Setting WFM up for success

Not only are you responsible for managing rosters, but you must also meet regulatory, reporting, and budgeting requirements and drive business outcomes that is crucial for the success of your organisation.

With world events disrupting our way of work, managing these challenges without the support of a robust digital workforce management solution is an uphill battle. This misalignment between your business goals and tools creates a high-pressure environment, leaves too much room for error, and breeds staff dissatisfaction.  

Why goal setting in management on your digital WFM journey matters?   It's difficult to take your projects to new heights without knowing where you're headed and what the result will look like. That's where robust goal setting comes in.  

They'll help you establish where you are in your WFM journey and where you desire to be. By setting milestones, as time passes, you'll know whether you're on track or need to course-correct to meet your target outcomes.  

For example, business oriented WFM goals in action could look like this:

1. We aim to switch 80% of our paper-based timesheets to automated and electronically signed timesheets in the next 120 days by moving two teams on to the software each month thereby saving on labour costs and reducing manual reworks.

2. We will implement a unified compliance dashboard in our business operations department and provide training within 60 days. We'll achieve this by onboarding the software in 30 days and training 4 people each week. The dashboard will provide us with WFM Analytics to drive data based decisioning.

3. We will merge our multiple payroll systems into one single feed thus saving over 12 hours per fortnight in wasted administration

4. We will give our casual staff the ability to swap shifts so that they feel engaged and see increased engagement at work and a 25% decrease in ‘no shows’ thus putting less pressure on rostered staff and delivering superior customer service.

Once you've set your goals, it's crucial you take time to prioritise them. While you're eager to make noticeable changes in your business, it'll take time, and not all of them can be addressed right away.  

Assess which of your  goals should be prioritised and ensure that they do not create conflicting tasks or actions.   Once you have achieved these goals, you can move onto the next group. This approach will give your team razor-sharp focus and avoid overwhelming them which also increases your odds of success.  

A significant benefit of a modern WFM system is the increased engagement that you create with your teams.  Providing shift workers with flexibility and certainty are the biggest drivers to engagement.   There is ample research that correlates strong linkages between Employee Experience and Customer Experience so don’t shy from highlighting and articulating EX as a goal and the business outcomes that flow from that.  

The Performance Management: Putting Research into Action report by William Schiemann revealed that just 14% of employees understand their company's strategy. This lack of awareness can block your WFM project's success.  

So, the final crucial step is to enlist your project leader's help to share the mission and is targets with your team.  

Invest time ensuring everyone is on board with the changes and give each team their specific role to bring the goals to fruition. With everyone playing their part, you can reach your targets more smoothly and quickly.  

In short, goal setting in managementlays a strong foundation for you to implement digital workforce management solutions and succeed.  Here are our Top 5 Tips when setting WFM goals:

• Apply objective thinking when creating your targets

• Do not set targets in isolation and socialise with  all areas of the business so you bring your organisation on the journey

• Prioritise the most important ones and create a plan

• Communicate with your team as there is no such thing as overcommunicating especially in uncertain times.   Bring them along for the ride and you will be rewarded.  No one wants to launch a new system with no engagement.

• Don’t set and forget – forge a culture of continuous improvement and work with your WFM provider to deliver industry best practice and ensure they have a vision that is in synch with yours.