Lets talk about facts- Workforce planning and forecasting the second name of stress, pressure, uncertainty and all the synonyms. Its like you have to walk on the right path but you are blind folded and one wrong step can throw you deep into the pot-hole.
But what if I tell you that workforce planning and forecasting do not have to be this hard forever?
There is an alternative way to plan and forecast your workforce which is easier, simpler and smoother. In other words, just take the stress out of workforce management so all your focus can be delivered to what really matters.
In this blog we will be dissecting how Squadly will optimize your workforce planning and forecasting but before that if you want to have a quick recap on what is workforce planning and forecasting and how it will influence your business give our blog about the basics of workforce planning and forecasting a quick read.
Why Do You Need a Workforce Planning Software?
First lets understand why do you need a workforce planning software?
So running a business be it a small business or a multi-national company means managing employees, their schedules and their workloads.
If you are not aware of your business needs you will either have too many employees when you don’t really need them or you will have too less of them when you really need them. This will either waste money or will slow down the work.
Now what a workforce planning and forecasting software does is that it makes sure to avoid all these problems. It foresees the conditions and tells you when will you need more staff and when you wont, so you can schedule them accordingly.
This way you can save your money by eliminating the overtime cost, escaping the last minute hiring stress and keeping up with the productivity graph.
Why is Workforce Planning and Forecasting a Tough Job?
Before wo dive deep into how is Squadly helpful, lets break it down.
It is said that Workforce planning and forecasting is making sure that you have the right people, at the right place on the right time..
Hey doesn’t it sound too easy?
But then why is it said that it is one heck of a job?
Here are the reasons:
- Demand Changes: Some days are super busy and some are really quiet. Its hard to predict the demand.
- Employees have a life: Sick Days, Vacations, unseen urgencies
- Budget Vs Customer Satisfaction: Overstaffing costs money but understaffing costs customer satisfaction.
These are basically the general reasons. So if you are moving ahead without any solid plan its like flying blind.
How is Technology Being a Savior?
Technology plays its part in simplifying your professional life to some extent by providing advanced tools and solutions for better management of workforce.
Tools like Squadly does all the labor work for you. They track work hours, provides geofencing, helps with invoicing and tracking performance of employees.
And you know what’s the best part? Getting real-time update. With the updates you can predict and plan ahead.
How Squadly is Simplifying Workforce Planning and Forecasting?
Performance Analytics:
If you have access to right data at the right time, then 50% of your work is made easier, and this is how Squadly’s Dashboard makes half of your planning and forecasting work easier.
- Tracking Team Activity & Attendance: Keep a track of who’s working, who’s on break, who joined the work late and who left early.
- Currently Started Jobs: Stay on top of Job statuses without constantly jumping from one job to another
- Staffing levels this week: Monitor the availability of your workforce throughout the week from this section and update the schedules if needed.
- Employee Satisfaction: A gateway to keep measuring your staff morale because a happy team brings in productivity and fewer leave applications.
With Squadly’s Performance analytics you can uncover productivity patterns, compare performances and generate reports to improve team’s efficiency.
Reports:
Squadly Reports shares valuable information with you in their reports about how much hours your member has worked, how many jobs have they completed, how much have they earned from each job, when did they start a job, when did they end it, did they end the job within the selected time frame, location attendance reports, squad report, invoicing report
By having this report in your hand you can analyze when and which of your employees are most productive. You can make sure the workload is distributed evenly and also that right task is assigned to the right person
Conclusion
Workforce planning and forecasting is a challenging job and comes with its own rough patches but Squadly smoothens this process by offering an all-in-one product that simplifies workforce management to the core. With a wide-range of features like:
- Time tracking
- Attendance tracking
- Productivity tracking
- Employee Engagement Monitoring
- Geofencing
- Workforce Management
- Central Dashboard
To start your journey towards better workforce planning and forecasting, you can start using Squadly which will help you to streamline your workforce management.
