Workforce Management Time & Attendance Excellence November 2022

Maintaining

- Charlotte G. Carne, Senior Counsel and Jasmina Aargon, Associate, Dykema

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- Mairead Walsh, Chief Marketing Officer, Softworks

3

Time

- Romy Malviya, Vice President, Business Development, Pulpstream

- Omri Hayner, General Manager, Workforce Engagement Management, NICE

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It is again that time of the year when you look back at the bygone year, take your learnings, and ready yourself for a new year.

As we wait for another year to unfold, one thing is for sure - work, workforce, and workplace are never going to be the same again, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The world of work has changed, probably forever. Your existing workforce management (WFM) processes might suffice in some contexts, however, you might want to take a long, hard look at many of your other processes and systems if you want to efficiently manage your workforce in future too.

From over-scheduling to overlapping vacations and time off, there are several employee scheduling challenges that await human resources (HR) in 2023. What are they and how do you prepare for them?

In the November edition of Workforce Management, Time & Attendance, Excellence, we bring expert articles from, and an interview with, WFM and HR specialists, that will help you prepare for the future of work.

Featured on the cover, this month, is Terkel.io Brett Farmiloe’s 11 Employee Scheduling Challenges HR Leaders Will Face In 2023, where he lists down top employee scheduling challenges HR leaders expect to face in 2023 and how they are preparing for it.

In Employee Scheduling Challenges And Trends 2023, Dykema’s Charlotte G. Carne and Jasmina Aargon discuss why it is critical for employers to learn to balance the challenges arising from various scheduling options arising in our workplaces.

Also featured in this edition is an Exclusive Interview With Equiniti Chief People Officer, Andrew Stephenson, where he shares his HR journey with readers, his learnings over the years, and what according to him will be the future of HR, among others.

Also, read 6 Ways Employee Scheduling Software Can Drive Business Efficiency And Performance by Softworks’ Mairead Walsh, and Managing Employees In The Contact Center: Five Predictions For The Future by NICE’s Omri Hayner.

This is not all!

This month’s issue of Workforce Management brings you several other informative and educational articles that we hope will help you achieve excellence and efficiency in your workforce management efforts.

Happy Reading!

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed in the Excellence ePublications are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of HR.com and its employees. Under no circumstances shall HR.com or its partners or affiliates be responsible or liable for any indirect or incidental damages arising out of these opinions and content.

Deepa Damodaran Editor, Workforce Management, Time & Attendance, Excellence

Debbie

Employee Scheduling Challenges that Await HR in 2023

In a world of unparalleled challenges (global pandemic, racial injustice, polit ical rivalry, digital 4.0, emotional malaise), uncertainty reigns. Finding oppor tunity in this context requires harnessing uncertainty and harnessing starts with reliable, valid, timely, and useful information. The Excellence publica tions are a superb source of such information. The authors provide insights with impact that will guide thought and action.

Dave Ulrich

Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Partner, The RBL Group

Excellence publications are my ‘go-to’ resource for contemporary and action able information to improve leadership, engagement, results, and retention. Each edition offers rich and diverse perspectives for improving the employee experience and the workplace in general.

Julie Winkle Giulioni

Author, Virtual /Live Keynote Presenter, Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers

I regularly read and contribute to Leadership Excellence and Talent Man agement Excellence. I use many of the articles I read to augment my own presentations and I often share the articles with my clients. They are always quick, right on target for the latest issues in my field, and appreciated by my clients. If you want to stay up to date on the latest HR trends, choose a few of the different issues from the Excellence series of publications.

Dr. Beverly Kaye CEO, BevKaye&Co.

11 Employee Scheduling Challenges HR Leaders Will Face In 2023

How to address the future employee scheduling challenges

By Brett Farmiloe, Terkel.io

HR Leaders, What employee scheduling challenges do you face/expect to face in 2023 and why? How are you preparing for this?

To help you best prepare for challenges you may face with employee scheduling in 2023, we asked HR managers and business leaders this question for their best insights. There are several employee scheduling challenges that HR leaders are dealing with that you may need to prepare to tackle in 2023. Here

1. Over-Scheduling

Over-scheduling is one of the biggest challenges that we face when it comes to employee sched uling. There are only so many hours in the day, and often not enough employees to cover all the shifts. This can lead to employees getting burnt out and making mistakes.

In order to prepare for this, we try to be as flexible as possible with employee schedules. I allow them to swap shifts if they need to, and I give them plenty of notice for upcoming changes. We also make sure to schedule breaks evenly throughout the day, so that employees have time to rest and recharge. By being flexible and accommodating, we hope to avoid over-sched uling employees and help them stay healthy and productive in 2023.

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager, Financer

2. Unintentional Unfair Scheduling

One employee scheduling challenge we avoid is "unconsciously unfair" scheduling. Failing to be consistent with your employees about their shifts and schedules can send the wrong message even if you try to be objective as much as you can. It could make employees feel like you give one per son a more favorable schedule than the others, affecting employee satisfaction negatively.

We use employee scheduling software to ensure equal shift distribution among our employees. These tools allow us to manage and optimize schedules more objectively. We will continue to employ these apps to boost employee satisfac tion and avoid workplace fallouts in the future.

3. Fulfilling Last-Minute Time-Off Requests

One employee scheduling challenge we expect to face in 2023 is fulfilling time-off requests. While accommodating time-off is not generally an issue for our business, fulfilling last-minute time-off requests impacts our scheduling and our entire team's hours.

We are preparing for this by asking frequently and in advance about time off requests, and even setting deadlines. This assists us in avoid ing last-minute time off requests and helps us anticipate how many hours we need to assign to others in the department.

Nunzio

Ross, Owner and Head Director, Majesty Coffee

4. Accommodating More Sick-Time

Though the pandemic has slowed, arranging time-off for sick days will remain top of mind in 2023. The American perspective has rightfully shifted toward calling in sick and taking time to rest rather than pushing through work. While this is a positive and much-needed change, it can present some potential for lost productivity, so we are getting creative with our solutions. We are leaning on automation to take some of the more simple tasks off of our team plates, and where we need to rearrange workloads, we are keeping a close eye on how much any one teammate is taking on at once. In the case of longer absences due to illness, we have an employment agency on speed dial that knows our needs and can help us quickly find temporary support.

Jeffrey Zhou, Co-Founder and CEO, Fig Loans

By staying ahead of the requests, we are able to plan and effectively accommodate all of the requests before it is too late. This ensures pro ductivity and gives us the appropriate number of employees for each season. Gregg Dean, Co-Founder and CEO, Layla Sleep

5. Shortage of Workers

One employee scheduling challenge you may face in 2023 is a shortage of workers. This could be due to a number of factors, such as an aging population, increased competition for talent, and changing attitudes toward work-life balance.

To prepare for this, you need to think about be coming more flexible in your approach to employ ee scheduling. This could involve offering more part-time and flexible working arrangements and being open to using shift swaps and start/ end times that suit your employees' individual needs. By being proactive and adaptable, you can future-proof your business.

Tracey Beveridge, HR Director, Personnel Checks

6. Handling Multiple Time Zones

One of the biggest challenges in employee sched uling I expect to see is managing different time zones. As more companies expand their opera tions to reach customers around the world, they need to ensure that they have enough staff in multiple time zones to address all of their cus tomer needs.

