ensuring that your agents are well-equipped to provide an exceptional customer experience.
What role do screen recording and speech analytics play in boosting agent productivity?
Screen recording allows you to capture real-time activities of your agents, providing valuable insights into agent behavior. Coupled with speech analytics, you can analyze agent-customer interactions to identify skill gaps, improve coaching sessions, and ultimately enhance agent productivity.
Why should we consider using a unified platform for our workforce management software needs?
A unified platform offers an integrated platform for all your workforce management needs, from employee scheduling to real-time adherence and reporting features. This central platform ensures that you have a complete picture of your operational metrics, making it easier to make accurate forecasts and improve organizational success.
