The Aberdeen Group recently released a report on workforce management automation. Although they highlighted a wide variety of benefits related to automating this function, one of their main findings linked collaborative workforce management technologies to increased employee engagement and ultimately the ability to better execute business strategy as a result. They found that organizations using workforce management automation technology with real-time access for employees - to do things such as bid on open shifts or submit availability - on average, improved engagement by 8%, not to mention reduced overtime by 22% and doubled customer satisfaction compared to organizations using manual processes.

Despite these findings, many reports show that employees are becoming increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied. For example, Hewitt Associates Inc. – a research firm which has now merged with Aon Corporation – recently conducted another report where they followed 900 companies globally who had consistently conducted employee engagement surveys. They found that over 46% of the respondents experienced an annual decline in engagement levels over the last two years, with a significant drop at the end of the second quarter of 2010 – the largest decline in 15 years of employee engagement research. Much of this is attributed to the global economy and the need for companies to cut corners to reduce labor costs over the past few years.

Although this points to an increasing disregard for employee engagement, it is actually an incredibly valuable business asset. For example, Hewitt’s same study showed that a company’s success and profitability are directly tied to engagement levels. When a company suffers from poor levels of engagement, there are plenty of associated costs:

-       Turnover is higher
-       There is a greater demand on HR and its resources
-       Employee-Manager communication becomes less effective
-       Attracting better talent becomes more difficult
-       Workplace accidents increase
-       Employees are ultimately less productive.

The engagement spillover effect and its impact on customer behavior is even worse. The correlation between employee and customer engagement is strong. Not only does engagement spread from employee to employee but from employee to customer as well. Therefore the more disengaged a company’s employees, the higher the likelihood of having disengaged and unsatisfied customers. In light of these costs, it is in a company’s best interest to take action to boost employee engagement, no matter what state the economy is in.

Employee engagement is not a new idea, but as technology evolves and younger generations join the workforce, new opportunities as well as expectations develop to better engage and satisfy employees. One important opportunity, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, is collaborative workforce management technology. With the explosion of mobile and web-based communication, ensuring workforce collaboration functions are automated via the phone and internet is quickly becoming a base line for what employers should be offering to retain top tier employees. These automation technologies also offer key tools to avoid scheduling and payroll errors, increase management efficiency and ensure superior customer satisfaction as a result.

Workforce collaboration automation can be incorporated into many processes, including HR management, advanced scheduling, time and attendance, and absence management:

1.       Employees can be a driving force in the HR management process by enabling them to instantly update personal information themselves, thereby eliminating the chance for errors and reducing the frustrating paperwork, time and effort needed in more manual processes.
2.       From submitting shift preferences to accessing scheduling information in real-time, advanced automated scheduling can also provide a variety of collaborative opportunities that increase efficiency, engagement and customer satisfaction.
3.       From receiving attendance tracking notifications to monitoring safety checks, automated attendance solutions also provide multiple collaborative opportunities that can improve accuracy and efficiency, reduce liability and create happier customers as a result as well.
4.       Absence management, and more specifically replacement scheduling, is another area for collaborative solutions. Technologies such as automated broadcasting enable employees to contribute to the replacement process in real time and on the go. They also significantly reduce the time management spends finding replacement workers.

For more information on how these technologies work, their benefits, and how they can be leveraged within your organization, please feel free to contact us.