The Power of Workforce Management

There are many kinds of workforce management; however, to most people the term means day-to-day management of staff. For example, communicating tasks, training and ensuring that staff deliver.

Most people automatically assume that the management of staff is mostly the responsibility of shop floor management, and, largely, this is true. However, effective management of a workforce requires far more than good shop floor managers. Those managers need support from other areas of the business, in particular the HR department.

HR's Role in Workforce Management

With good support from their HR department, shop floor and department managers can be far more effective. There are many ways in which HR departments contribute to workforce management.

One of the most obvious ways is recruitment. Quickly finding the right personnel, taking them through induction, including ensuring they go through legally required training like health and safety are all the responsibility of Human Resources. Any HR department that does this delivers a workforce that is ready, willing and able to fulfil each role.

HR also plays a vital role in managing things like absenteeism. They look for trends and provide managers with the data needed to point any problems out to personnel and begin to address them.

Human Resources will monitor changes in employment law and other regulations, such as health and safety. They point these changes out to the management team and help to come up with the best way to implement the necessary changes in the workplace.

Good Information Management is Vital for Workforce Management

At any one time, the HR department of a business will be managing a lot of different tasks. They will be responsible for maintaining records on each employee, keeping records of training including those that show an employee has completed legally required courses.

The HR department is responsible for a lot of data, so it is important that they have access to the right software to manage that data. Using the right HR software, systems and services streamlines tasks, guards against errors and increases the effectiveness of the HR department. It allows HR departments to give others in the firm or organisation the information they need for effective workforce management.