How To Manage A Global Workforce

For many companies, the pressure to compete effectively has led to a dramatic increase in the size and geographical spread of their workforce. This places huge demands on Human Resources management, particularly with regards to workforce scheduling.

Workforce Management Challenges

Communicating with and scheduling employees across many time zones in different geographical locations and often in different languages can present huge challenges. To guarantee optimal staff deployment, current and future staffing requirements, skills, staff availability, holidays, peak workloads, budget allowances as well as wages and contractual terms have to be integrated into the workforce management procedure.

Effective workforce management means assigning the right employees with the right skills to the right job at the right time. To achieve this, those responsible for global workforce management must have a computerised process  designed to cover multiple locations that addresses their organisation's employee scheduling challenges and helps  them control labour costs.

Scheduling Software

These days, managers responsible for workforce scheduling on a worldwide basis have access to specialised integrated, demand-oriented workforce management software that helps them to keep track of a global workforce. Such software solutions typically offer various options for planning evaluation in real-time, enabling fast reaction to deviations from the forecasted demand for staff, which prevents problems with over or understaffing.

Generally speaking, workforce management software packages are used for:

 Employee scheduling, skills and locations

·         Integration of employees’ details and skills into the scheduling process

·         Forecasting of workload and  staff requirements

·         Management of working times and shifts

·         Analysis and monitoring of costs and budgets

Financial Modelling

Accurate financial modelling of projects and associated budgets is another major consideration in workforce management. In addition to the core aspects of global workforce management, scheduling software is invaluable for predicting staffing requirements.

By analysing historical data such as sales figures, the number of customer contacts, check-out transactions or orders to be processed, scheduling software systems can assist in establishing likely demand. The calculated forecast values can then be converted into actual staffing requirements.

Benefits of Workforce Management Software

The development of sophisticated scheduling software has had a tremendous impact on the management of global workforces. Its implementation has an enormous effect on budgets by slashing administrative costs associated with staffing, scheduling, and managing employee work schedules. Additional cost saving is seen in reduction of overtime, over/under staffing and scheduling conflicts.

Workforce management systems give human resources managers instant access to information on scheduling, cost and employee availability. This enables them to make faster and better informed decisions so they can respond quickly to changing demands.