WFM?
Workforce management (WFM) is generally understood to mean managing, regulating and directing labor and personnel.
WFM often includes recruitment, staffing, training, personnel certification, remuneration, performance management, payroll, planning schedules and more.
There are a lot of software or tools available to facilitate and/or automate the management of your workforce or to connect your mobile colleagues.
Suivo also offers Workforce Management solutions like employee scheduling, time registration, planning, trip registration, access control and more.
Each industry has its unique requirements
Workforce Management is applicable in each industry. The solutions provided by Suivo however are mainly focused on connecting mobile colleagues or technicians, drivers and other workers in the field.
As a consequence, the Suivo Workforce Management solutions mostly are deployed in the:
- Construction & Concrete Industry – like craftsmen, site supervisors, project managers, technicians, …
- Public services and public safety – like police and fire departments, waste collectors, city gardeners and other city workers, …
- Transport & Logistics – like truckers, fleet managers, parcel delivery people, couriers
- Infrastructure and Utility Industry – like road workers, crane operators, installers, …
AI based Workforce Scheduling
Being able to assign your employees with the required skills and talents to specific tasks at appropriate times?
You can do that without too much admin!
Let AI (Artificial Intelligence) plan your workforce: easily and flexibly, so that you can deploy your workforce optimally and make smarter use of the talents of your employees. Moreover, your employees will derive more satisfaction from this process.
Scheduling your workforce can be a complex puzzle. There are many things that you need to take into account. If you want to automate this process, then this is no different.
AI-based workforce scheduling takes the following elements into account:
- The skills / talents / certifications / authorizations of your colleagues
- The availability of your employees
- The availability of the equipment they need to perform certain tasks
- The location of your people, vehicles and assets (tools, machines, …)
- The traffic or possible routes
- The urgency of the task or intervention
- Other parameters that are important for the continuity in your organization; depending on your business.
The 8 benefits of AI based Workforce Scheduling
1 TIME SAVING
You don’t have to lay out the puzzle yourself anymore and therefore don’t have to waste time on it. The chance of mistakes or misjudgments is reduced. The lines of communication are also shortened, so that your employees are informed more quickly about certain assignments or changes in the schedule.
2 PREDICTABILITY
AI is able to detect patterns and this allows you to predict future demand for work assignments and workforce / employees; call it ‘labor forecasting‘.
This includes scheduling employees during peak periods and assigning work to the right person with the right skills. You know how many workers are needed daily, weekly or seasonally to get the job done!
3 FLEXIBILITY
A smart scheduling tool offers so-called ‘Demand driven scheduling‘. The planning can take into account unforeseen situations or ad hoc tasks.
You retain your flexibility, because the optimized planning based on the algorithm can still be adjusted manually for any reason.
If you need to find a replacement for an absent or sick colleague, it is a snap, because you are able to react to real-time changes in situations inside or outside your organization.
You receive notifications when restrictions (opening hours, skills, …) are exceeded. The planning can be adjusted accordingly.
4 TRANSPARENCY
A clear planning gives you an accurate insight into the time spent by your workforce. Thanks to an integration with (the software of) your social secretariat, the payroll validation also occurs automatically and thus you always have paid your workforce correctly and can (re)invoice correctly and without discussion.
5 COST SAVINGS
You need fewer administrative resources to create efficient planning schedules.
In addition, you also save considerably on transportation costs. By taking into account traffic and possible routes, driving times are reduced. Your mobile workforce can therefore focus on its task rather than on getting to the location. In addition, fuel prices are staggering, so if you can also reduce fuel consumption (as well as your CO2 emissions), then you can only applaud that, no?
6 HAPPY EMPLOYEES
It’s a cliché, but by now it’s obvious to any entrepreneur or manager that it’s true: your people are your greatest asset. Nurture your employees and find ways to connect. You have everything to gain from keeping them happy: after all, a happy employee, performs best and evolves fast. By using a smart scheduling tool, you give your employees recognition for their talents and skillset and you take into account realistic workloads and distances to be covered, for example. So you also guard a healthy life-work balance.
7 SCALABILITY
Integrating a system to manage your schedule is an important part of your longer-term operational strategy. It becomes easier to manage your labor pool, regardless of whether it consists of permanent employees and/or flex workers and regardless of whether that pool consists of 5 or 1500 (mobile) colleagues.
8 IMPROVED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
The communication between your organization and your customers improves, because you are able to notify customers in a timely manner in case of schedule / ETA changes. You can share accurate and real-time information with your customers.
Does AI still seem like a long way off?
Did you know that you can already make your life a lot easier, even if you don’t choose AI (yet)?
AI is not a requirement to automate and optimize based on your data. Suivo also offers modules for:
- Time registration: for a realistic picture you need – whether or not per project – an overview of the hours actually worked, travel times of drivers and passengers, breaks, overtime, …
So leave paper work orders and time sheets for what they are. Thanks data-driven solutions, you know exactly who is entitled to which mobility allowance and you eliminate the cumbersome monthly preparations of the documents you have to upload or send to your social secretariat. This will quickly save you several precious hours per month and per employee!
- Absence Management
- Attendance registration
- Payroll validation: if all elements of the time registration are kept digitally, then it is a breeze to exchange this info with the systems or tools of your social secretariat, thanks to an API. That saves a lot in terms of payroll administration!
The Suivo IoT Cloud platform integrates effortlessly with the systems of for example: SD worx, Acerta, Partena, Attentia, …
- CIAW: Check-in-at-work is a registration of people on a construction site that is obligatory by the Belgian government. If construction companies fail to comply with this, they face heavy fines, because it is intended to counter undeclared work and ensure safety on sites. However, CIAW means a lot of red tape if you don’t automate it.
- Paperless Timesheets: faster, more accurate and no one has to decipher sloppy scribbles.
- Trip logging: Thanks to an electronic logbook for drivers, you can pass on reliable information to your customers. Automatically generated reports provide you with info on mileage, driving and resting times and other statuses. Moreover, you can link the data to your TMS.
- Driving behavior: Monitor speeding, acceleration and fuel consumption. You improve the safety of your drivers while (among other things) reducing fuel costs.
- Secure Access Control or Identification
- …
These time tracking solutions for your workforce are of course also data-driven and are first smart steps in your digital journey.
Who will benefit from our Workforce Management solutions?
For the administration, HR department, planners and dispatchers: unseen time savings.
The information obtained is always accurate, quickly available and does not have to be entered separately into multiple systems.
For the HR department, team leads / supervisors and the mobile colleagues themselves: correct personnel policy, happy staff.
Correct wage management, payments without delays or discussions, easier compliance with legal provisions, conducting performance interviews based on facts instead of gut feelings, making maximum use of the talents of your workforce, making them not only more productive but also happier!
For the admin or financial department: more insights into the costs
Visibility and control over budgets regardless of phase, project, activities and tasks. Forecast and preparation of budget plans (including staff management) become much easier.
For suppliers and customers: improved service
Customers, suppliers and partners can be informed quickly (sometimes in real time) about (changing) schedules, statuses; invoicing and other information that needs to be communicated.
