Workforce Management Virtual Workshops

This is a pre-recorded webcast. There will not be a Question and Answer Session at the end.

This informative webinar will concentrate on absence management in the workplace. Based on 21 years’ experience in providing Enterprise level Workforce Management Solutions, Softworks has carried out extensive research in the area of absence management, existing policies, the detrimental impact to any company and potential solutions.

The key points that will be discussed in greater detail in this webinar include:

• Why some of the best HR absence policies are and will continue to fail
• The true cost of absenteeism
• How the latest technology could significantly reduce absenteeism permanently
• Why your input now could send a positive message and build a platform for future growth


Absenteeism is one of the most persistent obstacles to productivity, profitability and competitiveness. It causes overtime, late deliveries, dissatisfied customers and a decline in employee morale amongst workers who are expected to cover for an absent employee. Early recognition, effective assessment and rapid intervention are key when it comes to managing absence in the workplace and can prevent absenteeism from becoming a long-term problem.

In this webinar, we will discuss and focus on absence management best practice tools and how the latest technology can help you proactively manage in a consistent and equitable manner and achieve some real sustainable results!

With over 20 years’ experience in the software industry, Andrew is recognised as an expert and innovator in the workforce management arena and is invited to speak regularly at conferences and events globally. Andrew’s focus is on delivering companies exceptionally user-friendly, comprehensive and optimised solutions. Softworks is founded on the principle that organisations can deliver greater flexibility in terms of labour demand to meet the needs of both the employer and the employee

THIS WEBCAST IS NOT APPROVED FOR CERTIFICATION CREDIT.

Welcome to the Institute for Human Resources Workforce Management virtual event. Thank you to everyone for your participation and support. We are now past the half way mark in our initial 12-month program.

This event will be the third in our series of four for the first calendar year. Find out what we have been up to and what we have accomplished these last few months. Join Peter Broderick, Vice President, Educational Services & Service Business Development from Kronos Incorporated and Amy Ylitalo, Community Facilitator for HR.com’s Institute for Human Resources Workforce Management as they take a look at what has been happening within the Institute for Human Resources Workforce Management within the last six months.

During this short, 20-minute session Peter and Amy will review the progress of the Institute for Workforce Management to date. They will review the certification program - have you signed up yet? If not, there's still lots of time. Get an update on the hours accumulated to date. Find out what you have missed, and take a look at what is coming up for the latter half of the year.

During this session we will:
• Introduce you to the Advisory Board
• Introduce you to the Institute and the Certification program
• Help you become an expert in Workforce Management

Learn why this Institute is important to the Workforce Management community and how you can contribute to its success.

If you are new to the Institute for Workforce Management this introduction will cover not only our past accomplishments but also explain why you should continue to participate and be a part of this community.

For those with questions regarding the Institute and its content this is your chance to share your ideas.

This panel discussion led by John Frehse will touch on a number of interesting topics surrounding Workforce Management and Workforce Planning and Analytics.
This panel discussion is critical for all HR professionals. This session will talk about the most effective approach to HR Management and how to make the HR department the most powerful and effective department in your organizaiton. We will use specific examples of how this is possible and our panel of experts will share their own experience. Topics will include union conracts (CBAs) and HR manual strategies as well as other policies that drive behavior and profits

This webcast is not available for HRCI credits.

This HR.com Virtual Event Webcast aims to cover the following:
This session will cover all things related to 12-hour shifts. Some employees think that they are too long and some managers think they are productivity killers. The reality is that the 12-hour shift can be used as a strategic tool. With the right workforce and the right jobs, the 12-hour shift can help you hire and retain the best workforce and provide a healthier environment for some of your employees. We will review the health and safety findings and look at actual 12-hour shift schedules and discuss the pros and cons.

Any HR professional that has taken part in a Workforce Management implementation has been thrown a curveball or two.

In this highly anticipated follow-up webinar we’ll initially build upon our session at the last virtual conference - Right People, Right Place, Right Time PART I - by looking at how to additionally incorporate and ensure the Right Cost and Right Task from a system, implementation and change perspective.

The session will then go on to explore some of the most common WFM curveballs encountered and how you can proactively navigate your way through them. We’ll share experiences both from the software and implementation perspective to give you specific examples of where we have seen these potential obstacles overcome through best practices and industry knowledge.

Specifically addressed curveballs include; The Hidden and Unknown: Peeling Away the Onion, User Adoption: You Can Lead a Horse to Water…, Balancing Business Needs and Associate Needs.

We will also take your questions and give advice to improve your processes going forward.

Second Life. World of Warcraft. Call of Duty. A whole generation of your workforce knows first-hand how engaging – even addictive – these games can be. The experience of playing these games is to constantly feel like you are being pulled towards a nearby objective, to notice and enjoy how over time you are able to overcome fiercer and fiercer challenges, to gain the respect of peers and strangers alike through the rank, achievements and virtual trophies you have earned.

