Article • 1 min read
What is workforce management (WFM)?
If you have employees, you need a workforce management strategy. Our guide dives into the basics of WFM so you can implement it into your business.
By Hannah Wren, Staff Writer
Last updated January 28, 2025
Workforce management definition
Workforce management (WFM) is a set of processes and technologies a business can use to manage employees and resources, optimize productivity, and ensure the organization complies with laws and regulations. The overarching goal of WFM is to create as much efficiency as possible.
Have you ever been stuck in a meeting and wondered why you were even there? Or watched the clock tick down while waiting for a crucial resource to materialize in your inbox? These are a few signs that workforce management (WFM) is lacking in your organization.
While the chaos of a poorly managed workplace—like constant overtime, missed deadlines, and a perpetually stressed workforce—is easy to spot, a lack of things to do can be just as telling. Empty calendars, idle hours, and unproductive meetings are all signs that workforce management (WFM) might be falling short.
The secret to bridging this gap—between chaotic overwork and inefficient downtime—lies in effective workforce management, the often-overlooked key to building a high-performing, balanced team.
By providing a process for essential tasks like employee scheduling, payroll management, and short- and long-term goal development, WFM significantly benefits the overall employee experience (EX). Read on to learn how to add workforce management to your organization’s recipe for success.
- Why is workforce management important?
- Key components of workforce management solutions
- Benefits of workforce management
- How to choose the right WFM solution
- Frequently asked questions
- Supercharge your WFM with Zendesk
Why is workforce management important?
Workforce management is crucial because it can help expedite employee scheduling, future initiatives, and budgeting. It is the key ingredient that drives organizations to be as efficient as possible.
With a successful WFM strategy, businesses can take short-term actions that increase productivity immediately, such as schedule adherence, automatic scheduling, and AI-powered workload forecasting. These actions make a manager’s job easier and keep employees on track. Additionally, WFM can contribute to long-term goal setting and improve strategies that provide historical data on your teams’ performance.
Key components of workforce management solutions
Every business is unique, and no two workforce management processes are identical. However, there are some core components that WFM solutions should include.
AI and automation
Using AI and automation in workforce engagement management significantly enhances organizational efficiency. AI algorithms can analyze data to predict staffing needs, optimize scheduling, and even match employees with tasks suited to their skills. This allows managers to make data-driven decisions at every level of the organization.
Automation and AI play a crucial role in enhancing workplace efficiency and effectiveness in several ways, including:
Streamlining administrative tasks, such as payroll and leave management, reducing errors, and improving efficiency.
Providing instant support during crucial moments with chatbots—faster than a human could respond.
Automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry and scheduling, to free up employees’ time for more creative and strategic work.
AI agents can also work together with WFM tools to combine the best of automation and AI. Zendesk’s AI agents are advanced chatbots that integrate with IT and HR, automating numerous interactions and improving employee self-service resources. These AI agents optimize internal workflow and help streamline team support.
Staff forecasting and scheduling
Businesses need to accurately predict future workforce needs—too many employees at one time results in wasted labor budgets, while too few can impact efficiency and customer service levels. This is a universal requirement for successful operations, regardless of whether companies implement general WFM, call center workforce management, or a different industry-specific approach.
Accurately predicting workforce needs is essential for the following reasons:
Having too many employees at one time can result in wasted labor budgets, while too few can impact efficiency and customer service levels.
This requirement is universal for successful operations and applies to general WFM, call center workforce management, or industry-specific approaches.
Finding the scheduling sweet spot can be challenging due to factors such as organizational trends, employee skill levels, and changing consumer preferences.
Workforce management enables businesses to create accurate schedules consistently, achieving the perfect balance between efficiency and labor cost optimization.
Time and attendance tracking
Time and attendance tracking—monitoring and recording employees’ hours, time off, and, in certain cases, their productivity—is crucial for both hourly and salaried teams. This data is essential for calculating payroll, optimizing efficiency, and complying with labor laws and regulations. Additionally, teams can use WFM time tracking to enhance employee experience management and ensure timesheets are always accurate.