In order to prepare for this issue, many HR lead ers are investing in technology solutions that can handle scheduling automatically. This automa tion reduces errors and also allows employees to have more flexible schedules so that they can better manage their own time.

I believe that this will be a big challenge in 2023, but with the right tools and strategies, it will be possible to overcome it effectively.

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

7. Increased Number of Remote Employees

One employee scheduling challenge that we may face in 2023 is an increase in the number of employees who telecommute. This could be due to a variety of factors, such as advances in tech nology that make it easier to work from home, or a desire for employees to have more flexible schedules. As CEO and an HR leader, I need to be prepared for this potential change by ensuring that our telecommuting policies are up to date and that I have the infrastructure in place to sup port employees, who telecommute. I also need to be prepared to provide training and support to managers, who may not be familiar with manag ing remote employees.

Erik Pham, CEO, Health Canal

8. Unchecked Overtimes Might Cause Burnout

As industries are slowly, but surely, coming back into full swing, I am anticipating a drastic increase in workload for my team as well. The surge of workload in such a short span of time could require more frequent overtime shifts than is healthy for employees.

Going on overtime frequently can take a toll on employee morale, which might lead to burnout and eventually turnover. I am preparing for this by integrating automation into our processes.

We are now employing the use of AI tools for repetitive administrative tasks so that employees can focus their energy on tasks that are more pressing and require critical thinking.

Josh Tyler, CEO, Tell Me Best

9. Flexible Scheduling vs. Employee Shortage

One of the biggest issues we are already facing and will probably continue to face in 2023 is em ployee shortage as a result of flexible scheduling. In many cases, this ends up resulting in employ ees working similar schedules and no one being available for uncommon or undesired times such as vacations, days off, and nights for instance. This heavily impacts our customer support and productivity as a whole.

To help overcome this issue, we have started using scheduling software where employees still get the flexibility they seek, but by making sure someone is working and alternating difficult times amongst the team to make sure there is al ways someone available when needed while still giving them the flexibility for other timings.

Denise Hemke, Chief Product Officer, Checkr

10. Unplanned Last-Minute Absence

The demands of everyday existence often prevent us from finishing our tasks on time. Late arrivals are possible if workers experience problems get ting to work on time due to things like car trouble, illness, or having sick children. Panic is the worst possible response in this situation.

The quickest and easiest fix is to hire a replace ment worker. If you have workers already on the clock, you can inquire if they would be willing to stay and take over the available shift. Try incen tivizing them with overtime, suggesting they switch off days, or suggesting they work shorter shifts for the rest of the week.

Zephyr Chan, Founder and growth marketer, Living The Good Life

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder and CEO – and currently CHRO - of Terkel.io Brett is an SHRM Influencer and has also been a keynote speaker at several state SHRM conferences around the topic of employee engagement.

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11. Overlapping Vacations and Time Off

We went through an intense hiring phase this year where we onboarded about 15 new employ ees within a three-month window. These hires represent about 80% of our entire team, and we anticipate that most of these people will likely want to take a vacation around the same time.

This is obviously a situation that we want to avoid, so we are preparing for it by clarifying the guidelines for taking time off and reminding em ployees about them. Specifically, individuals are not allowed to file leaves on the same days their team members are out, which they can check in advance on shared scheduling software.

Jonathan Merry, Co-founder & CEO, Crypto Monday

A Simple Overview Of The Fair Labor Standards Act

By Brett Daniel, ADP

Complying with the Fair Labor Standards Act can help you avoid criminal prosecution and thousands of dollars in fines. Bookmark this article for future reference.

Violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) can mean monetary penalties, litigation and reputational damage for organizations operating in the United States. To make matters worse, the FLSA can be confusing and difficult to understand.

In this article, we answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the FLSA with the help of Kevin Skelly, an employment and commercial litigation attorney at ADP. Plus, check out the updates section and FLSA toolkit at the end, which can help you calculate overtime pay and confirm state and federal minimums.

What Is the FLSA?

The Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, of 1938, also known as the Wages and Hours Act, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the country's 75th Congress. Initially drafted in 1932, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the act into law six years later, on June 25, 1938, and it became effective later that year, on Oct. 24, 1938. According to a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) fact sheet, the FLSA protects more than 143 million American workers.

Is the FLSA Still Around Today?

Yes, the FLSA is still around today, and it applies to employment relationships in any U.S. state, territory or possession, plus the District of Columbia. The FLSA does not apply to employees working outside these U.S. designations, even if their employers' main offices are in the U.S.

"Not only is the FLSA still around, but it's the subject of significant recent attention in the legal community," Skelly says. "For example, in October 2022, the DOL introduced new proposed rules interpreting the FLSA."

What Was the Purpose of the FLSA?

The purpose of the FLSA was to facilitate better working conditions by establishing federal standards for minimum wages, overtime pay, child labor and employer recordkeeping. The FLSA's impact is far-reaching, affecting employers and full-time and part-time workers in the public and private sectors. The FLSA also created the Wage and Hour Division (WHD), an office within the DOL that enforces the FLSA. The WHD employs investigators, supervisors and technical and clerical employees nationwide under the leadership of an administrator, whom the president appoints at the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.

What Are the Four Main Provisions of the FLSA?

The four main provisions of the FLSA are:

1. Federal minimum wages

2. Overtime pay

3. Employer recordkeeping

4. Child labor

States can also have laws governing each area. Generally, employees are entitled to the more generous and beneficial state and federal requirements. For example, if a state minimum wage exceeds a federal minimum wage, an FLSA-non-ex empt employee is entitled to the state's minimum wage. If a state's overtime pay rate exceeds the FLSA's time-and-a-half standard, the employee is entitled to the state's overtime pay rate.

Regarding child labor, the FLSA established 14 as the minimum age for most non-agricultural work, but states can have higher minimums with which employers must comply. For certain types of agricultural work, children may be employed at 12 or younger. Likewise, states can have higher minimums.

"It's important for employers, especially large employers who operate in multiple states and locations, to be aware of and comply with the various local wage and hour rules in addition to the FLSA," Skelly says.

The FLSA only applies to work arrangements that constitute employment relationships between employers and employees. Usually, an employment relationship is created when an employee depends on the organization they serve, but determining employment relationships can sometimes be confusing.

The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated there is no single rule or test for determining whether someone's an independent contractor or an employee for FLSA purposes. Learn more about defining employment relationships.

Why Is the FLSA Important?

The FLSA is important because it helps curtail working conditions that otherwise jeopardize employees' lives, health, well-being and efficiency. Millions of American workers and children have benefited from the FLSA.

According to a Monthly Labor Review by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), working conditions in the early 1900s, before the FLSA, were "fairly grim" for the typical American worker. It was common for children and adults to work long hours in dangerous, unsanitary or hazardous conditions. The FLSA regulated these conditions by requiring fair standards of labor.

Its accomplishments include a legal framework that provides for compulsory wages, safer and healthier work environments and the protection of children's educational opportunities. To that end, the FLSA is important because it established or required:

● Federal minimum wages, subminimum wages and related exemptions

● Paying employees compensatory time or one-and-a-half times their regular pay rates, also known as "overtime pay" or "time-and-ahalf," for workweeks exceeding 40 hours, and related exemptions

● Restrictions on employing children, or "child labor laws," and related exemptions

● Employer recordkeeping of wages and hours, including regular hourly pay rates, hours worked each day, hours worked each week and overtime earnings.

