Workforce Scheduling: Managerial Strategies for Driving Down Costs While Escalating
Customer Satisfaction
Presented by The Aberdeen Group, July, 2009
Co-sponsored by VALIANT
Executive Overview
This important study analyzed data collected from more than 350 executives. It illustrates
the business value of implementing an automated workforce management scheduling
solution and addresses a number of business-critical strategies, including:
- The need to contain operational costs via efficient planning and staffing
- The need to capture and retain customers via better allocation and alignment of
skills with job requirements and customer needs
These needs increase in importance during a down economic cycle as organizations
struggle to compete with fewer resources and are forced to do more with less.
Based on its findings, Aberdeen Group put forth a number of specific recommendations
for improving overall corporate performance. These include:
- Providing employees with real-time visibility into schedules and managers with the
ability to forecast and act on scheduling issues before they happen
- Enabling managers and supervisors to create schedules based on their skills, certifications
and/or seniority
- Regularly reporting on and updating overall workforce management progress to key
stakeholder
Study Highlights
Dramatically Reduce Overtime and Casual Absenteeism Expenses
From Page 2:
- “Our workforce scheduling solution has increased the ability of the company to measure
labor hours by 75%, thus decreasing casual absenteeism from 12% to less than 2%.
In addition, we have experienced a 98% reduction in overtime hours incurred.”
--Richard Kunst, President/CEO, Kunst Solutions Corporation
How Best-in-Class Companies Improve Year-Over-Year Results
From Page 2:
“Best-in-Class Companies achieve year-over-year performance improvement in three
key areas:”
- 30% average improvement in workforce capacity utilization
- 36% average increase in staff productivity
- 31% average increase in customer satisfaction
Strategy: What Corporate Can Learn From the Field
From Page 11:
- “At 97% of organizations, the responsibility for scheduling falls on non-HR business
managers. However, if your organization seeks to apply scheduling to its internal
workforce for aligning available skills with job requirements or for leveraging
data from scheduling to forecast outcomes based on anticipated scenarios, Aberdeen’s
research suggests that HR may be able to learn a lot from those already implementing
scheduling in the field (i.e. shift supervisors, production managers or project
managers).”
The Value of Leveraging Best-of-Breed Time and Attendance Software
From Page 20:
- “The benefits of merely getting time and attendance data more accurate should not
be understated. Those benefits include more accurate payroll for contract labor,
stricter compliance with workforce regulations and verifying that billings from
consultants accurately reflect their efforts. Another advantage is to ensure equitable
pay to employees based on the type of work they do”
The Importance of a Unified Workforce Management Platform
From Page 24:
- “Make sure your organization partners with a provider that provides either a suite
of workforce management solutions that share a common platform or has a dedicated
data repository for all scheduling activities that can integrate to your other workforce
management systems.”
For more information or to request a copy of Workforce Scheduling: Managerial Strategies
for Driving Down Costs While Escalating Customer Satisfaction,
Contact Info:
Jeff DiDomenico
VP Strategic Alliances
jeffd@valiant.com