It is an intensely rewarding experience – one that does not need to be confined to the realm of video games. Indeed for many, the pleasure derived from actually playing the game is secondary to the social rewards they get from being accepted into the circles of elite players and the social groups they have formed online, with the game acting merely as the glue that holds the social groups together.

By rethinking the way your employees’ accomplishments are defined, tracked, rewarded and shared with others, work can be made to feel like play. Close 10 bugs, up-sell 5 customers in a call center, accept 5 unscheduled overtime requests in a row, to earn virtual trophies that record your accomplishments and are visible for all to see in your online profile. Collect 5 trophies in a month to earn an invitation to lunch with the CEO.

This presentation will introduce the essential concepts of Gamification, its psychological underpinnings, and the technologies that are already helping companies to engage their workforces in an exciting new way.

Please note that the slides for this presentation will not be available for download.

Typical business cases for implementing workforce management systems have focused on standard benefits: improved business forecasting, efficient service and non-service labor coverage and improved service quality (among other).

While these basic statements are still valid, they represent a limited and stale view of strategic use of data and information in WFM. This session will discuss how intuitive applications like WFM can enhance your ability to make better decisions by applying the knowledge and data gained through a WFM system throughout the enterprise. Join this session and learn how to:

1) Leverage Transactional Data - gathering from systems such as Point-of-Sales, HR management, Forecasting, Scheduling, T&A and Payroll.

2) Consume and Report - produce management-level reports oriented around strategic Key Performance Indicators to understand business performance

30 Take Strategic Action - identify and react to new sources of competitive advantage while mitigating business risk.

For how long have we in HR stated the often abused adage people are our most important asset”? Unfortunately, this adage is all too often given short shrift and forgotten in the hustle and bustle of daily, reactionary work crises. In today’s era of global economic upheaval, it’s never been truer that “people are our most important asset”, as well as the last major area of controllable expense and improvement in operational effectiveness.

Organizations have spent the past 20 years “Lean-ing out” the inefficiencies, and “Six-Sigma-ing” the quality of their supply chains and operational processes. However, they have not applied the same rigor, management science and automation to getting the most out of their people asset. Ensuring “the right number, of the right people, at the right place, at the right time, and at the right cost” has never been more important for competitive survival, and for HR! See how championing Workforce Management leading practices and tools can help HR become the hero in driving organizations to higher performance and competitive strength.

HR’s role has traditionally been viewed as acquiring, developing, managing the performance of, rewarding, and retaining top talent. Until very recently, WFM as an operational discipline has not traditionally been viewed as being part of HR’s role in the organization, and hasn’t received much visibility in professional HR circles. However, the current global “war for talent” caused by today’s “flat” global marketplace and the reality of the US workforce age and skill demographics make it imperative that organizations make the most effective use of the talent they already have in place!

Workforce Management is more than just Timekeeping and paying people right…it has evolved and matured into a broader suite of critical application tools and practices that help manage the availability and efficient utilization of labor, thereby increasing productivity and operational performance, resulting in a de facto net effective increase in organizational capacity! Beyond this, WFM helps reduce labor expense, minimize compliance risk, and increase employee morale, engagement, loyalty and retention.

Discover why the “hot” management concept of Workforce Management (Time and Attendance; Absence and Leave Management; Workforce Budgeting, Forecasting and Scheduling; Workforce Tasks/Activities; Workforce Analytics) is the quickest path to a higher-performing organization. Learn why HR must become the organizational catalyst for WFM and how to become the internal champion for automation that returns unchallengeable financial and business benefits of optimizing your current people asset. Learn how YOU can become a hero in your organization by understanding and realizing the full value of Workforce Management in increasing operational effectiveness - thereby realizing a net increase in effective capacity and productivity without adding staff!

There are inherent necessities and considerable business advantages to running business operations non-stop, 24-hours per day. Continuous operations enable companies to compete successfully in today’s global environment by deferring capital investment, maximizing asset utilization, increasing productivity, and improving customer service quality. For the employees, however, this means working around the clock, living in a state of chronic sleep deprivation and fatigue, dealing with ill health and deteriorating well being, and enduring the stress of a dysfunctional work-life balance. This session will explore how human physiology is both the cause and the cure for this dichotomy. Businesses can now better align their operating and service demands with our “human design specifications” to achieve the benefits of continuous operations, while dramatically improving employee health, safety and quality of life.

What are you doing as an HR professional to improve the organization? Are you an active or passive participant in the success of your company?

In this session packed with information critical to HR proffesionals, John Frehse and Scott Brown will review the top 10 classic errors made by HR management teams - many of which relate to being more active in the operational strategy. Many of these challenges are easy to fix and can transform the HR department to become much more effective

In this session participants will learn about real HR strategies regularly ingored or overlooked. Whether it is finding the right work and pay policies to match the demand proflie of your company or engaging employees in the process to get more buy-in, the HR department is extremely powerful - but often under leveraged.