● Investigations, inspections, prosecutions and convictions for FLSA violations

The federal minimum wages are some of the FLSA's most discussed requirements. Currently, the federal minimum wages are:

● $7.25 per hour for covered, non-exempt employees

● $2.13 per hour for tipped employees

● $4.25 per hour for workers under 20 during their first 90 days of employment

"Although the federal minimum wage for covered, non-exempt employees is $7.25 per hour, many states have minimum wage laws with significantly higher rates," Skelly says. "For example, the state minimum wage in Massachusetts is currently $14.25 per hour. Washington has a current minimum wage of $14.49 per hour. It is important for employers to know

and comply with the state minimum wage laws in whatever state their employees are located."

Why Is the FLSA Important to Employers?

Generally, the FLSA is important to employers because they can be criminally prosecuted and fined for willfully violating it. Child labor violators can be fined up to $10,000 for each young worker employed in violation. Repeated, willful violations of the FLSA's minimum wage and overtime pay requirements can result in fines of up to $1,000 per violation. Terminating or discriminating against employees who file FLSA complaints or participate in FLSA legal proceedings also constitutes a violation.

That said, fines and litigation aren't always needed. The WHD can recommend changes in employment practices to help employers comply.

"The financial penalties and reputational harm that can result from violating the FLSA can be severe," Skelly says. "It's important for employers to implement proper policies and compliance measures to ensure compliance with the FLSA and state wage and hour laws."

What Does the FLSA Not Require?

The FLSA does not require:

● A set number of hours or days employees must work, excluding employees under 16

● Pay raises or employee benefits

● Vacation, holiday, severance or sick pay

● Premium pay for weekend or holiday work

● Pay stubs or Forms W-2

● Meal periods or rest breaks

● Termination notices, termination reasons and immediate payment of wages to terminated employees

These items are usually left to agreements between employers, employees and employees' authorized representatives.

"Although the FLSA does not address many aspects of the employer-employee relationship, there are state laws that do address many of them," Skelly says. "It's important for employers to be aware

of both federal and state laws that impact the employment relationship."

How Are the FLSA's Statuses Determined?

FLSA criteria, or tests, determine its exempt and non-exempt statuses. These are also known as clas sifications. Salary level, salary basis and job duties each play a role in determining these statuses.

Depending on the test, employees can be exempt from the FLSA's overtime requirements, its overtime and minimum wage requirements or its child labor requirements. For example, certain computer professionals paid at least $27.63 hourly are exempt from the FLSA's overtime requirements. Executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees paid on a salary basis are exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage and overtime requirements. Youth employed on small farms with parental consent are exempt from the FLSA's child labor requirements.

"The FLSA provides specific exemptions for certain employees who are not entitled to minimum wage and overtime protections," Skelly says. "It is important for employers to ensure their employees are properly classified as either exempt or non-exempt from the FLSA's requirements. A failure to properly classify employees can result in legal action for unpaid overtime and penalties on employers."

See "The differences between exempt and non-exempt employees" and "How do you classify employees?" at the end of this article for more information.

What Are Some Common Mistakes Made Under the FLSA?

Common mistakes made under the FLSA include violations of its minimum wage, overtime and child labor requirements. Minimum wage violations occur when employers do not pay hourly wages equal to or higher than a state or federal minimum wage. Child labor violations occur when employers employ young people below the minimum working age required by state or federal law. Overtime violations occur when employers do not use the correct overtime pay rates for employees working more than 40 hours a week or do not pay overtime when required.

According to the WHD, for fiscal year (FY) 2021, there were 7,287 minimum wage cases with violations and 7,159 overtime cases with violations. Combined, these two categories of violations amount to $164,607,324 in back wages, which are unpaid wages owed to employees by their employers.

For that same period, 181,955 employees were receiving back wages; on average, $1,211.70 was owed to each employee due back wages. Regarding FLSA child labor violations, there were 747 cases with violations and 2,819 minors employed in violation.

What Else Should I Know About the FLSA?

FLSA-related mistakes can mean costly fines, litigation and reputational damage. If you are an HR, business, payroll or hiring professional in the U.S., you can help protect your organization and its employees by understanding the act's requirements. Subscribe to ADP SPARK's "Legislation/Eye on Washington" alerts to have employment law and regulatory updates delivered straight to your inbox (Check out the subscription form at the bottom of any SPARK page). Also, visit the "LEGISLATION" category page on this blog.

This story was originally published on SPARK, a blog designed for you and your people by ADP®. Brett Daniel is a Content Marketing Manager at ADP. A former newspaper editor and investigative journalist, he has a passion for copyediting and telling people's stories. He's also a musician and lover of cats.

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t i v i t y

To successfully navigate the new world of work while boosting productivity, HR leaders need tools that will add value to their organizations.

ADP® leads the WFM industry with data, technology, support, and integrations that few other vendors can match.

Lifetime partnership post-implementation to maximize ROI the life of the solution.

Features that save managers time, like AI-enabled recommendations on approving time o , scheduling changes, and more.

Flexible scheduling options that empower employees to swap shifts, pick up over time, and share availability.

Discover the right solution for your business with our Buyer’s Guide .

ADP, the ADP logo and Always Designing f or People are t rademarks of ADP, Inc. Copyright ©

2022 ADP Inc. All rights reserved.

Go b ey o n d ba s ic time , a ttend a nce, an d s chedul e m a na g ement to incre a s e e f fi ci en c y a n d p r od u c

Employee Scheduling Challenges And Trends 2023

Maintaining productivity, connection and fairness

By Charlotte G. Carne and Jasmina Aargon, Dykema

Flexible, remote and hybrid schedules are here to stay. In 2023, companies will need to adopt their “return to office” plans to fit with this new reality. Offering remote work schedule options is a critical initiative for retaining talent.

To be successful, employers must learn to balance the challenges arising from these scheduling options. Top among these challenges are maintaining productivity, connection to the company, and fairness.

Productivity

Employers are increasingly challenged by the new reality of remote work. An obvious concern among all employers is that flexibility is concomitant with a fall in productivity. Remote work, and its built-in flexibility, has been shown to increase employee engagement, enhance work-life balance and reduce employee stress levels, all of which may lead to increased productivity.

The challenge for employers is to establish a time-keeping system that works in their culture. Employers also need to ensure open communication to make certain that remote employees are productive.

One trend is to have both non-exempt and exempt employees track time. Another trend is to measure

employee productivity with specifically tailored recognition and incentive programs.

Connection

Another challenge with increased flexibility is employee motivation. Employees still need to feel vital, valued, motivated, and connected to the employer for success. The trend here is to expand employee onboarding programs to all employees regardless of the length of service to make sure everyone maintains a connection with the company goals.

Hybrid remote work models that allow employees to work from home some days and in the office others, help employees maintain a connection with the company, its culture, and its goals.

Fairness

There are obviously some jobs where the essential duties of the position must be performed in person. Medical assistants, manufacturing employees and others do not have the luxury of remote work.

Employers are thus challenged to provide flexibility in a fair manner across the entire organization. The trend here is to work with these employees to acknowledge their essential role and accommodate needs for flexibility in other ways, such as alternative work schedules.

