10 Warning Signs Your Workforce Management Tools Are Stuck in the Past: Time to Upgrade?

A successful business must evolve with the trends and technology, and it is time to upgrade if you are still using legacy workforce management tools. However, what are the warning signs that indicate you are using outdated workforce management tools? 

Are you scheduling your employees’ shifts through a spreadsheet and manually calculating the payroll? Does your workforce management tool not keep up with your needs anymore? If the answer to all these questions is yes, it might be time to upgrade your workforce management tool! 

Manual or semi-automated workforce management might seem cost-saving, but in reality, it is a hindrance to your business. Wrong or outdated tools will cost you more time and create inefficient labor and resource planning.

Older tools do not come with predictive technology; most require manual input, which can decrease automation and waste time. This blog discusses the 10 warning signs to check if your workforce management tools need a quick upgrade. 

What is a Workforce Management Tool?

Workforce management (WFM) refers to optimizing your employees’ working hours, payroll, leaves, performance tracking, and other factors, considering employee preference and local labor laws. With the right employee management, you can boost productivity and job satisfaction rates, thereby increasing your sales. 

An efficient workforce management tool should be capable of predicting the customer flow and scheduling the right number of staff for the day. It should also provide task automation, a communication platform, and seamless tracking of attendance and staff compliance with the organization’s rules. It might be time to consider replacing it if your WFM tool does not allow any of these facilities.– Let’s take a look at more warning signs. 

10 Warning Signs of an Outdated Workforce Management Tool

Here are the 10 warning signs every retail business should keep in mind and take immediate steps to change the workforce management tool (WFM). 

Inefficient Scheduling and Forecasting

Scheduling capable store staff at the right time is important to achieve maximum efficiency in retail, no matter how big the workforce is. An employee schedule should consider the needs of both staff and managers as well as customer activity. 

It should be designed based on vacations, shift timings, overtime worked by the employee, leave requests, etc. Outdated systems lack predictive analysis capacity to forecast the requirements based on the store history, leading to over-staffing or understaffing issues. 

Lack of Real-Time Data and Management

Real-time monitoring of the workforce gives insights into the resource requirements in different areas of the business. It can display updated data and empower managers to make informed decisions. 

Furthermore, with real-time data, you can also address unprecedented challenges swiftly and proactively. Outdated systems without real-data insights are time-consuming in issue resolution and schedule adaptations. Without upgraded data, there could be payroll issues as well as a lack of insight into effective resource management. 

Poor Integration Capabilities

An outdated WFM software is not fluid in its ability to collaborate with different platforms, leading to a lack of operational transparency and poor decision-making. Modern WFM tools allow for easy integration with all your systems, including CRM, CMS, and HR, for efficient operations and data management from a single platform. 

Disparate systems cause loss and inefficiency due to manual entry and human errors.— For instance, an employee’s attendance and leaves should be shared with HR for payroll calculation. Mistakes in these data can lead to overpaying or underpaying the staff, time theft, and more. 

Limited Mobile Accessibility and Flexibility

Mobile accessibility streamlines task management, allowing real-time and robust data updation and collection. It lets employees and management input relevant data remotely and access them on the go. 

With their multi-platform support, modern WFM tools allow all these functions and more, from procuring schedules to payroll management and instant communication. Additionally, mobile accessibility offers enhanced security channels to safeguard your workflow. 

Ineffective Time-tracking and Attendance Management

Attendance management is important to understand the working patterns of the employees, payroll calculations, and resource allocation. Manual time tracking increases the risk of time theft and inaccuracy in shift tracking. Automated time tracking and attendance management allow you to make a data-driven decision to improve the productivity of your workforce. You can also understand the number of overtime, the efficiency of an employee at different shifts, the scheduling shortcomings, and more with efficient time tracking tools, unlike the manual ones.

Non-compliance and Risk Management Issues

Complying with relevant local labor laws is important to mitigate legal risks. Outdated WFM tools could be error-prone as the data is entered manually and provide a lack of visibility to ensure compliance with modern regulations. 

Issues like scheduling overtime for employees more than the allowed number or inaccurate work hours tracking leading to wage loss can lead to non-compliance issues and increase the risk of penalties. Old WFM tools also don’t have a notification system in place to highlight any non-compliant activities in a timely manner or provide automated auditing systems.