Are you waiting for problems to come to you? Do you know what the employees really like and do not like about the current operation. What are the financial impacts of the current union contract or HR manual to the bottom line? Is overtime an effective to considering the seasonal and variable demand for products and services? What can you do to aggressively improve these issues?

Learn to take a more agressive role in the success of your company by learning the top 10 mistakes most management teams miss. We want participation in this session as well and will leave plenty of time at the end not just for questions, but also for comments and additions to our list. HR can get a bad name for not always being effective and we want to work together to change that perception.

Jobs and tasks will not be left sitting in an inbox any longer!

Vortex Connect is a mobile applications provider who specializes in business to employee communications. Vortex Operations Connect is a mobile task and operations management app which handles the entire task life-cycle, from planning, testing, tracking, reporting and auditing.

With the adoption of smartphone usage in our daily lives employees find it easy to complete their tasks from a mobile app. By using their own or corporate issued cellphones they are able to complete their tasks in real time. Vortex Operations Connect app pushes projects / tasks to field employees or employees located at multiple locations. The employee will have access to their task calendar, their jobs, attachments, collaborations tools and deadlines. By utilizing the Operations Connect tasks completions rates will increase by 50%. Vortex Connect can demonstrate how the app can be used in several verticals like, Home Health Care, Retail, Grocery, Entertainment, Event Management, Utilities, Transportation, Public Sector, Law Enforcement, Engineering and Construction.

In this session James Arsenault will cover the following topics related to Workforce Management, Workforce Planning and Analytics, Managing Employer Risk and Payroll:
Labor compliance is an increasingly complex field for most businesses. Employers must find balance with a dynamic workforce, changing regulatory terrain, and an increasingly pro-employee legal environment.

Learn how smart businesses are using best-in-class workforce management solutions to help their organization improve labor compliance with:

1) Communication of relevant labor policies, the implications for your organization, and best practices for communicating policies across the workforce.

2) Automation of data collection and policy application and enforcement.

3) Information collection and visibility to support auditability and manager decision making.

Recruit – Retain – Reward. Visit any HR related Website or talk to any HRMS vendor and you will receive mountains of information on how to properly recruit talent for your organization, the best methods to implement to retain their services, and creative ways to compensate them for their work. Those of us who have implemented any facet of these areas of Talent Management know that implementation and adoption is no easy task. There are also many of us who are looking to become more strategic with our organizations and are in the process of researching the benefits of Talent Management so that we may better serve our organizations in terms of hiring and retaining talent. How do we provide our managers with tools to help promote proper review and compensation practices? How do we measure the success of our Talent Management Systems?

Companies often underestimate the long-term value of defining requirements prior to vendor selection and solution implementation. By defining requirements prior to beginning the selection process, companies can build a list of core requirements that must be met in order to satisfy the objectives of the system. Features which don’t directly satisfy requirements can increase the scope of the implementation, cause overspend, increase the time needed to realize ROI, blur the original goals intended to be met by implementing a new system, and ultimately increase the risk of a failed implementation.

The most successful software selection occurs utilizing a methodology that provides a repeatable framework for the decision makers and decision influencers to work within. This workshop will explore the best practices surrounding vendor selection, and outline the pitfalls that distract decision makers from evaluating a solution’s capability of meeting core business requirements while avoiding biases that can distract from choosing the best fit.

A successful software selection methodology focuses on mapping existing business processes to not only new software, but existing solutions that may be in place within the organization. Focusing on business processes ensures that only true business requirements are being satisfied, not a bloated list of wants or nice-to-haves.

Requirements driven vendor selection streamlines the collection of requirements, reduces the time needed to realize ROI, and ensures alignment of the selected solution with organizational goals. Participants will learn best practices of vendor selection, discover pitfalls to avoid, and come away with an effective approach to vendor selection.

During the Great Recession, a lot of organizations talked about the need to “do more with less”. This was the mantra of executives while they conducted layoffs and cut hours of the staff that remained. Unfortunately, the reality rarely matched the rallying cry, and rather than doing more with less, most organizations simply did less with less.

Today, most organizations are uncertain about what the future holds. They are cautiously looking forward hoping that the recession is really over but worrying that the global economy will back-slide slide into a second recession. They are looking to grow carefully without overextending themselves while protecting their organization from a possible “double dip.”

Regardless of what the economy does or does not do, many of the jobs that were lost during the last are not coming back, and most organizations are operating so lean they know that they cannot cut any more staff. Now, “Doing more with less” is an impossibility. Organizations need to figure out how to do more with what they have. The key to the future is to increase productivity of the existing workforce.

This session focuses on the techniques necessary to help Human Resources and Operations professional increase productivity from their existing staff through process improvement. It describes how an inventory of all tasks worked and processes performed by a workforce establishes a watermark to measure minimum staffing (i.e., the staffing level which, if fallen below, prevents the company from delivering). It discusses how work measurement can be used to identify waste and quantify the impact of process improvement. And finally, it explains how to get buy-in from organizational leaders for such an initiative.