The Value Index of Workforce Management Software for 2014

Ventana Research recently released our Value Index on Workforce Management for 2014. We define workforce management as the set of processes by which organizations manage their hourly and salaried employees to maximize productivity. It involves not only tracking time worked and providing compensation for it but also aligning that work to the objectives of the organization and to the individual employee’s needs. Our Value Indexes are informed by more than a decade of analysis of how well technology suppliers and their products satisfy specific business and IT needs. For each we perform a detailed evaluation of product functionality and suitability to task in five categories as well as of the effectiveness of vendor support for the buying process and customer assurance. In this case the resulting index gauges the value offered by each vendor and its products in supporting workforce management, which is necessary for running an organization efficiently and effectively.

Part of efforts to optimize workforce management is a focus on aligning the workforce to the organization’s goals and objectives. But more than half (52%) of businesses today use desktop spreadsheets for workforce management. Instead we believe that businesses should adopt dedicated workforce management systems, which are much more reliable and capable, to execute this important set of processes.

Our benchmark research reveals that over the past few years technology innovations have changed workforce management. New technologies have been embedded in elements of its core processes. These next-generation innovations include mobility, cloud computing, advanced analytics and business collaboration. Vendors and businesses have incorporated these technologies at different rates. For example, mobility has elicited response from many vendors and is in demand among customers; in our next-generation workforce management benchmark research, two-thirds of organizations said they have deployed smartphones to their workforce, and 28 percent said they have deployed tablets.

Using our benchmark research methodology Ventana Research evaluated how companies use workforce management, including exploring their maturity in core processes such as time and attendance and scheduling as well as adoption of next-generation technologies. The research shows that organizations are maturing at an uneven rates and that they are relatively immature overall in terms of adopting the next generation of systems. It also shows that overall nearly three in five organizations rank at the lowest two of the four levels of our maturity hierarchy; they have work to do in updating their use of people, processes, information and technology to manage their workforces.

Our Workforce Management Value Index for 2014 evaluates suites of software products that take a comprehensive approach to workforce management. For employees who have to use more than one module of these products, having a suite usually makes it easier to become proficient in the modules than having to learn separate products from different vendors. In addition, the administrative effort can often be lessened with a suite that centralizes these functions, which can reduce overhead for both IT and HR. And total cost of ownership (TCO) may less for a suite than for a collection of individual products.

In assessing the capabilities of workforce management suites we thus are evaluating a broad array of functionality. All of the suites we considered handle the core capabilities of workforce management, but some have other capabilities, such as complete absence management, task management for retail environments, retail demand scheduling and dashboard analytics with which managers track and manage to metrics and KPIs.

As noted, the results of our research indicate that several next-generation technologies are of key importance to creating a complete workforce management suite. We therefore included evaluations of collaboration, mobility and social networking in the scoring criteria. We believe that organizations in many industries and of many sizes – especially those with more than 100 employees –need workforce management systems with more capabilities than just time and attendance and workforce scheduling. We therefore have based our evaluations on a broad array of functionality, even though some organizations may be looking only for basic capabilities.

The value index assesses the broad set of workforce management needs for an organization but also the next-generation of capabilities including analytics, collaboration, cloud computing and mobile technologies that for some organizations are essential for evaluating and selecting their next vendor and set of products. The top vendor is Kronos, followed closely by Ceridian and Infor; all of these vendors received the Hot Vendor rating. They are followed in order by Oracle, WorkForce Software, ADP, SumTotal Systems, SAP, Empower and Workplace, which earned the Warm Vendor rating. The differences in the scores reflect the completeness of the workforce management offerings, such as the strength of their scheduling and absence management capabilities or the degree to which they provide next-generation capabilities. Because we rate vendors across a spectrum of business categories, differences in scores are affected by these categories as well.

In terms of users, at the low end of the workforce management market are organizations that limit themselves to basic time and attendance capabilities installed on their own premises. However, workforce management is an application with which younger workers interact often, and employers and vendors that embrace next-generation technologies can communicate better with this segment of the workforce, particularly through mobility and social collaboration. Moreover, the next-generation technologies of cloud computing and advanced analytics can improve the total cost of ownership through lower overall support costs and less costly access to key business analytics, as the system is embedded within the application. If your business lags in workforce management, I recommend taking a look at the newer capabilities the next generation of applications offer. It could help you manage and retain your workforce to better results. Download a copy of the executive summary and learn more about the vendors and products for workforce management.

Regards,

Ventana Research

WorkForce Software Focuses on Effective and Efficient Workforces

Our research agenda for 2012 in human capital management outlined the importance of workforce management for all organizations. One provider, WorkForce Software, provides systems that support scheduling, time and attendance, leave and absence and fatigue management. As I noted in my last analysis on WorkForce Software, the company’s focus on the fatigue aspect of workforce management, especially in white-collar environments such as transportation, utilities and healthcare, has provided them both recognition and growth. I attended the company’s first technology analyst summit this week to get a deeper view into the company and its products and see how it is shaping up in light of our research on the key applications providers in this market.

