Workforce Management – The Best Solution for Effective Performance
How workforce management enhances performance of your staff
Everything starts with one question: what is workforce management (WFM)? Workforce workforce management management describes a set of activities and approaches to managing staff in the way that is the most efficient, effective, and in the way that results in a higher employee engagement-all while still delivering the best customer experience.
Given the fact that WFM deals with numerous employees, and numerous ways to manage and lead them, it is a very sensitive topic. For one thing, successful WFM can seem a bit expensive, and employee costs already represent one of the largest expenses in an organization. Secondly: sensitivity. Making the wrong decisions in relation to your employees may lead to lower employee morale and disengagement.
So, what are the best levers to use to drive performance via WFM? Read on to find out.
WFM component – smart training and coaching
One of the key objectives of workforce management is to provide enough coaching and training for your staff to ensure that they can continuously grow and develop into future leaders and/or experts.
Here are some key strategies for achieving that objective:
The first thing you need to remember is to coach, coach, coach. It is essential that your leaders (e.g. team, department, etc.) dedicate enough time to coach staff and equip them with the additional skills that are required to complete their tasks in a proper way. Focusing a significant part of your workforce management approach on both hard and soft skills will ensure that the whole team works smoothly and professionally.
You also need to remember to cross-train your staff members. If some staff members are cross-trained on the jobs of other teams, it means that they are able to jump in and help out when they are needed (e.g. in the event of unexpected workload peaks due to unplanned events in insurance or RRSP seasons in banking).