Signs Your Business Needs Workforce Management Software

Managing an hourly workforce has many challenges. From scheduling issues to compliance risks, inefficiencies in workforce management can lead to costly mistakes, dissatisfied employees, and reduced productivity. Workforce management software (WFM) offers a powerful solution that optimizes efficiencies, minimizes compliance risk, helps control labor costs, and enhances the employee experience.

If you’re unsure whether it’s time to invest in workforce management software, here are some critical signs to watch for and insights into how the right tools can transform your business operations.

Scheduling is a Constant Headache

Manually managing hourly employee schedules can feel like an endless struggle for businesses. Common scheduling challenges include:

• Demand forecasts are not granular or accurate enough, leading to overstaffing or understaffing challenges
• Inability to meet employee availability, preferences, and demands consistently while maintaining all compliance and business rules
• Insufficient staffing during peak times or overstaffing during slow periods
• Disruptions caused by last-minute changes due to call-outs or no-shows
• Difficulty optimizing and scheduling staff across locations or departments

These inefficiencies lead to employee attrition and lost productivity for managers. When legacy workforce management systems don’t provide schedules that meet the store or site-level needs, managers often become frustrated and return to time-consuming manual processes outside the system.

A good schedule starts with a strong foundation.

Legion Demand Forecasting informs scheduling and optimized labor plans using AI to forecast demand, considering historical sales data, customer traffic patterns, weather, promotions, and seasonal trends. These precise, accurate forecasts and optimized labor plans enable businesses to create schedules that balance operational needs, compliance, employee preferences, and availability simultaneously.

You’re Struggling with Compliance Issues

Compliance with labor laws and regulations is critical to avoid legal and financial repercussions. However, tracking these regulations manually can be overwhelming, particularly for businesses operating across multiple states or jurisdictions. Common signs of compliance challenges include:

• Failure to provide required meal or rest breaks
• Paying excessive premiums
• Mismanagement of overtime pay or holiday hours
• Frequent payroll disputes due to time-tracking inaccuracies
• Inconsistencies in the application of labor laws or policies across locations
• Costly and time-consuming configuration changes whenever a law updates

Legion WFM enables the intelligent automation of compliance management across all jurisdictions. Predictive scheduling and labor laws are automatically applied to the schedule, so managers are instantly warned if their actions or edits introduce risk or violate rules. Time and attendance tracking automatically incorporates compliance rules while computing premium pay. Pre-built compliance templates by city and state automatically manage evolving labor laws, and admins can centrally configure compliance rules, scheduling, and shift collaboration policies.

Labor Costs Are Out of Control

Uncontrolled labor costs are a red flag for inefficiencies in workforce management. Whether paying for unnecessary overtime or scheduling more staff than required, overspending on labor can drain profitability. Signs of labor inefficiencies include:

• Overstaffing during low-demand periods
• Understaffing during peak hours or an inability to staff top performers at peak times leading to missed sales opportunities
• Lack of visibility into where labor costs are allocated
• Increasing overtime costs or premium pay

Legion Labor Optimization automatically generates the most efficient labor plan for your business. Using Legion AI, managers are empowered with staffing guidance and actionable labor insights to create the most compact and cost-effective labor plan possible. Managers can select the optimal work role to meet labor demands and perform tasks while ensuring full compliance with pay rules. This results in granular, down-to-the-minute task-based labor modeling across all channels—automatically.

Highly accurate forecasts and optimized labor plans automatically generate quality schedules that meet business requirements and employee needs.

Employee Turnover Rates are Rising

High employee turnover is costly and disruptive. It often stems from dissatisfaction with workplace conditions, such as inflexible schedules or a lack of communication. If your business is seeing an increase in turnover, you might consider whether:

• Employees leave for jobs with more flexible scheduling options and early access to earned wages
• Call-outs and absenteeism are increasing
• Employee frustration is growing due to last-minute schedule changes
• Managers are spending too much time in the back room managing schedules and not enough time coaching employees or supporting customers

Legion Automated Scheduling empowers employees by giving them more control over their schedules. Hourly employees can set their schedule preferences such as when, where, and how long they want to work, and update those preferences at any time. The Legion mobile app gives them an easy self-service way to swap shifts and claim open shifts even at other locations—providing gig-like schedule flexibility and control. Legion’s intuitive, modern app is the highest-rated app in the industry, with tens of thousands of users giving it a 4.8 rating in the app store. It’s used weekly by 88% of employees who have it.

Managers can instantly generate optimized schedules based on productivity, labor rules, budget constraints, and compliance rules, matching business needs with employee preferences and skills 96% of the time. Schedules continuously learn and improve based on preferences, changes in compliance rules, and manager edits, building trust through transparency and schedule equity.

Another way to increase scheduling efficiency and employee satisfaction is to embed earned wage access in your WFM solution. Managers can achieve better schedule adherence and clock hygiene and fill shifts faster, while employees can view how much they’ll earn if they pick up a shift and get paid instantly after the shift.

Legion InstantPay is embedded into the Legion WFM Platform, so employees can access their earned wages in real time through the same mobile app they use daily. No new apps to learn or payroll projects are required.

How Workforce Management Software Transforms Operations

Investing in workforce management software isn’t just about solving current problems—it’s about future-proofing your business. Here’s how the right WFM tools can benefit your operations:

1. Improve Productivity: Automated processes allow managers to focus on coaching their teams and interacting with customers rather than administrative work.
2. Enhance Employee Engagement: Flexible scheduling and self-service tools create a more satisfied, engaged workforce.
3. Ensure Compliance: Automated compliance reduces legal risks and builds trust with employees.
4. Control Costs: Labor forecasting and real-time tracking help businesses stay within budget while maintaining efficiency.
5. Support Growth: Scalable tools adapt to your business’s needs, whether you’re managing one location or dozens.

If you notice any of the above signs, now is the time to leverage the latest advances in workforce management. Streamlining your operations and empowering your team will set your business up for long-term success. Schedule a demo today to see how AI-powered workforce management can help your organization.