How To Improve Workforce-Planning Challenges With AI

The only way to improve workforce planning challenges is through AI. That is because it provides vital data, enhances productivity and ensures even workload distribution.

Workforce management and planning are much more intricate and complicated. Not at all like the Goa trip planning we do every year. This workforce planning must be intact and executed seamlessly.

And there is no harm in asking for help. AI-enabled workforce management software will only help and not leak out your secrets. With its help, your workforce planning will be flawless like a diamond.

AI brings a long-needed transformation in the form of workforce management software. Offering a lot more than planning and scheduling. With its help, you can deploy the right employee for the right job.

What is Workforce Management?

Workforce Management

(wɜːʳkfɔːʳs mænɪdʒmənt) 🗣️

Noun

It is an integrated set of processes that businesses adopt to optimise the productivity of the employees. The process involves effectively forecasting and allocating resources to employees and projects.

And when done through software, its effectiveness amplifies multi-folds. Technology like workforce management software can help businesses improve employee retention, increase customer satisfaction and create a positive financial impact.

Why Do Organisations Need Workforce Planning

Workforce planning is the initial and the most important step of the process. It ensures that the right employee is available for the right job at the right location with the right competencies.

Reduce Labor Costs

Employing a workforce is the highest cost, next to manufacturing.

Labour costs can be as high as 60% of expenses.

But with proper planning, these costs can be reduced while increasing flexibility for continued success.

Identify Relevant Strategies

Not only people but businesses change as well. And because of this, people around and strategies have to be revised. Identifying talent gaps and devising methods to fill those gaps is a core function of workforce planning.

Improve Employee Retention

Employee turnover can be expensive. It is time, money and effort taxing as finding and training a suitable employee can take up to months. But with workforce planning, you get to utilise the potential of your available employees optimally. This reduces the chances of job dissatisfaction.

Enhance Productivity and Quality Outputs

Through proper planning and execution, managers are able to detect problems that are negatively affecting their employees’ productivity. For instance, uneven workload distribution can be why one of your employees is overworked and another is bored.

Boost Employees’ Work-life Balance

Workforce planning revolves around employees. Without employees, all plans get washed away. With flawless planning, you get to utilise your employees’ 40-hour week. And in the process, ensure that the tasks are completed during work hours and not after.

What Are The Challenges of Workforce Planning?

Workforce planning sounds pretty easy. Recognising your strengths and weaknesses and using that knowledge to formulate an effective plan and strategy. But there exist some challenges that are preventing you from formulating a flawless plan and executing it.

Determining Time Frames

It’s common for managers to plan everyday targets, but what businesses thrive on are long-term goals. But with a lack of real-time metrics and reports, there is no way you will be able to see immediate results.

But workforce management software can be your go-to guy. It can help you plan, collect, track and analyse data to get a bigger picture. This will help to determine whether your plan is working or not.

Lack of Attention to Details

The main job of planning is to be able to distinguish one job from another. The challenge lies in deciding how different the two are from each other.

Managers can differentiate the job based on a department or an individual’s expertise. Deciding on the broadness or narrowness of thesis distinction is holding managers back from effective planning.

Insufficient Access to Data

Manual forecasting methods are full of errors and not competent enough to provide real-time data. Traditional forecasting tools can’t predict department turnover or the efficiency of employees.

This leads to the incapability of determining investments that will benefit in the long run becoming impossible.

Importance of AI in Workforce Management Software

Workforce planning is actually a lot of time and effort-consuming if done manually. But by using AI-enabled workforce management, the whole process can be speeded up and optimised.

With AI integrated into workforce management software, it will automate and augment various tasks. These tasks could be from planning, scheduling to budgeting and managing employees.

48% of companies have already started utilising artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies or are planning to utilise them within the next twelve months.

Organisations leverage employee data using AI for various functions such as analytics, predictive analytics for future requirements, and much more.

One of the use cases can be using AI to match employees’ skills with probable future projects. Companies can even put AI to use for customised hiring and training proposals.

How to Improve Workforce Planning with AI

AI-enabled workforce management software, when put to use, there is no force stopping you from mapping out a flawless and effective plan (chef’s kiss).

Calculating Accurate Resource Requirement

Improper planning leaves the employees either overburdened or under-allocated with tasks. One reason could be that managers hardly have any time to allocate tasks and pay attention to details properly. That may cause employees to face burnout, delay in completion of tasks, underutilised time and wasted work hours.

But with AI-enabled workforce management software, no such thing happens. This is because it accurately analyses the resource requirement and also foresees future demands. With this knowledge, it created a flexible schedule for the employees.

Utilisation of Skills

If not appropriately planned, there are high chances of employees’ skills going underutilised. What you need to do is to harness and utilise their skills optimally.

Predictive analytics solutions are the right solution to this problem. It can determine the correct allocation of resources for tasks on timeline and skills. With a mix of automation and predictive analysis, managers can allocate tasks and resources to employees just right.

Optimisation of Resource Costs

Resource optimisation and time management is a must for organisations striving to keep operation costs low to maximise profits. It is important to balance utilising resources at hand and setting a proper timeline for tasks.

AI aids in matching the resources to demands and meeting time and cost criteria in a project. Using it, managers can assign resources optimally to tasks that will help with timely deliveries within budget.

Enhancement of Employee Productivity

Employee productivity is the deciding factor that influences project delivery and revenue. Thus organisations strive to improve the productivity levels of the employees. AI comes to play during resource allocation, as it can prevent sudden changes in workforce planning through predictive analysis.

Lowering Turnover

With AI-powered workforce management software, organisations can offer flexibility. This will allow you to plan the workforce’s schedules flexibly; they can work remotely, hybrid and according to their preference. That will allow them to work efficiently and result in lower turnover.

Fair Performance Evaluation

With the help of AI-based workforce management software, you have a silo of data that is even helping to automate employee performance evaluation. Since it is being done through AI, there is no way it will be biased or subjective. Rather it depends on leveraging big data and generating insights on the performance.

With fair evaluation, it boosts employee morale and hence lower employee turnover. 

Plan Your Employees’ Schedules with TrackoField

Above, we discussed how important workforce planning is. And how will faulty planning have a negative effect on your employees, business and profits? But we did not stop there. We have discussed a dynamic solution to the problem AI-enabled workforce planning software.

TrackoField offers workforce planning with a whole set of features and solutions that are automation enabled. This will leave no stone unturned in ensuring the planning is relevant, productive and flawless.

Schedule a Demo Now!