Businesses spend 42 days and around $4,700 per hire. The actual cost to hire a new employee can be 3-4 times the salary, highlighting the importance of reducing hiring costs. Without a workforce management platform, you may spend $180,000 to hire an employee with a $60,000 wage. And one in five of these employees will likely leave your company within a year, losing you $120,000.

Research shows that bad hiring decisions result in 80% of employee turnover. As a result, most companies have unfilled positions and can’t fulfill customer demand. This leads to low customer satisfaction and losses for you, overtime and poor working conditions for workers. It’s a vicious cycle of losing employees and failing clients you can’t afford in a rapidly evolving market.

WWhat can help? Workforce management platforms. They are by no means a panacea for all HR problems. However, WFM solutions have drastically changed recruitment and HR operations. And they continue to drive business value for SMBs, enterprises, and outsourcing HR agencies. In this post, we’ll introduce essential WFM features and disruptive technologies. We’ll present the benefits of workforce management systems you can reap by adopting technologies disrupting the recruitment industry.

• Nine out of ten businesses save at least 10% on HR admin and management after WFM adoption.
• Cloud-based HR solutions improve data security, UX, and mobile capabilities. They increase employee engagement and productivity in over 80% of cases.
• Data analytics and automated recruitment processes help businesses predict and address demand peaks.
• Exoft experience spans from custom business applications development to offering ready-made WFM solutions.

Essential Features & Best Practices

Should you look for a ready-made WFM platform or hire developers to build a custom solution? The answer depends on your budget and WFM needs. In the table below, you’ll find essential features for an innovative workforce management platform.

Applicant tracking, shortlisting, and interviewing features are also necessary for workforce management in recruitment. At the same time, more companies are looking into advanced off-boarding practices. These practices help turn leaving workers into loyal alumni and boomerang employees.

Implementing workforce management tools for recruitment and daily operations always faces friction. Without a proper transition period, new software adoption can cause operational disruptions and employee dissatisfaction. Based on our enterprise app-building guide and experience with WFM adoption, the Exoft team recommends these strategies for smooth implementation:

• Set WFM adoption goals. Think of the main reasons behind your business's transition and set measurable KPIs. For example, if you want to reduce staff churn, WFM systems can reduce it through improved employee satisfaction.
• Introduce employee and management training. Host seminars and workshops that highlight the benefits for all parties. For instance, managers will spend less time tracking employee performance. Personnel will enjoy a more flexible schedule and have real-time access to overtime and paid leave numbers.
• Phase the new software in stages. Start by introducing the WFM system for one department to assess the changes. Next, expand the testing to other departments. You can also phase in the core features one at a time to slowly train your staff to use them without causing much friction.
• Monitor and optimize operations. Closely monitor workforce management solutions use cases. Collect employee and manager feedback over the first weeks and months of implementation. Adjust your WFM settings accordingly or request custom development adjustments. Finally, assess the KPIs and alter your adoption strategy if they aren’t met or set new ones if they are.

Technological Innovations Driving Disruption

Technology is critical to daily operations across 90% of businesses. Moreover, most companies realize the value disruptive technologies can generate. So, let us introduce you to three technologies currently disrupting the HR and recruiting industries.

Cloud-Based Solutions

Augmenting recruitment with workforce management platforms in the cloud has multiple benefits over on-premises solutions, including:

• Real-time collaboration. The HR managers can seamlessly operate across several locations and home offices, working on job postings, application screening, interview settings, etc. Cloud-powered collaboration is even more important after onboarding. It drives manager and employee engagement, especially if native or cross-platform development solutions are mobile-friendly.
• Instant scaling. On-premise systems require careful maintenance and steep upfront investments. Cloud-based WFM infrastructure can be scaled up or down on short notice. As your business needs grow, you can adjust your cloud storage and hosting accordingly and only pay for the services you use.
• Data protection. Cloud-based WFM solutions take full responsibility for hardware and server security. They employ best practices for data protection, including data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and password validation.

Big Data Analytics

Analyzing historical data on hires, employee performance, and lifecycle helps optimize hiring decisions. WFM systems let businesses collect, structure, store, and analyze all workforce data. For example, HR managers can assess the current personnel profiles to decide if diversity hires are necessary. They can also analyze the relationship between overtime, employee satisfaction rates, and personnel churn to suggest additional staffing requirements. Our staff augmentation tips can help with that, too.

HR managers will need training to make the most of these workforce management technologies. You may also need to customize reports and dashboards to produce necessary insights. One example of custom WFM solutions is a time-tracking tool the Exoft team developed for a mid-sized consultant company. This solution increased scheduling and billable hour transparency. Moreover, hiring decision-making improved thanks to insights derived from time and attendance tracking reports.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

23% of new employees leave companies within 12 months of getting hired. They don’t have the relevant skills or experience to fill the positions. Sometimes, their responsibilities differ from the job posting description. ML and AI can help address both. For one, AI hiring tools can craft job descriptions based on actual tasks required for the job. ML algorithms can also assess candidates’ applications and pre-screen them according to specific parameters. Both will speed up the recruiting process and help businesses address peaks in demand.

Still, it’s important to carefully monitor the screening algorithms and use IT support services to avoid introducing bias.

Transformative Impact of Workforce Management Platforms

The future of recruitment technology is reshaping the recruitment landscape and overall human resources and workforce management efforts. Here are a few examples of businesses benefits of adopting disruptive technologies in workforce management and recruitment:

There are also many benefits of implementing a workforce management platform for recruitment. They range from increased automation, critical for fast scaling to address demand peaks to reduced administrative burdens and, as a result, lower hiring costs. Moreover, WFM platforms facilitate job posting and onboarding. Improving employee retention rates and reducing the hiring workload are also common effects.

Final Thoughts

The future of recruitment is here, and you can no longer afford poor hiring decisions. They cost too much time and money. And their long-term repercussions for customer satisfaction affect your bottom line. WFM platforms transforming hiring processes help automate routine tasks and let hiring professionals focus on matching applicants to your business needs.

Moreover, disrupting HR technology, like cloud-based WFM solutions, advanced analytics, and AI-powered automation and personalization, will improve overall HR performance throughout your company. It is known to boost employee engagement and productivity. It can also enhance remote work and software development team management and reduce HR admin costs. In our tenant migration case study, we demonstrated how migrating data to a cloud-based environment can streamline operations and improve decision-making for HR teams.

To estimate the ROI of implementing a WFM solution for your business, contact the Exoft team and schedule a consultation.