If you’re running a business in a traditional industry, such as construction, retail, manufacturing, or agriculture, chances are, you’re struggling to keep up. However, keeping up is only challenging if you haven’t yet adopted smarter ways to manage your workforce.
According to a recent survey, high-performing CEOs who are successfully adopting new technology witness their companies grow faster and achieve higher annual revenue growth.
So, what kind of solutions can help traditional industries catch up?
These would be smarter workforce management tools. That said, let’s get into how smarter workforce management tools work and why they matter when it comes to scaling your business.
Why traditional industries struggle with workforce management
It’s very much expected for industries such as construction, manufacturing, retail, and agriculture to have a hard time managing their workers. This is because the workers, the working hours, the workload, and in the case of construction, the location, tend to frequently change.
So, you can see how quickly things can become complicated. Without the right ally to help you keep track of who’s working, where they need to be, and when, your daily operations can suffer.
You might run into:
- Missed or double-booked shifts.
- Confusion among employees regarding what they need to work on.
- Overworked employees.
- Missed project deadlines due to last-minute changes.
For example, you might accidentally assign more employees to work on tiling in one building, while another building with that same need is left without any workers.
The result? Employees will have to work more than they were supposed to, and the construction of the second building will take more than expected, ultimately causing clients to lose trust in your business.
So, instead of handling changing schedules manually and scrambling to find labor at the last minute, you can invest that time and energy into something like improving your services.
How smarter workforce management can help
Smarter workforce management means that you’ll be relying on digital tools to manage your workforce. That is, how you handle schedules, track working hours and task progress, and how you communicate with your team.
The goal is to stay organized and respond quickly to unexpected changes, even in the messiest of times. So, what does this really look like?
All your schedules in one place
Scheduling might not seem like a big deal. But in traditional industries, when job sites and tasks tend to constantly change, you might find it difficult to keep up and avoid mistakes.
Take, for example, a supermarket chain. No matter how many stores there are, these stores are always busy. You don’t want to send most of your employees to one of these locations and leave another short-staffed. That’s how you slow down your services and frustrate customers.
Instead, you can rely on technology to ease the job of your HR teams. With leading HR tools for small businesses, they’ll be able to create and adjust schedules a lot quicker than before.
This is because tools, like Agendrix, allow everyone to make changes to the schedule and for everyone to see these changes in real time. For example, if an employee calls in sick, they’ll be able to update the schedule immediately so that HR can act fast, looking for a replacement.
See who’s working, where, and when
Keeping track of employees’ working hours is yet another challenge that you face daily in traditional industries. No matter how careful you are, doing this manually can sometimes cause more harm than good. You could mix up shifts, which could result in inaccurate payroll.
With the help of smarter workforce management tools, you’ll be able to:
- Automatically track who’s working, where, and when.
- Calculate total hours worked and payroll automatically by relying on real clock-in times.
- Build trust with your employees through accurate records.
You can fix mistakes, but earning back the trust of your employees isn’t as easy. So, in order to avoid work shift and payroll mistakes, you need to start mixing the traditional with the digital.
Match the right job with the right employee
Not all employees are good at everything. One might be good at tiling, while another could be more handy with the electrical work. Tasks should be assigned based on skills. But why?
Because the job might take longer to get done. It could also frustrate your employees because they’re doing work they don’t feel comfortable doing. Not because they don’t want to, but because it’s on them if the project ends up being delayed or if something goes wrong.
Smart workforce tools can help. These tools keep a record of your employees’ skills and experience. They let you assign tasks based on this, not just on when workers are free.
It’s simple. When you match the right person to the right job, you’re making sure that the job gets done faster, your employees aren’t overwhelmed, and they feel motivated for the next one.
Better communication between field and office teams
Even if there’s a person assigned to keep track of what’s happening on the field in industries such as construction and manufacturing, it’s still challenging to keep clear communication between field teams and office staff. This could easily lead to errors and confusion.
The biggest problem is that information might not reach the right person at the right time, which could prolong important decisions, or worse, you could fail to notice potential issues. Lucky for you, project management software for construction is all about real-time communication and transparency.
For example, Fieldwire makes it possible for your team to share photos and updates on the task progress through their phone while they’re on the jobsite.
This is how your office teams will be able to access and use this information.
So, if you’re still relying on calls and messages to get a hold of your team and transfer information, think twice. Why risk details getting lost and information not reaching the right person at the right time, when there’s a much more efficient way to do this?
How smarter workforce management impacts your business
Adopting a new way of managing your workforce is an investment. That said, it’s only natural to be curious about how you can know that a smart workforce management system is working.
Here are some of how it impacts your business:
Increased productivity
As already mentioned, smart workforce management tools make sure that you assign tasks smartly and that you’re always staying on top of who’s doing what, when, and where.
When everyone is working what and when they’re supposed to, the job will naturally be finished faster. Not only that, but the quality of the work will improve too, because your employees will be doing what they’re best at.
Speaking long-term, this makes everyone happy – your workers will be more reliable, your clients more satisfied, and your business more profitable.
Lower labor costs
You can fix mistakes with shifts and payroll. However, these mistakes don’t go away without leaving consequences.
If you’re paying workers to work overtime mainly because your schedules weren’t planned well, or you’re paying for hours that haven’t even been worked because of incorrectly calculated working hours, your costs are bound to go higher.
With a smart workforce management tool by your side that will keep track of your employees’ working hours, you’re in the clear. Say goodbye to unnecessary costs and frustrated workers.
Happier employees
Employees will never stay if they feel like you’re taking them for granted. That said, one of the ways you can keep your employees happy is to have clear schedules so that they don’t have to experience last-minute changes, as well as assign them tasks based on their skills.
It’s no secret that happier employees are less likely to quit. So, if you manage to keep them happy, you can rest assured that you won’t have to continuously train a new team from scratch.
Embrace smart workforce management
Just because traditional industries are known for fieldwork doesn’t mean that they can’t benefit from modern technology. Smart workforce management tools have been created specifically with one thing in mind – to make managing employees in busy environments faster and easier.
When you’re assigning the right tasks to the right people and are timely informed about any changes that could cause issues in the long run, you set your business up for success.
Put simply, you’ll be facing fewer delays and less confusion. You’ll be able to do everything on time without the need for extra working hours or hiring new employees, that is, with fewer costs.
About the author: Makedonka Micajkova is a freelance content writer and translator, always bringing creativity and originality to the table. Being multilingual with professional proficiency in English, German, and Spanish, it’s needless to say that languages are her biggest passion in life. She’s also a skilled communicator as a result of her three years of experience as a sales representative. You can find her on LinkedIn.
