How Workforce Management Tools Can Help Reduce Turnover

Implementing Workforce Management Tools to Reduce Turnover and Enhance Operational Effectiveness

The most valuable asset to any enterprise is its employees. Without their buy-in and loyalty, expecting them to represent the company on the front lines enthusiastically is difficult. Employee wellness doesn’t begin and end with paychecks and benefits packages. It extends to a desire for more schedule flexibility and an inherent appreciation for their hard work. 

Our Annual State of the Hourly Workforce Report outlines the top three things hourly workers are looking for in their jobs: 

• 57% would like more flexibility to pick up extra shifts and swap shifts.
• 56% would appreciate greater recognition and rewards. 
• 48% have a desire to provide schedule inputs easily. 

Workforce management (WFM) tools can help you bridge the engagement gap between hourly employees and management to help drive better retention rates and, ultimately, scale your enterprise. Let’s look at the most important tools to help you get there. 

Key Summary

• Empowering employees through increased schedule flexibility, early access to earned wages, and enhanced communications tools are a few of the first areas your workforce management (WFM) software should address. 
• Providing employees with an easy app to share and update specific details on their availability and preferences, such as when, where, and how long they can work or tools to pick up or swap shifts easily, is a great place to start.
• With targeted, real-time messaging, team members can remain informed and have added access to their managers during their shifts. 
• Gathering and implementing real-time feedback on employee satisfaction gives managers and HR greater visibility into employee sentiment. 
• Giving employees access to earned wages helps improve their financial wellness, and it can be a key tool for incentivizing them to stay loyal to a company that prioritizes their needs. 

A Modern Suite of Workforce Management Tools Can Change Everything

Legion WFM offers software solutions that maximize operational efficiencies and employee engagement—simultaneously.

Legion’s automated, intelligent, and employee-centric WFM solution enables intelligent automation to reduce overhead dramatically and the time managers spend “in the system.” It gives managers powerful tools to manage labor operations, automate decision-making and employee scheduling, and improve compliance.

At the same time, Legion WFM gives frontline employees greater flexibility and control with automated self-service shift swaps and shift claims. It also improves engagement with modern communication tools and earned wage access (EWA) in an easy-to-use mobile app they use daily.

Let’s examine each of these aspects in more detail. 

Increase Schedule Flexibility

Surveys consistently show that one of the biggest determinants of whether an hourly employee will stay at their job is their schedule. Legion’s 2024: State of the Hourly Workforce study found when employees were asked to select the top three factors they value the most about their current role, hourly workers’ top pick was “I like the people I work with” (69%), followed by “I enjoy the work I do” (60%), and “I have a flexible schedule” (52%). The latter two responses can be improved by intelligently automating workforce management. 

Companies that use manual or legacy solutions may produce schedules that don’t meet the employees’ needs and are posted inconsistently. Employees are unaware of changes and must go to the store to get their schedule, creating a negative experience. 

With Legion Automated Scheduling, employees can share their preferences on when, how much, and where they work. They can easily access their schedules, request changes, pick up shifts at other locations, swap shifts, receive and respond to open shift requests, and request time off in the Legion mobile app. 

Legion’s automated scheduling system enables intelligent automation to create optimal schedules that match business needs with employee preferences and skills 96% of the time.

Schedules are posted at a set time to meet predictability requirements and improve the employee experience. All affected employees are notified of changes, eliminating delays and lost communications.

Improve Employee Communications

With consumer-like communication tools built into the same easy-to-use mobile app employees use daily to manage schedules, timecards, and more, you can improve frontline communications and achieve high adoption of your WFM platform. With targeted, real-time messaging at the role, location, district, and corporate level, the right team members can remain informed and engaged. 

Frontline Communications empowers employees through the easy-to-use mobile app with built-in Chat, Newsfeed, Announcements, Polls, and Surveys. Companies can communicate with frontline employees about store closures, share polls and surveys, and more while controlling off-clock activities. By sharing kudos and other updates, they can build corporate culture and empower employees with direct information from headquarters.

Polling and Survey capabilities enable managers to consistently listen to employees by conducting quick pulse surveys to get immediate feedback on employee sentiment and reduce avoidable attrition.

Legion Frontline Communications is schedule-aware to ensure employees will only read messages or posts when they are on the clock or have opted in for critical communications, protecting their valuable work-life balance. Communication rules can be set through configurable policies based on your organization’s hierarchy and granular permissions. Administrators get powerful moderation tools to isolate and resolve improper use of communication tools quickly, creating more trust and transparency with employees without compliance risks.

Compliant, transparent communication that is regular and reliable builds trust among teams. Having a centralized hub to share important documents, training materials, and other operational guidelines will also keep everyone on the same page. 

Provide Instant Access to Earned Wages

One of the most important things you can do is support the financial well-being of your employees by offering them access to a portion of their earned wages before their scheduled payday. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for hourly workers and is designed to offer them greater flexibility and control over their finances. 

You can increase productivity and employee engagement by closely linking work and pay in the same app. Because employees can see how much money they would earn by picking up a shift, businesses that offer EWA see an increase in open shift uptake and clock hygiene, and on-time performance increases, too. One Legion customer saw a 70% improvement as employees were motivated to have timecards that could be auto-approved with no exceptions. 

When financial well-being improves, employees can reduce stress, while employers reduce turnover. 

Solutions such as Legion InstantPay can also be powerful recruiting and retention tools. Job listings that mention EWA benefits are filled an average of 27% faster. 

Protect Your Most Valuable Asset with Workforce Management Tools

What a difference it can make when employees feel valued, respected, and listened to. And this is only the beginning. Schedule a demo today so a member of our team can help you achieve success with the most optimized workforce management tools in the industry.