Selecting a Workforce Management Vendor – Here’s What you Should Avoid

As managing a workforce becomes more complex with increasing regulatory and compliance issues, more and more companies are turning to workforce management solutions. The right technology can help you improve efficiencies, reduce the effort spent on routine tasks and improve life for employees – especially in the HR department. The wrong solution can be a nightmare, costing companies a small fortune as they roll out an ineffective system. There are a number of factors involved when trying to choose the best workforce management platform for your business, so steer clear of solutions that don’t provide the right fit.

Recruiting Capabilities That Don’t Match Your Needs: Your workforce is the lifeblood of your company, so it’s critical that you have control over how open positions are created, job descriptions, the interview process. Recruitment tools are how you attract the best possible talent and retain high performing employees. Steer clear of workforce management solutions that don’t have features to help you enter a new candidate into the system and track his or her movement through several stages of interviews. If you use a staffing agency, you’ll also appreciate functions that allow limited access into the platform to help the external company do its job.

Minimal Onboarding Functionality: A strong workforce management platform includes features that facilitate the procedures necessary to set up new employees and get them acclimated to your company. Execution of company policies and employee handbooks can be handled online, while training can be monitored in a workforce management system to track progress. Avoid solutions that don’t offer what you need to get new hires up to speed quickly.

Incomplete Analytics Features: Implementing a workforce management solution to manage your workforce isn’t just about automating certain tasks to make life easier in the HR department. You also need to understand trends and appreciate how they impact your company’s operations. For this reason, robust analytics tools are necessary to show your strengths and weaknesses – especially as they relate to factors that impact of high turnover and employee retention.

Limited Customization Options: Your company is unique and your choice of workforce management technology should be able to accommodate it accordingly. A solution that doesn’t offer customization to meet your specific needs will cause headaches – thereby defeating the whole point of implementing workforce management technology. Make sure to look for solutions that can be tailored to fit your processes and workflows.

Low Degree of Integration With Other Solutions: If you research a solution to find that it requires “workarounds” or doesn’t integrate with your existing solutions, continue your search. There should be seamless sharing of employee data with other essential systems, including those related to employee permissions and hierarchies.

No Cloud-Based Delivery Options: Some workforce management vendors offer a solution that is deployed and managed via a cloud-based environment, which offers considerable benefits over on-site implementation. These solutions are installed and managed remotely by the vendor, so your organization is up and running quickly; updates are also deployed automatically in the cloud. Plus, HR departments can manage employee data, benefits, payroll, scheduling and other HR operations from anywhere with an internet connection.

Multiple Databases: Multiple databases are problematic for workforce management because disparate systems offer limited visibility into employee data. The result is an inefficient workflow when your team needs full access to data for different HR functions. Users may need to sign in and out of multiple databases, whereas a single database solution offers a full view of employee data – with one log-on.

Beware of workforce management vendors that claim to offer a fully-integrated system, when the underlying solution is actually comprised of several databases that are accessed by a single log-on. These solutions create the appearance of a single database through the user interface, but the multiple database structure will still cause issues down the line.

Knowing what to avoid when selecting a workforce management vendor can be the difference between a smooth transition and a horrible mistake. These points should help guide you as you’re researching options to find the one that best suits your company. At Paypro, our workforce management technology offers an array of tools and functions that can be custom-tailored to suit your needs. Please contact us with questions or to request a consultation with one of our specialists.