Research has repeatedly shown that a good employee experience can positively impact a company’s bottom line, proving that investments in the workforce are more than worth the cost. After all, an organization’s employees are often the face of the brand and, if they are unhappy and disengaged, the customer experience suffers. However, leaders may fear that accommodating employee preferences will interfere with their ability to staff appropriately. They need to prioritize employees’ preferred schedules to maintain a happy workforce, but those have to align with projected demand, compliance requirements, and even specific skill needs.
Fortunately, with the right combination of technology and strategy, companies can accommodate both employee and business needs simultaneously.
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Here are four critical approaches:
#1 – Use Workforce Management as a Planning Tool
Optimizing hourly labor efficiency requires a thoughtful, data-driven strategy, and a company’s workforce management (WFM) platform can be a powerful strategic planning asset. Recording employees’ skills and preferences in the same ecosystem as key business metrics, such as sales and demand forecasts, enables leaders to make critical connections between the state of their workforce and the state of the business.
Modern workforce management platforms are built on an AI foundation that provides leaders with precise, real-time insights into their labor needs – they don’t just tell leaders how many people to hire, but in which roles and with which specific skills. They can also assess trends over time, giving leaders a stronger sense of how their labor demand is evolving, as well as what pressures – both internal and external – might be causing any changes.
Beyond synthesizing conclusions, certain AI tools use machine learning models and generative AI agents to make recommendations and deliver actionable insights based on the data they pull. With these insights, leaders can make better, more informed decisions and improve overall strategic planning.
Employees’ day-to-day usage of an AI-powered WFM platform also offers people leaders insight into workforce trends. For example, they can examine the frequency of shift swaps across locations to determine if workers are engaged and taking advantage of the flexibility offered to them.
Overall, the idea is to bring all the critical data from various workforce management touchpoints to create a comprehensive plan that delivers business value.
#2 – Emphasize Self-Service to Promote Flexibility
Autonomy is extremely important to the hourly workforce. Year after year, research shows that having more control over their schedules is one of hourly employees’ most sought-after benefits. In some cases, schedule flexibility may inspire an employee to pursue hourly work over a traditional 9-5. It’s certainly a driving force in the ever-growing gig economy, which remains employers’ biggest competition for hourly talent.
But to access the flexibility that will make them happier and more engaged, hourly workers have to be empowered to ask for it. Here, self-service is key: employees should be able to easily request schedule changes and call out absences through the same interface. This way, their requests automatically inform the creation of revised schedules, and managers don’t have to make a string of phone calls to fill shifts and accommodate absences.
#3 – Boost Productivity with Improved Communications
49% of workers say ineffective communication at work impacts their productivity, and it’s easy to see why. Managers and employees need frictionless ways to convey their needs, provide updates, and deliver feedback to keep operations running smoothly.
Companies can dislodge communication traffic jams by enabling two-way connections between managers and employees, ideally through a mobile app. This way, managers can quickly inform their teams of schedule changes and assignment updates, and employees can just as seamlessly ping their managers with questions or requests. The mobile format also reduces the technological learning curve; when employees’ workplace communications mirror the same apps they’re using to connect with friends and family, they’re not going to miss a beat.
However, improving communication is about more than streamlining schedule requests. Managers need more opportunities to connect with their teams, coach them, and collaborate on meaningful tasks. In addition to improving employee communications tools, leaders should also focus on lessening the administrative burden on managers. The intelligent automation of tasks like payroll and scheduling can save managers hours each week, which they can reinvest into coaching their teams.
#4 – Design for Agility
In today’s fast-moving world, business processes can never stagnate. Employers of hourly workers know this well, given the high turnover, seasonal shifts, and supply chain intricacies inherent to their industries. With so much in flux, leaders must constantly rewrite the playbook for efficient operations.
When it comes to workforce management, efficiency must go hand in hand with agility; employers need technology that enables them to respond quickly to industry shifts, informed by the right data and insights. Organizations that respond quickly to change, while effectively managing that change with an engaged, communicative workforce, will gain a significant edge over their competitors. The good news is that innovations in AI – and workplace technology as a whole – are making this far less challenging than before.
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