Category: Blogs

HR managers’ daily practice is all about balance: ensuring satisfied employees, maintaining insight into leave and absences, while making sure payroll runs smoothly. Workforce Management (WFM) plays an increasingly important role in this. By automating processes and making data transparent, WFM provides the tools HR needs to work more efficiently and contribute strategically to the organisation. Here are five benefits that make WFM indispensable for HR managers.

1. Staff scheduling and time registration in line with the collective labour agreement

Efficient staff scheduling is the basis for a well-functioning organisation and for complying with collective agreements. As an HR manager, you know how complex it can be to draw up schedules that not only comply with collective labour agreement requirements, such as rest times and maximum working hours, but also take into account availability, preferences and fluctuations in demand. With a Workforce Management (WFM) system, you can automate this process, ensuring schedules are not only accurate and fair, but also always in line with the collective agreement.

Good planning prevents under- or overstaffing and ensures that employees know where they stand. This not only increases productivity, but also contributes to employee satisfaction and trust in the organisation.

2. Automation of payroll processes: the payroll integration

An accurate and efficient payroll process is crucial for any organisation. Yet in many companies, it is still a time-consuming task prone to errors. Think of manually checking and entering hours worked, allowances, leave and both statutory and non-statutory hours. With a Workforce Management (WFM) system, this is a thing of the past.

The WFM system automates the entire process by transmitting all registered data directly and accurately to the HR and payroll package. The hours worked, including any allowances and leave taken, are automatically linked to the correct wage codes. This means the payroll is ready immediately, without the need for additional manual actions.

This automation minimises errors, shortens the turnaround time of the payroll process and gives HR professionals more time to focus on strategic tasks. Moreover, it ensures that employees are always paid on time and correctly, contributing to their satisfaction and trust in the organisation.

An automated payroll process is not only more efficient, but also offers more certainty and insight for both the organisation and the employees. You always have the guarantee that collective labour agreements have been correctly applied and that payroll administration complies with laws and regulations.

3. Automatic synchronisation between different systems

It is very time-consuming and error-prone if you have to enter the same data in multiple systems. Once you have hired an employee, it is your job to enter them into the right systems and the employee needs login details to the different systems. You probably work with the IT manager to do this.

An integration between a WFM and the HR and payroll package ensures that data is exchanged automatically. Very convenient, as manual entry of contracts and employee data is a time-consuming and error-prone process. Contract information is important and crucial data, in which you cannot make mistakes.

In practice, this means that employee and contract data from the HR and Payroll package are automatically in the WFM package. Even in case of changes in contracts or conditions of employment, the adjustments are processed immediately. Thus, the HR and Payroll package remains leading for the personal data.

As soon as the employee’s first month is over and the employee’s hours are approved, they are automatically forwarded to HR and Payroll package and placed on the correct wage code.

In short, the HR and Payroll package forms the basis for the personal and contract data, while the WFM package is leading in recording employees’ hours worked.

4. Managing access and rights for greater security

As an organisation grows, managing who has access to what data is often a challenge. It may just happen that an employee has access to sensitive information not intended for his or her role. This can lead not only to internal risks, but also to violations of privacy laws.

Controlled access management is essential for corporate data security and regulatory compliance. When rights and roles are not properly managed, data can inadvertently end up in the wrong hands, with dire consequences.

WFM software offers a practical solution by making it easy to manage roles and rights within the system. This makes it possible to define exactly which systems and information are visible per function within the organisation. Employees only get access to what is relevant to their role, which increases security and prevents unauthorised access to sensitive data. This makes access management easy and gives HR professionals more control over the allocation of rights within the organisation.

In addition, most WFM software has Single Sign On (SSO). With SSO, employees only need to use one set of login credentials to securely and quickly access the systems they need. This not only increases ease of use, but also provides a centralised way to manage access. When an employee leaves employment, access to sensitive information is automatically revoked, helping to improve security. For HR, this means less work with access questions and more certainty that information remains well protected.

5. Real-time reporting for deep insight

Lacking insight into key staff data, such as absence rates or overtime, makes it difficult to manage strategically. You might notice that employees are overworked, but without hard data it is difficult to address or prevent this.

Access to up-to-date data is crucial to spot trends and stay ahead of problems. Without insight, you risk small challenges growing into big problems, resulting in higher costs and reduced employability.

The extensive reporting features of WFM software give you real-time insights into important data at any time. Think absenteeism rates, leave balances and deviations in overtime. This information enables you to intervene in time, for example by distributing workload or encouraging employees to take leave. This not only helps control costs, but also improves planning and increases team productivity.

By centrally managing access and rights, together with the implementation of SSO, you ensure a safe, efficient and user-friendly working environment where privacy and security are guaranteed.

Conclusion: WFM makes a difference for HR

Workforce Management is much more than a tool for scheduling hours; it is a strategic tool that helps HR optimise processes, keep employees happy and reduce costs.

From automated data processing to in-depth reporting – WFM provides HR managers with everything they need to work more efficiently and maintain greater control over staff scheduling and payroll.

Contact us to find out what WFM can do for your organisation.