Some employers require all employees to return to the office two to three days a week so that there

Jasmina Aragon is an Associate at Dykema. Jasmine practices employment litigation. She defends employers against claims of workplace discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination and wage & hour claims in state court, federal court and arbitration. She also assists employers in administrative complaints and investigations. Additionally, she provides advise and counseling on drafting of employment policies and employment law issues.

is an in-person component to all positions across the organization. These efforts have yielded mixed results, however, because of the ability for employees to locate fully remote positions elsewhere. A onesize-fits-all solution does not seem to be the answer for 2023.

Conclusion

In short, remote work is here to stay and all employers need to thoughtfully review their options for providing employee flexibility while maintaining productivity, connection, and equity.

Recommended Resources:

The Society for Human Resource Management, www.shrm.org U.S. Chamber of Commerce, www.uschamber.com Stanford University, Institute for Economic Policy Research, https://siepr.stanford.edu/

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Charlotte Garry Carne is Senior Counsel, Labor and Employment Practice Group, at Dykema . For more than 20 years, Charlotte has practiced employment litigation, traditional labor law, and education law. She routinely provides advice, counseling, and training to management on employment law issues, leadership issues and avoiding litigation. She also excels at written advocacy and drafting employment policies, collective bargaining provisions, and executive employment agreements. She has represented clients in state and federal courts in Michigan and California, as well as in various state courts and administrative agencies.

Stephenson has extensive experience in shaping customerfocused cultures and driving customer growth and satisfaction. Andrew's background has also led various programs focused on workplace well-being and diversity and inclusion. Andrew has headed up HR and IT for Waterstones Booksellers and Lookers plc, HR and Property for DFS plc, whilst also holding Operational positions at EY, B&Q and Vodafone.

In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Andrew shares his HR journey with readers, his learnings over the years, and what according to him will be the future of HR, among others.

Inspiring the Next Generation of HR Leaders CHRO CORNER

Where do HR leaders draw inspiration from? What are their worst nightmares? How did they stand the test of the changing times?

In this segment, we will trace your journey to the top.

This is your story - a story that is made of extraordinary accomplishments, methods that helped you overcome adversity, innovative programs that you led, and fundamental changes that you brought in. It's your chance to inspire the next generation of leaders.

Exclusive Interview With Equiniti Chief People Officer Andrew Stephenson

Excerpts from the interview:

Q

Andrew: Like many people, I accidentally ended up in HR. My early career was in sales and operational roles. I eventually realized that the part of that work I enjoyed was developing people, so I moved into learning and development. While in that role, I undertook my professional HR qualifications and eventually moved to more core HR. I found the qualifications and training I undertook allowed me to blend best practices with current experiences and therefore deliver a rounded view of what works for people.

Q

Andrew: HR has not always been seen as a strategic partner. In my early days in the profession, we were seen as a transactional function, which made it difficult to drive the positive change needed for colleagues in organizations.

Equiniti Chief People Officer Andrew

What has your HR journey been like and what influenced you the most to have a positive impact on your career?

What were your challenges during the early days of your career? What are those today?

HR is now unquestionably a key part of progressive companies’ leadership teams and therefore our challenge is how to balance short-term requirements with the long-term health of the business.

2. The best answers come from those doing the job, not from those in the management suite or consultants. Therefore, make sure you are always listening to colleagues. Industrialize the collection of feedback if the business is large!

How do

see workplace culture evolving over the years?

Andrew: Workplace culture continues to evolve into a partnership arrangement. Colleagues want to work “with the business” not “for the business” in a joining of equals. Those companies that do not help foster a sense of shared purpose, and recruit people who are interested in that goal will find it increasingly difficult to prosper.

Andrew: 1. Fail Fast. Plan effectively but not for perfection, get something launched and then refine it with people’s feedback.

3. Remember that customers pay the bills, including the salaries of all colleagues. Therefore, we should be focused on their needs constantly.

from?

Andrew: I am inspired by companies that achieve commercial success with the support of a highly engaged workforce. Twenty years after leaving Virgin, I continued to be inspired by its leader, Sir Richard Branson, and the amazing company culture he has fostered in hundreds of companies.

QWhere do you draw inspiration

What do you have to say to those who are still struggling to find a place in the boardroom?

you

Can you share the top three learnings from the challenges you faced?

You can do the right thing from any position in the company. Do not worry about where you sit in a business, just do the right thing, and recognition will follow.

Where do you draw the line when it comes to work-life balance?

Andrew: I support Stoke City Football Club (in the English Championship) and have had a season ticket for more than 30 years. I draw the line at work activities stopping me from getting to a game!

Name Designation Company

Total number ox employees

Dr. Andrew Stephenson Chartered FCIPD

Andrew: Today, we actively listen to our employees more than the business has done in the past. We have made policy changes based on employee feedback and worked with our global colleague forum to develop our values that are in use across the globe.

When did you join the current company

Total experience in HR

Chief People Officer Equiniti 6,000+ 2020

20 years+

Hobbies

What book are you reading currently

Football, Ballroom Dancing, Travel

What are some major changes you see affecting HR within the next few years?

Andrew: HR will need to embrace digital ways of working and ensure that real-world collaboration is possible in an increasingly virtual world. Without them, there will be a drop in collaboration and innovation. Getting this balance right will be a big challenge.

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What fundamental change(s) (in terms of culture) have you brought into your company?

6 Ways Employee Scheduling Software Can Drive Business Efficiency And Performance

It is time to automate your employee scheduling process

By Mairead Walsh, Softworks

Scheduling

staff, particularly in complex 24/7 workplaces, takes a tremendous amount of time, manpower, and mental competence. Employee scheduling technology has been developed as a solution to this. An automated employee scheduling solution frees up line managers and HR teams and enables organizations to implement a fair approach to employee scheduling and rostering.

Set out below are the key ways that scheduling technology can help you to drive business performance and efficiency.

1. Assists You with Managing, Measuring, and Monitoring Employee Costs

Leading organizations today realize the importance of

aligning all employee costs, with associated revenue and business profitability. The who, when, where, and doing what, needs to be measured effectively and this is where a comprehensive employee scheduling/rostering solution can assist.

By installing employee scheduling software, employees get the tools and operating parameters they need, at every level to deploy resource plans and schedules effectively, while delivering top-down management controls over payroll overhead, overtime, contract staff, absence management, and other major cost drivers in the business.

2. Enables You to Optimize Labor Planning and Scheduling

Modern employee scheduling solutions go beyond simple

online employee scheduling functionality. World-class companies today are using sophisticated automated rostering and scheduling solutions to optimize labor planning, scheduling and modeling, respond to union and legislation requirements, track and cost projects and manage planned and unplanned absences.

3. Gives Employees More Control Over Their Working Day

Today’s employee scheduling software includes employee self-service solutions and apps that effectively give employees more control over their working day. With the use of self-service solutions, employees can now easily organize and manage their own time, attendance, schedules, annual leave, absences, and personal details.

This, in turn, reduces queries, calls, and emails to line managers, HR, and payroll departments and instead puts this information directly into the hands of employees. They can include self-scheduling, shift swapping, and other self-service scheduling processes and can provide you with the tools to engage with your workforce in real-time as situations change.

Employees can enter their shift preferences, see what shifts are available, and even apply for shifts if the organization allows it. These features promote employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention.

4. Gives Real-time Management Information and Reports

Today’s integrated employee scheduling solutions build a bridge between the operational and the strategic elements of the organization. They can bring together management information on employee schedules, hours, attendance, annual leave, sickness, planned absences, preferred shift patterns, skills, and the movement of employees between different departments/areas of the business. By having this information centrally, department managers and supervisors can easily create schedules that meet

service level requirements and customer demand, while at the same time general management gets a complete and accurate view of the entire organization.

