Part of me still believes that workforce management systems should mirror talent management systems.
After all, both are about getting more productivity from employees. Yet, workforce management systems have evolved into something with quite different characteristics.
One of the important differences is that workforce management deals with high population jobs; another is that workforce management software is tied more closely to operations than talent management software.
The tie to operations has always been there. Workforce management systems could work out schedules and generate monthly reports on metrics like absenteeism and overtime. However, the systems are getting much more exciting as they move to providing real-time information.
I spoke to Frank Moreno, the Director of Product Marketing at Kronos, about the capabilities of workforce management and he painted this kind of scenario:
The head office instructs the store managers on a project such as setting up the store for the fall season. The store managers then assigns tasks to workers. Workers input their progress so that the manager can see how tasks are progressing; re-assign workers as needed and even compare how long tasks are taking compared to other stores. If checking inventory is taking twice as long as the average store the manager will want to know why.
If we move from retail to manufacturing we can imagine the manager walking around with a tablet checking which shifts are most productive, how production orders are coming, and how much they are spending on overtime.
This doesn’t sound at all like what we expect talent management systems to do. Today’s workforce management systems can provide all sorts of real-time information that help a manager manage in the moment.