WorkForce Software continues to grow its customer and employee lists, with now hundreds of customers and rapidly growing cloud computing adoption through software as a service. The company continues to advance its core EmpCenter application, which provides a range of capabilities. Part of its unique approach is the configurability provided in its Advanced Scheduler, and its ability to monitor workers that might have multiple responsibilities that organizations need to account for cost or job tracking, which is critical for finance and activity-based costing where grants and budgets need to be closely tracked. This configurability is available without the need for custom programming; the policies and rules are defined by the business users who are held accountable for them. It’s easy to switch between activities and do costing for work at potentially different rates – a critical requirement for organizations such as universities and service businesses that use labor for a variety of needs. The application integrates pre-developed content from labor law and industry regulations to help ensure that scheduling complies with these policies. It’s predictive and policy software approach can assess any potential conflict that could happen with planned schedules is unique.

EmpCenter 9 was released this year with a major focus on supporting global and mobile deployments, and it provides a more open and integrated approach with other applications. On the global side of advancements, EmpCenter now supports 10 languages in addition to English. On the mobile technology side, the company has enhanced the mobile aspects of Workforce Management. It now uses HTML5 so that EmpCenter Mobile can operate across compliant browsers on Android and Apple devices. The company has indicated that HTML5 will replace native support of Android and Apple-based technologies. I am still a little skeptical on a complete move to HTML5, as it has not yet proven its stability across browsers, operating systems and Android devices. In addition, HTML5 cannot leverage local mobile hardware features for camera, video, field communication (NFC), gesturing and other technological advancements the way a native approach can.

The new release provides some critical productivity improvements. For instance, in what it calls one-touch callout, shifts can be announced to workers across multiple channels, such as email, text, phone and even social media, This helps address the preferences of workers; for instance, millennials often respond faster to texts than emails. Event-based scheduling can help plan one-time events or projects that need immediate attention for staffing, and can use one-touch callout to reduce the time it takes to get workers with specific skills. Across the board EmpCenter 9 has improved usability, from simplified steps in prompted wizards to more use of dragging and dropping in the application interface.

At the analyst summit, I got a deeper technology review of the software’s badge and biometric reader options. I got to see the new EmpCenter Engage Tablet, which uses an Android tablet for a range of time and attendance and other necessary worker interaction tasks, and which has a video camera that can be used for identification. This technology supports global deployments in regards to power and network connectivity, and supports attachments for other interaction needs. The Windows-based EmpCenter Touch Screen provides a simple kiosk-based approach that can be used in many environments. The company also can support time and attendance tasks at the desktop, allowing for easy checking in and out of projects. This variety of choices is part of the unique value in WorkForce’s approach compared to others, and it is an area that we focus on in our benchmark research on the needs of organizations in next-generation workforce management.

With regard to openness, WorkForce Software has expanded integration with ADP, IBM, Oracle, SAP and even Kronos to help make its software easier to integrate. I recently came across WorkForce Software at SAP Successfactors conference and saw how the two companies are working to integrate the talent management and new global payroll offerings. These technical partnerships help WordForce Software ensure the highest level of productivity and advancement for organizations who want to employ workforce management. As the company continues to advance its applications, it will need to address the concerns we have found in our data in the cloud benchmark and the broader needs we uncovered in our information management benchmark.

My review of version 9 provided some critical insight into its flexibility for meeting a range of needs across industries, especially those that need to track time and allocate costs. It has many nice capabilities for managers and employees for keeping track of information and alerting them to potential issues that could arise, such as when overtime could occur with a current schedule or when issues arise based on policies and compliance. It also can support a blended rate based on tasks and place of work. These are critical needs for varying industries, and point to the software’s flexibility for business users. Still, nothing is perfect – I believe EmpCenter could use technological advancements in its workforce analytics; specifically, usability and interactivity for a range of needs should have a higher priority than what I have seen. The company should also explore further ways in which it can help organizations engage employees, which will require some examination of social collaboration, and where it can integrate further with the onboarding of workers, to speed the process and find ways to limit the administration and paperwork required.

Workforce Software is doing a great job to advance the workforce management software market. Its challenges are less in its software and more in advancing the visibility of the breadth and depth of its offerings and gaining further adoption in white-collar industries, where businesses still manually handle many of their workforce’s scheduling, tracking and monitoring tasks. WorkForce’s fatigue management feature is a critical distinction for its software, and its approach can be used in many industries. Now, as it is fully engaged in the software-as-a-service approach, the company can gain new customers who don’t want to worry about technical implementation or resource issues at their sites.

If you are ready to reassess your current approach to workforce management and have not considered WorkForce Software, you should examine it more closely, as it has a good reputation and a solid offering in the market.

Regards,

Mark Smith – CEO & Chief Research Officer