Data Mine Your HR Records: A Scientific Approach to Increasing Productivity
The article advises business owners with limited data analysis experience to use WorkforceHub, an easy-to-use, affordable workforce management tool that automates timekeeping and scheduling, captures precise employee time data including overtime and shift patterns, and provides actionable insights to optimize human capital and increase productivity and profitability.
Today’s article is for business owners who have limited experience with data analysis, use manual timekeeping and scheduling processes, and want to use a scientific approach to better manage their workforce.
Workforce Management 101
Capturing Workforce Management (WFM) data is the first step to creating a Human Capital Optimization strategy. In order to gather and manage the data, you need efficient tools. Affordable WorkforceHub provides such tools and is ideal for the WFM beginner. WorkforceHub is as easy to use as your favorite phone app and automates time-consuming HR processes while gathering the data that is vital for improving productivity and, by extension, profitability.
You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Understand
Let’s look at a few ways WorkforceHub captures strategic data. TimeWorksPlus is the cloud-based employee timekeeping system in the suite. It can be used in combination with TimeWorksTouch to capture punch-ins, or employees can simply punch in/out in the employee dashboard from any internet-enabled device. TimeSimplicity paired with TimeWorksPlus has key benefits for employee timekeeping, schedule creation, employee shift trading, and general inter-departmental communication. But for the purposes of this message, let’s look at the types of data WorkforceHub automatically captures.
Ease and Accuracy
TimeWorksPlus tracks time to the minute. Why is this important? By simply automating punch in/out, you can find out exactly who habitually punches in early or punches out late. Do you know exactly how much overtime your employees log? With paper timesheets, you have to look through all the time cards, find the ones with overtime listed, and add it up. TimeWorksPlus tracks overtime automatically and you can check it by simply looking in your manager portal.
Types of Data Captured
- Scheduling: Are the individuals with the necessary skills and/or certifications scheduled at the right time? How are production levels affected by scheduling changes? Does labor force morale change from shift to shift?
- Absences, tardies, breaks, and time theft: Who punches in early? Who forgets to punch out during breaks? Who consistently punches out late every day, adding many unauthorized minutes a week to their time card?
- Coverage gaps: What shifts are understaffed? How does this affect production, customer service, and workflow? Are your managers wasting time trying to find staff members to cover shifts at the last minute?
- Overstaffing: What shifts are costing you more in labor than is required? Are employees wasting time due to overstaffing?
- Overtime: How much are you spending in overtime every month? Could this be curtailed with smarter scheduling or automatic messages?
- Mobile staff: Are your offsite and mobile employees where they should be?
- Schedule flexibility: Can your employees easily trade shifts? Would you have increased employee retention if schedule preferences were better accommodated?
- Admin time: How many hours a week do your managers spend researching and correcting time card errors, tracking accruals, doing compliance reporting, submitting payroll, responding to employee requests for HR information, and dealing with other employee issues?
The Process Recap
- 1.Capture data about human resource management.
- 2.Analyze the data to see opportunities for improvement.
- 3.Make changes.
- 4.Assess whether the modifications were effective and adjust where necessary.
- 5.Continually monitor the results, especially when there have been significant changes in workflow, staff, labor law standards, or business objectives.
Each of these steps can be broken down further. For example, some sub-steps to number 3 above include:
- Eliminate redundancy through automation.
- Decrease time devoted to non-billable processes.
- Improve document management.
- Let employees take over time cards, accrual monitoring, and shift trading.
WorkforceHub Takes the Mystery Out of HR Data Mining
WorkforceHub is a unified Human Resources portal that makes it easy to optimize the performance of your managers, employees, and organization. WorkforceHub includes TimeWorksPlus, TimeSimplicity, and TimeWorks Mobile. It also offers onboarding, benefits enrollment, performance reviews, and employee engagement features. WorkforceHub is designed for busy employers who need to streamline scheduling, automate time and attendance tracking, maintain regulatory compliance, and decrease labor costs.
Related
How Workforce Management Software Benefits Your Managers
Workforce management software like TimeWorksPlus and Swipeclock’s WorkforceHub enhances managers' effectiveness by enabling expanded employee oversight through mobile monitoring, speeding up accurate digital time card approvals, improving shift scheduling to ensure proper staffing, and facilitating better real-time communication and self-service HR workflows for employees.
How To Decrease Labor Costs With Automated Overtime Alerts
WorkforceHub from Swipeclock offers an affordable, cloud-based workforce management system with automated, customizable overtime alerts, employee self-service shift trades, and centralized timekeeping data to help businesses reduce labor costs, ensure compliance with labor regulations, and improve productivity and decision-making.
Case Study: Hotel Workforce Management
A small 45-room ski resort hotel owner, facing competition from a large budget chain, gained a competitive edge by adopting WorkforceHub's TimeSimplicity scheduling and TimeWorksPlus attendance tools to reduce labor costs, streamline scheduling, accommodate employee preferences, and improve workforce management efficiency, enabling her to attract better staff and avoid hiring additional managers despite business growth.
Employee Scheduling Software for Small Business
WorkforceHub Scheduling is an employee scheduling software tailored for small businesses that streamlines creating compliant, strategic schedules with smart shift recommendations, automated conflict resolution, labor segmentation integration, and self-service features to enhance schedule adherence, shift swapping, and real-time notifications.
5 Ways WFM Improves Customer Service
Implementing WorkforceHub's workforce management tools improves customer service by eliminating coverage gaps through schedule adherence, providing scheduling stability with flexible templates and multi-level management, increasing employee satisfaction via accommodating preferences and self-managed time cards, managing absences and overtime strategically to prevent service disruptions, and enabling managers to supervise mobile staff in real time for optimal staffing and responsiveness.
Case Study: Hotel Employee Scheduling & Shift Management
The Bayside Hotel and Resort, a 135-room complex with diverse departments, overcame complex workforce management challenges such as last-minute schedule changes and compliance tracking by implementing Swipeclock's WorkforceHub and TimeWorksPlus mobile time tracking system, which streamlined employee scheduling, improved communication, ensured accurate timekeeping, and enhanced operational efficiency without increasing labor costs.