Creating good budgeting is easier said than done. Basically, it comes down to determining revenues, expenses and profit targets. Anyway, in practice, it is obviously not that simple, because you also have to decide which investments will lead to better results. In this article, we provide tips on how to make good budgeting, which are applicable to any business!

Analyse historical data

One of the most important factors in creating good budgeting for your business is analysing historical data. These can help you tremendously in managing expectations. And we can extend this very widely. Let’s give some examples. It’s up to you to think what you can analyse in your sector.

• At sales peak and off-peak moments when your shop or warehouse is very busy.
• When certain products run well (think Christmas, summer, et cetera).
• At service times when many or few staff are needed.
• When many employees call in sick or are on holiday.
• What are expensive periods in terms of investments, or when a lot breaks down.
• What are periods that actually make a lot of money, and why that is.

Use tools for historical data and forecasting

The above tip for budgeting may sound smart, but how do you approach it in practice? Fortunately, you don’t have to do that manually, because you use tools. These can store historical data for you, and make forecasts based on it. This is also known as forecasting.

Forecasting as a basis for good strategy and budgeting

Forecasting is a good basis for setting realistic goals that are financially feasible. It also shows you what were good investments in the past (e.g. advertising campaigns or purchase of machines), and which investments did not pay off.

But so it also helps you schedule staff smartly, so that you don’t unnecessarily hire too many employees (after all, they need to be paid and that comes off the budget). On the other hand, it also helps to employ enough employees, as poor service can lead to customer loss.

Forecasting as part of Workforce Management

Forecasting is part of Workforce Management. This includes, for instance, capacity management, scheduling, reporting and analysis. Because, as we just pointed out, it is also important to deploy staff smartly: neither too many nor too few staff ensures maximum profit and a minimum bite on your budget.

Additional tips for good budgeting

We would like to conclude this article with some additional tips for good budgeting. For instance, it is smart to monitor regularly. Notice that the budget is not optimally set up? Review and adjust.

In large organisations, it is also definitely smart to involve the teams in the process. Department heads often know what is (un)necessary in terms of budget for their department. Keep thinking realistically and clearly yourself, because they can also try to release as much as possible. So ask for good substantiation!

It is also useful to think about major expenses in advance. What is coming up in the coming year? Do you need new equipment, because something is likely to break down or because better equipment is coming onto the market? This may also make the work go faster, which could actually save you money. Also plan a post for contingencies.

Finally, as we mentioned earlier, it is smart to invest in a good forecasting tool. Dyflexis’ Workforce Management System is designed to help you make powerful forecasts, schedule staff and determine proper budgeting. Experience it yourself!

Can’t figure it out? We will completely unburden you! With Dyflexis, you always have access to all functionalities, including laws and regulations. Request a free demo and discover for yourself the advantages of the Workforce Management System for proper budgeting.

Good staffing capacity utilisation ensures that you do not face understaffing or overstaffing. The result is that production flows are deployed optimally, with the right amount of people in the right place. And that, in turn, is good for the company’s bottom line. What are the risks of under- and overstaffing, and how do you determine the right level of capacity utilisation? We will explain in more detail!

What is occupancy rate?

Capacity utilisation is the degree of production capacity utilised during a given period. It is expressed as a percentage from 0% to 100%. The ideal utilisation rate is 100%, although in practice this is unlikely to be the case. You can face underutilisation and overutilisation. Through good Workforce Management software, you can organise and optimise capacity utilisation as best as possible.

What is underutilisation?

Underutilisation means that there is more work than staff. In other words, there are too few employees to do the work. This can come from poor planning and sick employees (or from not being able to get staff). Structural understaffing leads to high workload, which in turn can lead to absenteeism (burnout). This ultimately hits the bottom line, which is why understaffing should be avoided as much as possible.

What is overstaffing?

Are there too many employees for the tasks? Then overutilisation is precisely what happens. For a short period of time, this is often not so bad, because overdue jobs can be cleared and stock can be built up. In contrast, structural overstaffing carries risks. Employees get bored, and as an employer you pay unnecessarily high personnel costs. That makes overstaffing undesirable.

How to calculate capacity utilisation?

To calculate staff utilisation, you need two values. The planned hours and the hours needed to meet the desired capacity and quality. Then you do the following calculation, which is more optimal the closer it is to 100%.

(planned hours / required hours) x 100 = utilisation rate (%)

Using capacity utilisation in staff planning

As you have read, it is important to aim for an optimal utilisation rate. This is harder said than done, because sometimes you have to deal with unexpected factors. For instance, there may suddenly be a peak or quiet period, employees may want a holiday during an undesirable period or they may fall ill (unexpectedly) for an extended period. Fortunately, there is something you can do!

Based on historical data from the past, it is possible to make predictions. Based on a Workforce Management System, you know how to predict peak and off-peak times based on past data. And so you know when it is time to bring in extra staff and when that week off is just right.

Optimal utilisation with Dyflexis forecasts

Making such predictions (forecasts) is difficult without proper registration. It is therefore smart to use planning and capacity management software. Such a system records everything for you, from leave requests to illnesses, peak moments in the past, et cetera. This information serves as the basis for creating a staff schedule with the ideal capacity utilisation.

Dyflexis offers an efficient personnel system, which can help determine the ideal occupancy rate.