Workforce planning software

In today’s dynamic business world, effective planning and management of personnel and resources are crucial. This is where workforce management software comes into play. It revolutionizes how companies deploy their workforce, manage working hours, and increase personnel efficiency.

Workforce management involves forecasting the quantitative and qualitative staffing needs of a company for a future period and evaluating the extent to which these needs can be met by appropriately qualified employees.

Workforce management software should answer the following questions

• How much personnel and with what qualifications will be needed both now and in the future, up to a certain planning horizon?

• How can personnel be efficiently utilized based on their professional qualifications?

• How can potential issues due to either excess capacity or a shortage of labor be detected and prevented in advance?

What HR Trends Exist?

A global Deloitte survey found that in 2020, workforce management was among the top three HR trends, whereas it hadn’t even been in the top ten before. Why did interest in this topic increase so dramatically? The pandemic brought about changes in work practices, office spaces, and skill requirements. Even industry leaders are now uncertain about predicting a company’s staffing needs and optimally distributing personnel resources.

A workforce management (WFM) software can contribute to solving this issue.

Bain & Company, in its article “HR’s New Digital Mandate,” demonstrates that digital technologies have become essential for workforce management (WFM).

Read the article „HR’s New Digital Mandate“

According to their survey, even though HR departments still use manual, Excel, or paper-based processes as the primary method for resource management in certain HR processes (ranging from 23% to 31%), they plan to transition from manual to digital processes within the next two to three years.

Effective resource and resource utilization planning is prevalent in the market. These planning tools are invaluable for companies that need to efficiently allocate their workforce without frustration.

Workforce management software can help you determine

• The professional qualifications your personnel need.

• Who is currently working on what tasks.

• How many hours each employee is committed to.

• Who is available.

• Whether your labor costs align with your budget.

In the following sections, we will introduce Rillsoft Cloud, our workforce management software, and present other personnel planners for resource utilization to assist you in deciding which WFM tool is most suitable for your company.

Rillsoft Cloud - WFM Software for Balanced Staff Utilization and Reliable Delivery Deadlines

We also provide a brief summary of Rillsoft Cloud in the workforce management domain.

Resource Planning and Personnel Deployment Optimization

Resource planning is another critical aspect in the business world. Companies must ensure they have a sufficient number of qualified employees to meet customer demands without incurring excessive costs. Our workforce management software enables optimal resource planning.

By using algorithms and data analysis, Rillsoft Project’s personnel management software can identify the best deployment options for employees. This leads to better utilization of the workforce while minimizing downtime. Effective workforce management software can help reduce operating costs and increase profit margins.

• For each employee, essential data is stored in the master data, including:

• Basic personal information (e.g., name, employee number, contact information)

• Work models, work schedules, and holidays

• Professional competencies and qualifications, ensuring that each human resource is only deployed where they possess the necessary qualifications

• Organizational units or team-building

• Absences such as vacations, illnesses, etc.

• Leave entitlements, along with a transparent overview of days off taken and outstanding days

Professional qualifications are critical to successful workforce management in companies. In this context, workforce management software refers to the ability to efficiently manage employees’ professional competencies and qualifications, including capturing, monitoring, and assigning specific skills and knowledge to team members to ensure that the right individuals are assigned to specific tasks.

Team deployment planning is a central aspect of workforce management software. This feature enables effective organization of teams and ensures that the right employees work together to achieve common goals. This includes task assignments, consideration of team members’ availability and qualifications, and coordination of workflow.

This feature provides an overview of team members availability, allowing for the management of vacation times, training, or other periods of absence and ensuring that the deployment plan is adjusted accordingly to avoid bottlenecks.

Employee workload overview offers a holistic view of employees’ workloads. This allows companies to evenly distribute workloads and ensure that employees are neither overburdened nor underutilized.

This feature helps identify and address resource bottlenecks at an early stage. It makes it possible to identify potential staff scheduling bottlenecks and take timely action to ensure the smooth continuation of projects.

Aggregating personnel resources involves consolidating and displaying all available employee resources in a central overview. This simplifies strategic planning and resource allocation in larger organizations and enables efficient use of available labor.

Leave Management and Personnel Planning

Work schedule planning tools and personnel planning software are key elements of Rillsoft Project’s workforce management software. The software solution provides a user-friendly interface for creating and managing work schedules.

Our personnel planning software includes features for tracking work hours, vacation days, sick days, and other relevant information. It allows managers and HR professionals to keep track of employee availability and ensure that shift planning accommodates individual employee needs.

Each employee can view a calendar of their vacation days, sick days, and other absences and request new vacation days with a click in the Rillsoft Cloud system. The system checks for any time conflicts between the vacation request and assigned tasks. Supervisors can approve or decline vacation requests, and a list of absences is always readily available.

Access Rights

Access rights are divided into two groups, with user roles enabling detailed permission assignment. Here, you can specify which information is available to an employee and which activities (viewing, editing, adding, or deleting) the corresponding user role can access.

In addition to user roles, you can define directory roles, allowing you to control access rights for a user or planner regarding various orders or projects. Directory roles form the basis for multi-user work in a multi-project environment and allow flexible access restrictions for changes.

Outlook Calendar

Scheduled employees can have their project tasks continuously updated as appointments in an Outlook calendar.

Email Notifications

Automatic workflows, such as email notifications, ensure that specific events, such as a project change or a milestone delay, trigger a response from employees or project managers.

Workforce Management - WFM

Capacity planning provides information on how many resources are available for any future period. Employees and their working time models are included as planning variables.

You can easily determine who is working on which projects at the moment and with which hours the respective employee is burdened. In addition, an evaluation can be made at department or team level.

By assigning or deducting employees from tasks in the current project, you can react flexibly to fluctuations in demand.

The warnings in the event of a resource overload help to optimally deploy personnel resources. A quick response to resource shortages is an important factor in remaining competitive.

Our resource planning software with the help of running through different scenarios guarantees that the staffing requirements in all relevant work areas can be covered professionally, efficiently and qualitatively.

The Staff Planning View shows how ready an employee is to take on a task, taking into account their days off, as well as whether an employee is already scheduled in other parallel tasks.

Dynamic prioritisation of projects in the project portfolio

Too many projects, too few resources - who hasn’t experienced this?

The Rillsoft Cloud staff scheduling software presents you with an overview of the required and available staff resources at any time and allows you to prioritise the ongoing projects only within the scope of the resources in order to achieve the best possible results.

On-schedule or capacity-based resource planning

On-time resource planning in workforce planning software refers to the ability to ensure that projects and tasks are completed according to agreed deadlines. This feature enables organisations to efficiently plan resources such as staff and working hours and ensure that project goals are met on time.

Capacity planning is about ensuring that available resources are used optimally. Workforce planning software helps companies to consider the capacities of their employees and teams in order to avoid overload or understaffing.