5. Offers You a Clear Return on Investment

In order to be successful in today’s competitive business environment, it is essential to find the optimal way to maximize operational efficiency and productivity, and thereby, customer service. Organizations need to find new ways to improve operational efficiency, and thereby gain a competitive edge.

This is where technology has excelled in recent years. Scheduling solutions can assist with managing the complex balance of workforce supply with customer demand. Without having the right processes and tools in place, establishing the true cost of labor remains difficult for many organizations. There is no doubt that the implementation of an automated scheduling solution offers a clear return on investment for your organization.

6. Forecasting, Planning for the Future and Being Agile

If the pandemic taught us anything, it was how important it is to be ready for the unexpected and to be agile enough to change quickly. To do this, you need reliable workforce data to determine budgets and costs.

Having a proper handle on workforce costs and productivity is critical to the success of your organization. Planning for the future requires the ability to build your workforce in a way that ensures that they are optimized under different and varied scenarios and conditions.

This is where a good scheduling software solution will be your best friend. The technology will allow you to optimize workforce planning, scheduling, and deployment by aligning your resources with demand. It will assist your organization to be more agile and to drive efficiency and productivity by enabling you to make informed real-time decisions based on actual data.

The technology will give you analytical insight and a

complete picture of employee efficiencies and trends for your entire organization now and into the future.

Conclusion

Employee scheduling software enables you to always have easily accessible knowledge of your employees’ time and activities and results in faster deci sion-making, improved scheduling and better cost management, which makes your organization more productive, efficient, and competitive.

By automating complex employee scheduling – you will save time, reduce costs and ensure regulatory compliance while delivering exceptional service.

Mairead Walsh is the Chief Marketing Officer of Softworks. Would you like to comment?

Using Empathy And Technology For Effective HR

What we’ve learned from the remote work experience

By Jason Richmond, Ideal Outcomes

Although droves of people are available for employment, the labor market is tighter than a drum. That is the reality companies face when hiring in the foreseeable future, a leftover domino effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, workers have entered a phase of personal introspection, weighing priorities

in their careers against lifestyle goals.

Human resource professionals, who hang on for dear life to proven methods and close their minds to emerging disruptive trends, will likely fail to achieve their strategic objectives. For companies to regain footing in the post-pandemic landscape,

HR leaders must reevaluate the transformed labor market, especially since the World Economic Forum predicts that a persistent inability to close labor shortage gaps could impact economic output to the tune of around $1.25 trillion for the next five years. As a result, manufacturing GDP in 2028 alone could suffer by up to $454 billion.

The Remote Work Disruption

Remote work models initiated by social distancing at the height of Covid-19 not only turned out to be functional, but also on many levels an employee preference. The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics’ survey of 10,000 employees (presented by Owl Labs) highlighted changing workplace attitudes.

From the employees’ side of the equation, they found:

● 81% of respondents were convinced their employers would support them working remotely after the pandemic subsided.

● 59% said employers offering remote work options would attract them the most when looking for career permanence.

● A startling 92% reported that working from home was in the cards for at least one day a week going forward and 80% expected it to be as high as three days per week.

● Employees estimated that working from home enabled them to save on average $500 a month.

From the employers’ perspective:

● 32.2% of management respondents gave remote work the thumbs up on productivity versus 22.5%. who said work quality deteriorated, according to Upwork’s “Future Workforce Report.”

● A Stanford study sided decisively in favor of remote working options, showing

employee performance accelerated by 22%.

● A survey of 800 employers, by HR and workplace benefits firm Mercer, uncovered that 94% of them expressed satisfaction with remote working, stating productivity stayed constant or improved.

Shockingly, a paltry 20-25% of companies financially contribute to the cost of home working equipment, furnishings, and remote communication setups. This is mind-boggling when you consider that at the height of the crisis, nearly 70% of full-time employees worked remotely posing a huge cybersecurity risk. And while employees have embraced remote work, 44% of companies will still not entertain it under any circumstances.

There’s a glaring gap between employee expectations and corporate performance, so it is not surprising that the call-back to the office met with lukewarm responses and, in some instances, flat refusal. It was ready-made fuel, set to ignite the Great Resignation. HR executives are front and center of these dynamics and bear considerable responsibility to facilitate a return to normalcy.

A key finding: The churn mill can be energized by one toxic touchpoint, such as feelings of isolation (a side-effect of remote working); an unempathetic supervisor; training inadequacies; and perceived bias in the promotions process.

The bottom line is that staff gaps equate to HR’s inability to detect the touchpoints, thus derailing the employee journey. Even when HR executives do have a clear view, they frequently lack the skills to motivate remote workers and the budget to support them.

interviews today carry a massive emotional burden. A research project by The Standard, a U.S.-based insurance company, reflects that mental health issues disrupting work harmony are endemic and substance abuse an inescapable obstruction in 36% of respondents. HR capabilities, therefore, must include relieving staff anxiety as a primary responsibility.

The Workforce Message Is Loud and Clear

The primary objective of The Sapient Insight Group’s “24th Annual 2021/2022 HR Systems Survey” across more than fifty countries and 2,000 respondents was to develop insights into why so many workers quit secure jobs. It also aimed at identifying the skill gaps that were created and what was required to remedy the situation.

HR must embrace technology as an integral component of their processes. Professional skills combined with digital applications and virtual communication methodologies are vital to adaptability which, in turn, is the key to addressing the debilitating labor shortages. Technological advances can be used to seamlessly connect numerous remote locations. Remote team collaboration can replace isolation with a feeling of belonging and restore the stability and balance that a physical office achieves naturally.

Significant automation and machine learning support is a practical way to address the labor shortage forecasts. Thus, HR leaders’ strategic priorities revolve around integrating workforce optimization and automation to derive lasting, touchpoint-centric solutions.

HR leaders should know that employees coming through

With supporting technology, HR must expand its scope to take a more enlightened view of people working from home, appreciate the stress they have been under, and embrace automation wherever possible to close employment gaps.

Jason Richmond is the Founder of Ideal Outcomes. Jason is an in-demand keynote speaker, widely recognized as a noted authority on helping companies build strong, sustained revenue growth by empowering their employees and developing energizing office cultures. Over the course of his career, he has assisted organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies. He is the author of Culture Spark: 5 Steps to Ignite and Sustain Organizational Growth and Culture Ignited: 5 Disciplines for Adaptive Leadership

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With supporting technology, HR must expand its scope to take a more enlightened view of people working from home, appreciate the stress they have been under, and embrace automation wherever possible to close employment gaps.

3 Benefits Of Automating Your Leave Of Absence Processes

The time is ripe for changes to LOA management

By Romy Malviya, Pulpstream

Companies

are taking a second look at their budgets and processes as the economy slows. In times of growth, it is understandable to keep doing business as usual and perhaps overlook some areas for improvement. Now, companies realize they need to find ways to save money and time on everyday tasks.

Paper-driven and manual processes constitute a significant source of inefficiency for HR departments. Managing leave of absence (LOA) requests exemplifies this. Today, 60% of businesses use workaround solutions for LOA, which often involve handwritten documents, manually checking calendars, and inputting data into Excel.