Inadequate Analytics and Reporting

Analytics are important in the workforce to understand different aspects of the business. It will give valuable insights into employee engagement and satisfaction rates, the efficiency of the workforce, adjustments in the workforce number, and more. It helps you understand operational inadequacies and how to address them to maximize productivity and employee retention rate. However, the outdated WFM tools do not provide a dynamic reporting system, which can lead to delays in decision-making and an inaccurate understanding of workforce challenges. 

Poor Employee Experience and Engagement

Inefficient workforce management tools miss out on employee preferences. Often, labor efforts, such as shift hours and overtime, are not documented properly in manual tools, leading to a risk of non-compliance, employee frustration, and escalation of easily solvable issues. 

All these can trigger the loss of talented employees and an increased employee turnover rate. However, with automated tools, shift timings can be adjusted, and the work and pay can be tracked precisely, giving rise to frequent employee engagement that improves the overall experience.

High System Maintenance Costs

The installation charges for outdated systems are low. However, they incur a lot of indirect and hidden charges. These tools are prone to failures and downtimes. Every failure costs the organization and employees time and labor. They also often require IT maintenance, manual data entry, and security risks. 

Furthermore, since a lot of the platforms exist in isolation from HR and CRM tools, you will need to install and maintain each system separately. Outdated systems can also lead to non-compliance and that could further lead to legal fines. So, considering all the challenges, the cost of upgrading the software is much lower and more advantageous. 

Lack of Scalability

Upgrading a system is a tedious task, so the workforce tool you implement should be scalable as the company grows. It should adapt to the changes and needs of the future. However, old workforce management tools fail to match the complexity of the latest systems. They also provide outdated security and lack the capability to handle large numbers of employees. 

Choosing the Right Solution

Upgrading your workforce management tool will reduce costs and inefficiencies in your business. Here are a few steps to help you choose the right tool.

1. Assess your business needs and define your goals.

You should choose the one that will perfectly suit your business needs. Assess the shortcomings of your old system and the needs of your employees. Analyze the inefficiencies across departments and gaps in the system to choose the solution. You should also consider all the features that you want in your new MFW tool. 

2. Make your choice.

Once you are clear on your goals, choose the right solution that fits your needs and goals. Check if your preferred tool is scalable, and select the one that will also adapt to future requirements. The ideal solution should roll out frequent updates without any data loss or downtime and provide 24/7 support and documentation. It should also be easy to adopt in your workflow and user-friendly. 

3. Implement the solution.

Dedicate a focused team to work on the tool implementation process. The data migration should be precise and accurate as the workforce management tool relies on the data history for its decision-making features.

Building your strategy based on these three steps will help you craft a well-thought process to find and adapt to a better workforce management tool seamlessly. 

Implementation Strategies and Best Practices for a Smooth Transition

Here are some steps you can take to ensure a smooth migration from your legacy workforce management application to a new one: 

• Involve stakeholders in choosing the right tool.

The tool you select must be easy and accessible for the people using it. Before selecting a tool, involve stakeholders like the HR and CRM teams and get their insights. Establish a transparent communication channel to address their concerns about the implementation process and collect real-time feedback to make adjustments. 

• Provide comprehensive training.

The updated tool cannot be used to its potential if your employees don’t know how to work with them. So, arrange for a comprehensive training session for the team to understand the features of the tool.

• Phased implementation

By abruptly changing your WFM tool, there could be a loss of data and disruption ot your workflow. Some users may not be able to understand all the features, which could lead to inaccuracy in data gathered, resulting in skewered analytics. To make the most of your WFM tool, implement it in phases, train your employees in tiers to understand its effectiveness, and pivot implementation strategies with feedback.

However, you don’t have to worry about implementation problems or strategy if you have collaborated with a renowned provider that can undertake the entire procedure of switching to a new workforce management system. The provider can help you plan the implementation plan, migration strategy, and even more maintenance and 24/7 technical support services.  

Wrapping up

Workflow management is important to optimize your evolving business practices. Companies in various fields are adapting to workforce management tools irrespective of size. Your employees are your asset, and improving their potential and using them efficiently is very important for the business to grow, especially in retail. Understand your needs and choose a workflow management tool for your business today!