Real-time team management
Real-time team management allows businesses to monitor employee schedules and customer demand on an hourly basis. This enables teams to make on-the-fly adjustments to schedules and resources so operations are running as efficiently as possible. This key WFM component can also highlight training opportunities and process improvements to consistently keep businesses operating at peak levels.
Reporting and analytics
Workforce management can help businesses make data-driven decisions through reporting and analytics features. WFM software can help organizations gather information on employee performance, attendance, turnover rates, and other important metrics like revenue per employee and time to fill. Using this data, teams can identify areas for improvement, implement strategies, and set long-term goals.
Regulatory compliance
WFM tools can also help organizations adhere to labor laws by automating processes related to working hours, overtime, and employee classifications. By using an advanced tool to handle workforce scheduling, you can ensure you never accidentally schedule someone more than they’re legally allowed to work.
Benefits of workforce management
Workforce management can aid organizations in several ways. Below are some of the top benefits for businesses implementing WFM processes.
Cost reduction
Payroll is a large expense for most businesses. Businesses can reduce unnecessary costs by putting every dollar to good use. Through precise employee scheduling and accurate workforce forecasting, organizations can limit overstaffing and excessive overtime and ensure each employee operates as efficiently as possible.
Strategic planning
A good workforce management system gives insight into business trends and performance analytics, providing a springboard for optimizing strategies. With WFM, businesses can make sure they have the right number of employees working at the right time, analyze company trends related to performance (like revenue per employee), and build off other data to create long-term improvements. Furthermore, businesses can leverage WFM principles to plan for retirements and resignations so they always have a stream of top talent.
Improved productivity
WFM principles like workforce allocation and performance monitoring can optimize team productivity and ensure employees are operating in the right role for their skill set. And, if an employee isn’t working efficiently, managers can easily identify training opportunities or other roles that may be a better fit for the employee. Additionally, employers can compare team-wide performance metrics against those of similar companies to determine whether they need to adjust their processes.
Enhanced employee satisfaction
Workforce management promotes balanced workloads and consistent schedules through processes like staffing forecasts. These forecasts ensure that team members have ample notice of their future work schedule and that there are always enough workers on a given shift. This brings predictability to employees’ lives, allowing them to achieve a better work-life balance while potentially reducing burnout.
How to choose the right WFM solution
The right WFM solution for your business will vary based on your team’s goals and the size of your organization. Here are some important elements to consider as you evaluate solutions.
Integration & compatibility
As with any addition to your tech stack, a new workforce management software will need to integrate with your existing systems—including HR, payroll, ERP, and others. Look for compatibility as you consider options, as well as a robust API capability that will facilitate communication between platforms.
Scalability & flexibility
A good WFM solution needs to grow with your organization. As data loads increase and business processes evolve, your WFM tool needs to be able to support changes and growth, making scalability and flexibility paramount.
Insights & analytics
As the saying goes, you can’t improve what you can’t measure, and nowhere is that more true than in workforce optimization. A WFM solution must provide your team with reports on employee performance, labor costs, and scheduling efficiency—and that’s just table stakes. This information is necessary for management to make informed decisions.
Manager & employee experience
Finally, the user experience is also a huge part of WFM. For both employees and managers, the interface should be easy to navigate and simple to use—ideally with cutting-edge features like a self-service portal or mobile access. A great training library or other information resource is also a bonus.
Frequently asked questions
Finally, here are some frequently asked questions about workforce management.
Sendle
Sendle ups productivity with omnichannel CX and WFM tools
“The Zendesk team has always kept us ahead of the game. Along with the changes in the industry and support systems, ensuring that we’re ready for innovations and have the right tools at our disposal, should we want to give them a go.”
Laura Hill
Managing Director
Supercharge your WFM with Zendesk
Simply put, keeping everyone happy and productive at work can be a real challenge. However, effective workforce management can go a long way towards smoothing out friction areas and creating a productive and harmonious workplace, improving both the manager and employee experience.
With the Zendesk workforce management solution, team inefficiency is a thing of the past. Using our cutting-edge AI-powered solution, you can simplify and optimize every element of workforce management, from scheduling to real-time resource management.