Managing a single LOA request can often take up to eight hours. This time is spent determining eligibility, sending paperwork, updating employee status, adjusting pay, tracking return dates, and more across multiple systems. The complexity and inefficiency of LOA management stem from federal regulations around the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), as well as state regulations, which ensure that employees can take leave for specific predetermined reasons, such as caring for a sick family member, maternity leave, and more.

With these regulations come mountains of paperwork to navigate, and ever-changing regulations make non-compliance risks a significant concern. On top of this, companies often develop internal LOA policies, which are becoming more comprehensive as companies look to attract new employees with better benefits packages.

Across the world, HR leaders are realizing that the time is ripe for changes to LOA management, and all signs point towards automation as the future. No-code business process automation (BPA) platforms specifically are emerging as frontrunners in LOA automation.

Here are three reasons why companies are turning to no-code platforms for LOA automation:

1. Ensuring Compliance

With tightening budgets, companies cannot afford to risk fines for non-compliance, which can be more than $25k per case. HR teams need to update processes and paperwork manually each time regulations change.

Many LOA workarounds involve siloed processes, meaning updates are not always uniform across an organization. By automating LOA management, companies centralize their processes. Furthermore, the top LOA automation platforms automatically update paperwork and workflows whenever new regulations arise. HR teams can also configure these programs to update with internal policy changes.

2. Saving Money

Recognizing that current processes are not working, some companies outsource LOA. However, this can cost as much as $400 per LOA request. While it may eliminate inefficient workflows, it is far from economical. However, no-code BPA platforms allow companies to quickly and affordably automate LOA management. Rather than paying for each LOA request, no-code BPA platforms often use the sub scription-based payment models ubiquitous in the software as a service (SaaS) industry.

3. Improving Employee Satisfaction

Talent shortages have made hiring and retaining quality employees harder than ever. Inefficient LOA management processes hurt employees on both sides of the operation. For HR employees, needlessly sorting through stacks of paperwork and spending eight hours on a single LOA request is a fast path to frustration, burnout, and turnover.

For the rest of the company, having LOA requests held up because of outdated workflows results in unnecessary frustration. Often, employees request LOA during pivotal moments in life: the birth of a child, the death of a family member, or during times of serious illness. These times are stressful enough on their own - making LOA approval difficult only heightens the stress. Providing streamlined LOA processes helps improve employee satisfaction on both sides of the equation.

What Automation Can Do for LOA Management

Perhaps the best way to understand the full power of LOA automation is to consider what it looks like to manage LOA with and without automation. For example, when an employee requests maternity leave, companies with manual processes would need to check their start date to determine eligibility.

If eligible, they would then track down the relevant documents and manually send them to the employee. Next, they have to adjust their pay in the payroll system. Finally, they would enter the start and end dates in a calendar, perhaps with a note to send new paperwork upon return. Most challenging of all, most companies have little visibility over where they are in the process, which tasks still need to be completed, and whether or not they are within compliance.

With automation, the process is vastly simpler. In this case, the employee would fill out an easy-to-use form accessible on mobile or desktop. Their answers would trigger custom workflows in the system. In this case, their selection of maternity leave would cue the system to send a packet of letters specific to internal and external maternity leave regulations.

If the system is integrated with HRIS and payroll systems, the employee’s status will be automatically updated, triggering any changes in pay for the duration of their leave. Furthermore, their return to work date would be entered into the system, and new paperwork would be automatically sent when that date comes.

Any time during their leave, HR managers could look at their case to get a quick view of when their leave started, what type of leave they are on, when they will return, and any next steps for the HR team.

LOA Management Pushed to the Limits

It is one thing to talk about automation. It is another to see it happen. One of the most intriguing use cases for LOA automation comes from a major tribal-owned casino in Michigan, Gun Lake Casino. The casino has over 1,100 employees, and their leave amount was approaching 30%. Ten percent (10%) is the average across all industries.

Their HR departments could not keep up. At first, they tried outsourcing LOA, but after 90 days, the third-party company could not handle their complex policies, which included federal, tribal, and internal regulations. This experience made them look for something that was highly flexible, and that is precisely what they got with the no-code BPA platform they selected.

In under 30 days, their HR teams enjoyed fully automated LOA processes complete with custom alerts and notifications for HR team members and those requesting leave as well.

The Future of LOA Management

These benefits only begin to scratch the surface. With no-code BPA, companies integrate multiple business systems to power business intelligence and lay the foundation for enterprise-wide process digitization and automation.

However, experiencing these benefits and more starts with selecting the right BPA platform. There are many on the market, but only a few are specifically designed with HR in mind. These will have automatic compliance checkers, integrate with HRIS systems, and be ready from day one to automate LOA.

Pankaj “Romy” Malviya is a serial entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, CA. He brings more than 25 years of experience in enterprise software design and development to Pulpstream , where he serves as Vice President of Business Development.

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The Case For Integrated Workforce Planning

Here’s how workforce planning can drive the best decisions for

By Kouros Behzad, Anaplan

We’ve

all been in those meetings where a business leader desperately wants to add capacity – 10 more people by the end of the quarter, say – and they haven’t been able to reach that goal. FP&A numbers show that headcount only grew by four. The talent organization counters that they hired nine people in the month. Reconciling these numbers takes so much of everyone’s time and it’s not productive. Multiply this across every finance/ HR/business team in your organization and you’ve got a nightmare!

Why the discrepancies? Why is it so difficult to agree on how many people you are going to hire, and what that number looks like in a year? Because headcount goals alone do not tell the whole story: It doesn’t tell the attrition story and it doesn’t tell the internal movement story. This gap undermines what is delivered by HR and the talent team and much effort is wasted in explaining whose numbers are correct.

the business and for the workforce

Top-down planning and target setting by finance

How can all the pieces and factors around headcount goals come together to align the different stakeholders across finance, HR, and the business, and how can each team support and drive the outcomes?

The Full Story Around Employee Attrition and Movement

For finance, the key numbers are headcount and personnel costs. Finance wants to know the financial impact, and whether they have the right number of open positions and headcount. Finance is not particularly detailed in their attrition planning and forecasting, and typically takes a high-level approach using cost-per-head for their calculations.

When HR connects with its partners in finance, they often start by discussing the net forecast or the

incremental headcount. At the “top-down planning” stage, what’s important from an HR perspective is understanding what the current open positions are and the current headcount needs of the organization by location, level, and role type. The basis of this information is derived from the workforce expense models on the finance side, pulling the to-be-hired and attrition numbers, getting the finance forecast data, and translating this into what the open positions would be.

Even if an organization is headcount neutral, or finance forecasts low growth (i.e., only growing by a few heads), HR could still need to hire at many times that volume to keep up with attrition and internal movement, especially if it’s a large organization in a high-turnover industry like retail or call/contact center management.

Headcount planning, top-down

Incorporating attrition forecasts into headcount plans

It’s essential for HR to have visibility and understand via a real-time dashboard what’s happening at the position level, providing a view into churn rates, attrition, transfers, and promotions that tell the entire movement story. The dashboard can also be enriched with data such as movement into, within, and out of positions, distribution of internal versus external hires, who has moved between functions or locations, who’s left the company entirely, and internal movement trend data. Depending on the purpose and audience, the capability should exist to easily generate insights at an individual business unit level, for a whole company, or any step in between.

Using historical data is meaningful for attrition planning. Even a one-year look-back can help HR better understand the actual churn/attrition for a given position or role. Incorporating external talent market data (whether benchmarks or actual drivers of attrition, like position opening rates and competitor hiring activity) can make the analysis more rich and powerful. By having this information at hand, HR can tell a better, more complete people story to help finance and business stakeholders understand what is driving the increased hiring volume and discuss how to be more proactive in closing headcount gaps.

Having the ability to see positions segmented and categorized by job profile or skills becomes a big plus for any HR and talent team. Candidates might not be best qualified for positions they initially interviewed for, but they may match several skills required for other similarly situated positions. Imagine being able to refer the “silver medalist” for one role immediately to another role that might be an even better skills match. You’ll save the interviewing and sourcing time needed to find a new candidate, boosting recruiting efficiency, and you’ll make the “silver medalist” candidate very happy as well.

With increased visibility into movement, time to hire, and attrition, the HR and talent team can strengthen their headcount planning efforts beyond the constraints of static reporting to deliver dynamic insights tailored to each respective leader. HR and the talent team can take a net headcount forecast and immediately gross up for a particular part of

the organization so that the respective talent VP, or business leader, can get advice beyond just incremental headcount or whether they’re headcount neutral. Leaders can receive insights into attrition and movement trends that indicate how much effort will be required by their teams to meet their headcount goals.

Eliminating the Talent Acquisition Bottleneck

It’s great when you know how many people you need, what skills they should possess, where you need them, and that you have the budget to hire them. But you’re not going to get any closer to making this a reality if you don’t have the people to execute your hiring plans.

There’s an organizational and a material impact to the movement of the workforce in and out of positions. HR and the talent organization need to balance budget and forecast requirements while understanding their teams’ capacity to track and manage workforce movement into and out of the organization, as well as to other parts of the organization.

For example, if you have the headcount forecast from your FP&A team, you can convert the forecast into the requisitions that need to be filled in a certain time, and then you can match those requisitions up with your recruiter capacity. The insights gleaned make it easy to identify any potential gaps and provide a runway for the organization to evaluate possible solutions. If there is an imbalance between recruiter capacity and number of requisitions to be filled, the organization is alerted. For example, if the target is 5,000 new hires in a specified timeline but recruiter capacity is estimated at 1,500, an alert goes out. The organization can then choose to hire or contract more recruiters in advance of future hiring.

The process requires transparency into the current HR capacity in terms of staffing, talent acquisition, and onboarding teams to manage through the open positions that have been forecasted. The insights should inform the recruiting plan if there are adjustments or additional recruiters needed based on the headcount requirements and forecasts.

Open positions based on budget, pulling data from the same source, and putting it into the context of current HR staffing

In order to simulate and adjust recruiter capacity, scenario planning is crucial, especially if the type of open positions require special skills, or a high volume of new hires is needed. If you can estimate the number of open positions that one recruiter can handle in a specified period and the average time to close, then you can make tradeoffs about the types of roles to prioritize, the number of recruiters to hire or contract, and even opportunities to fill positions temporarily with contingent or vendor resources.

These are examples of two drivers that go into understanding and determining what the recruiter capacity could be. Different industries and recruiting teams need to have the flexibility to create the models that works for them. Then, based on whether resources are over or under the assigned capacity, you can get to the root of the objective, which is understanding whether the talent acquisition team needs to shift resources or bring more people on board to help the hiring process stay aligned with the business goals and objectives.

From

Personnel Cost Planning to Integrated Workforce Planning

Aligning different stakeholders across finance, HR, and the business around what’s happening in the organization and how each team drives toward outcomes is key to effective and agile workforce planning. This is achieved by syncing up two traditionally siloed processes.

The first process helps connect finance, business, and HR to understand what’s really happening in the organization, and what the business demands from a growth perspective and from a budget perspective. On top of that, it brings visibility into what’s happening inside the organization that drives the incremental demand above what’s been planned from the perspective of net headcount growth.

The second process simplifies how the data is brought together so that HR can spend its time supporting the needs of the business creatively and inclusively. Most organizations don’t do this type of recruiting planning consistently across the organization, or they rely on a manual process.

Moving toward integrated, continuous workforce planning

Instead of being tied to real-time data, planning is tied completely to historical trends, which can pose its own challenges when data quality is poor. When this planning can be directly related to the real forecasts and changes that are managed by the finance organization, it aligns the number of recruiters that are set to support them and eliminates a bottleneck in the process of getting the right talent hired and on board.

The more an organization can incorporate this type of storytelling to describe the picture holistically, the bigger the positive impact will be as the organization

moves toward the concept of Connected Planning (or extended planning and analysis – xP&A) that inherently includes workforce planning. This is no longer just a function of FP&A driving the workforce planning meeting. Achieving this requires HR, talent, and the business to bring their data and perspectives to discussions with finance.

Ultimately, by assessing various scenarios, ensuring appropriate levels of recruiter capacity, and understanding internal talent movement, workforce planning can drive the best decisions for the business and for the workforce.

Kouros Behzad is the Director of Product Marketing for Anaplan’s HR and workforce planning solutions, where he puts the spotlight on the critical value of workforce planning in driving business and financial results. He brings more than 20 years of experience in the enterprise software industry focused on the intersection of people, business, and technology.

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HRCI® & SHRM® CERTIFICATION PREP COURSES

GROUP RATES AVAILABLE

For HR Professionals

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Place your HR team in a certification program as a rewarding team building achievement.

For Your Organization

Certified HR professionals help companies avoid risk by understanding compliance, laws, and regulations to properly manage your workforce.

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A skilled HR professional can track important KPIs for the organization to make a major impact on strategic decisions and objectives, including: succession planning, staffing, and forecasting.

Managing Employees In The Contact Center: Five Predictions For The Future

Building a more proactive, future-proof approach

By Omri Hayner, NICE

With

consumer expectations for customer service escalating and employees demanding more control and autonomy than ever before, the old ways of managing the customer service agents, who serve as the face of a business no longer suffice. Workforce managers, who were forced into a reactive mode as the pandemic upended consumer and employee behaviors alike are now looking to the future.

Here’s what your contact center needs to pay attention to in 2023 and beyond for a more proactive, future-proof approach.

1. Contact Centers Will Increasingly Embrace a Blended Office Model

Moving forward, flexibility and hybrid scheduling will only increase in importance. A 2021 benchmark survey by ICMI found that 73% of contact centers planned to adopt a remote or hybrid working model, and the trend shows no sign of slowing or reversing— in fact, we can expect to see more companies moving from giving agents the option to come into the office to requiring them to spend some time—two days a week, for example—working onsite.

We are already starting to see contact centers shift from a hire-from-anywhere approach to one focused on candidates living in a specific region or regions

near existing or planned contact center offices in preparation for this shift.

As contact centers adopt a blended office model, it raises a lot of questions about how to appropriately schedule agents. Do you allow employees to choose their in-office days or have everyone in the office on the same days to optimize face time? And how can you schedule training and meetings without affecting service levels? Workforce managers will need to answer these questions, and more, to adapt to this new mode of work effectively and efficiently.

2. Coaching and Intraday Management Will Take Place in Real-Time

An increase in hybrid working environments also expands the need for visibility and automation. With employees working offsite, managers need better dashboards and real-time monitoring to stay on top of intraday change.

The good news is that AI-powered technology is automating processes and increasing workforce management efficiencies. For example, an automated alert can notify an agent who is on a call for too long, send a link to a relevant knowledgebase article based on the interaction that is underway, or offer coaching in the moment before the interaction concludes.

3. Employees Will Be Equal Partners in the Scheduling Process

Even before the pandemic, we were headed toward a gig economy with employment arrangements dictated by the employee rather than the employer. Today, despite a global economic downturn, employees are still largely calling the shots. Workers across industries are embracing a “work-to-live” mentality rather than the “live-to-work” approach, and they are demanding more autonomy over when and where they work.

This means that enabling scheduling flexibility has become non-negotiable. Contact centers with rigid scheduling practices will find it harder to attract new candidates, and even those that are able to hire new employees will find that they have higher attrition levels than their more flexible peers. They will also miss out on the wide range of benefits flexible scheduling offers the modern contact center, from reduced overtime pay to higher employee engagement and satisfaction levels.

Voluntary time off, for example, enables employees to take partial days off to handle personal matters,

reducing aggregate absenteeism, while helping prevent overstaffing by enabling the contact center to offer pre-approved schedule changes when the contact center is overstaffed.

Agents are empowered to manage their own schedules in a way that benefits the organization, changing their relationship from that of a worker bee to a true partner in the company’s quest to provide great customer service.

4. Evolving Skillsets Will Change Hiring and Training Processes

The pandemic made us all digital natives, increasing adoption of digital channels as well as boosting the tech-savviness of the broader workforce. Each new digital channel that emerges requires changes in how the contact center operates, how it manages performance, and how it staffs those channels.

As a result, we can expect to see contact centers increasingly targeting candidates with higher skill levels who can hit the ground running on digital channels, rather than looking to form large hiring classes of entry-level agents.

Hiring experienced, multi-skilled agents (or agents who specialize in the skills for a specific digital channel) will allow the contact center to offer condensed training and onboarding that more narrowly focuses on the company’s own processes. More targeted hiring profiles can also increase the success of agents brought on to handle today’s more complex customer service issues.

5. Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Will Transform Operations

AI and ML have been marketing buzzwords for several years now, but contact centers are just beginning to reap the benefits. Recent advances in technology are making AI accessible to the average workforce manager, with WFM solutions now leveraging ML to help the contact center properly staff for digital channels that predict staffing needs with a higher degree of accuracy and adjust schedules on the fly. This will allow contact centers to more effectively address the unique nature and demands of digital—from asynchronous to concurrent interactions.

Change is the only certainty, and managing the modern agent requires an innovative approach— embracing a hybrid working model and leveraging the right technology to hire, train, coach, and empower employees with the autonomy and flexibility they expect in a digital-first CX environment.

Omri Hayner is General Manager, Workforce Engagement Management, at NICE

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Data Science For HR: Barriers To Overcome In 2023

3 fundamentals for success in the journey to data-driven HR

By Littal Shemer Haim, Littalics.com

People Analytics as a discipline has existed for over a decade, or a few decades, if you consider the traditional practices in organizational research. Moreover, the HR-tech industry has brought some brilliant solutions in the last couple of years. And yet, people analytics is still not an established practice in many HR groups, either by embracing tech solutions or impacting the business with actionable insights derived from analytics projects.

So, what holds back the maturity of people analytics, and what should HR leaders do to overcome this in 2023? How can they go the extra mile beyond reading dashboards and reports? Here are three fundamentals for anyone on the journey to data-driven HR.

#1 Have Clear Expectations When Working with Data Professionals

First, acknowledge the differences between data analysts and data scientists. Though some role descriptions may overlap, a data analyst generally spends more time on routine analysis, providing reports regularly, and typically using BI tools or Excel. However, a data scientist may design how to integrate data from different sources, then manipulate, analyze, and sometimes productize it, leveraging advanced analytics and typically using programming languages like R.

The practice of data science is multidisciplinary. It encompasses three general skills – the business domain of expertise, statistical modeling, and programming. Therefore, a crucial part of your challenge in People Analytics is the effort to establish communication between professionals with different skills

I believe you have heard a lot about the People Analytics journey that enables HR professionals to become more strategic because they speak the language of the business and impact using the right questions and insights derived from people’s data. But they can support decision-making only when they communicate those questions to the right data professionals or tech providers.

#2 Understand Your Essential Role in a Successful Project

If there is one message I hope you would take, this would be it: Ensure that the data scientist understands the business needs in workforce-related analysis. In addition, it would help if you articulated the right business questions so the research findings yield the best data storytelling you can leverage to impact.

Beyond that, let me shed some light on all data science projects’ processes while taking the data scientist’s perspective. First, you always start with a business question, sometimes titled research objectives. Then, based on a specific concern, goal, or challenge for the business, you create hypotheses about how human attitudes, behavior, or performance impact that key concern.

Only when you define what you need to measure to test your hypotheses can you source the data from any department that holds it. But then, you must ensure that there are no missing values in people’s information, typos that corrupt categorical variables, wrong labeling, duplicate records, neglected records that were not updated, or any other issues with messy data

Then you reach the phase of Exploratory Data Analysis (briefly, EDA), which sometimes proceeds with selecting variables for prediction models and then modeling. These steps beyond EDA are called feature engineering and practical machine learning. Eventually, you communicate the results, focusing on actionable insights from the findings, and sometimes implement models into products.

As an HR professional, you have a crucial role in this process. The data scientists can’t maintain the data for you. Also, remember that while you may lack experience in data science, your data scientists may lack an understanding of people’s processes. Your responsibility is to ensure no gap between the analysis made for you and the business questions and actionable insights.

#3 Be Proactive When Dealing with Findings and Results

Occasionally, findings are boring. There are cases in People Analytics where statistically insignificant results are the desired outcome. As with equal pay, sometimes organizational groups shouldn’t be significantly different. However, these insignificant results may only be the beginning of the exploration. You can always try to enrich your analysis and reveal additional insights.

For example, you can explore the interactions of variables. Multivariate statistics can raise new perspectives. You don’t have to go back to your notebooks of statistics fundamentals. Instead, ask a data scientist about interactions. So, if a comparison between groups does not reveal striking differences, adding a single variable to the analysis may uncover some hidden patterns.

From a data scientist’s point of view, your proactivity is invaluable. When you ask “why?”, suggest hypotheses, and challenge explanations, you leverage your domain expertise and complete the data scientist skills. Moreover, when you stick to the business questions and research objectives, you may be surprised that the sponsors of your analysis project embrace the so-called boring story and may even be thrilled to have it. Finally, insights confirming

a known fact or domain knowledge may validate your data integrity and maintenance procedures.

To conclude, having clear expectations when working with data professionals, understanding your essential role in a successful project, and being proactive when dealing with findings and results are three fundamentals for your success, either in making or buying the solutions of People Analytics.

A version of this article was originally published on Littalics.com

Littal Shemer Haim helps organizations improve business performance by making informed decisions about people. She offers executives guidance in the journey towards a data-driven HR and conducts People Analytics projects. Littal sources innovation in the HR-tech industry and advises start-ups in this ecosystem. She writes and lectures about People, Data, Ethics, and the Future of Work. In addition, she leads mentoring and learning programs for various industries, in which she shares her knowledge and more than twenty years of experience in People Analytics, HR Data Strategy, and Organizational Research. Littal’s blog, also known as Littalics, is one of the first and most influential blogs in People Analytics.

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